Imagine that you are targeted experienced travellers, and that they like
great adventures.
1. What do visitors expect?
Here is what I expect from travel companies which I
make requests to:
General rules for how travel companies should act:
Open to
hear about my needs and wishes (not try to control me)
Flexible
and easy to do communicate with
Responsive and proactive
Proper in the language we communicate in - especially important
to avoid misunderstandings
Clear - specific
information
Keep all promises
A service and a value
just for me
Consistent performance over time
They should ask me questions about what I want, and clarify that they have
understood my answers correctly
Convince by showing great knowledge about the
destination
Prove their expertise in arranging tours (planning,
travel accessories, etc.) by giving relevant information and advise
Example:
For a time ago I received an e-mail from a travel company
abroad. It was not professional designed, but any way it draw my attention
because I found the destination interesting. The company's website design was
one of the best I ever I have seen. In a short moment I was therefore very
enthusiastic when entered the website, but when I looked deeper into it, it was
full of errors, and lacked inspiring and useful information.
Anyway I started planning my journey to this place. I wanted so much to have
an unique experience and had a lot of questions to the travel company, but I got
seldom answers on my most important questions. I still wanted to go to this
place, but since I was so fed up with the communication and lack of information,
I decided to search for other tour operators in this country.
I choose the company with the best website because it looked most credible. I
contacted them, and they followed me up on everything. Their knowledge, their
personalise dialog, specific information and will to give an unique offer, made
it easy for me to make up mind. I never regretted! The staff in this company
lived up to their professionally which matches perfectly with their website and
e-mail communication.
2. Coverage on your website
In my opinion several website have a
long way to keep their visitors stay at their website because they are not
focused. So by asking the following questions I believe companies will be in
order to lead visitors through a greater amount of information,
web resources and services on their websites?
What are the strong attractions on your
main page?
What topics are covered related to the main attractions?
Will they encourage the visitors to read more and stay longer?
How in-depth is the information? Is it inspiring
and useful?
Do you have relevant and
useful resources so the visitors can plan their journeys easier?
What does this
website offer that is not found elsewhere?
Example:
On many websites I can see there are old and irrelevant
information on the main page. They also lack a photo which could make visitors
curios to click further. So how long do you think visitors will stay on such
websites?
3. So what can be achieved?
Marketing people in
companies make their efforts to achieve:
Growth in unique website
visitors in general
Growth in right website visitors (here you
need to find out which medias drive the traffic - for example does these medias
direct relevant target groups to your website which matches your company's
profile?)
Increased conversion rate (from looker to booker;
visitors to customers)
Over ...% penetration (share) of the online market (less
than ....% penetration (share) offline)
More page views (visitors
find your content interesting in general)
More enquiries from
potential customers
More online sales to new
customers
More online sales to existing
customers
More subscribers to your e-newsletter
More
attendees of events to sign up online
More customers to manage
their accounts online
Greater use of your online resources, for
example Community services as Forums, Guest Book, voting and Quiz contests.
Another useful resource could be a Currency Exchange calculator, but do you have
a link here that directs the visitors to you're the reservation function?
More orders through the website (both automatically and through
e-mails) - increased sales revenues - the share of your total income from
website increases
Increased profits from your website
4. General rules for a sales oriented
website
Many people find it
difficult to spend the time planning their websites, and the
results could be dissappointing. There is no absolute truth about
how websites should be designed and developed. A website for one
company dosen`t necessary fits for another company.
Website should be based on
individual need and purpuses. In my opinion the first step should be
working out a Web marketing plan included clear defined objectives,
strategies, tactics and detailed activity plans. A website will just be a
part of this, but of course an import part.
Here are some ideas and
suggestion how a website should be developed and maintained:
Put the most important information at the
top of the page, so your message will be visible even if the reader only glances
at the page
Make your website text easy to read - use short sentences, bullet points and space between the
paragraphs
Make it easy for your visitors become customers - put your
phone number and e-mail address on every page
To create a search
engine friendly website, avoid extensive use of "frames" and flash
Since keywords make it possible for search engines to find your
website, you should find the right ones and use them in your "metatags". It
should be matched with the products and services your are most interested to
sell (according to your knowledge about your customers)
Improve
your rank on search engines with real content, regular updates, effective
keywords and genuine links (spam techniques and link farming can get your site
blacklisted)
Use e-mail
newsletters to communicate with your customers (subscribers), both for news and
reminders. Do it with a personal style.
Keep e-newsletters brief and easy to read (not
overload them with
text). Don't use heavy photos so you fill up the receivers' inboxes. Then they
will delete your e-mails immediately and they will definitely be unread. Use e-mails to drive traffic to
your website. Put a link to your website in the mails. You should also
add a trigger offer in your mails so the receivers will be encouraged to respond
directly.
Keep your website content fresh
and up to date with interesting information. Visitors like to see something new
when they come back to your site.
Keep a consistent profile. Make sure that your
image on your website and marketing messages matches your offline marketing
activities (total integrated marketing).
Create a flexible
design: a rigid design makes it difficult for you to redesign and add content to
your website, for example if you like to add new menus and links. Over time you
need to keep your website accessible for visitors through good navigation, less
html and a consistent, logical structure. The benefits will also be better
visual impression that creates more positive emotions, and make your content
more easily indexed by search engines.
Make you website
accessible: two clicks are one too much. I have seen several websites with
flash-introes that sometimes makes it difficult for visitors to enter the site.
Even if you offer "A Text Only Version" it could be very irritating for visitors
because they have to click once more to enter the website. Impatient people give
up easily if they have to click extra or wait a long time to see a flash intro.
Having a flash on the mainpage can also take to long to download your website,
and it also make your content more difficult to be indexed by search engines.
Take your time to see how you can reduce the vi
Since search engine robots
cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small
amount of text.
Using A text-only version of your website can help
users with visual disabilities. However, unless your content is stored in a
database, creating a text only version doubles your workload and makes it more
difficult to update your content.
Newspage (newsboard): each
website should have newspage on the front. It displays for visitors that you
have an active website and that you are updated with things that happens.
Another advantage is that search engines automatically will catch the new words
and articles for indexing. Web sites that continuously update and grow their web
sites usually experience higher rankings than static sites.
5. Trig your potential customers by special
offers
You
can also give special offers to draw attention and interests, for example:
Special price (discount) for they who order
before a specific date
Unique tour offers for a limited number of
persons - example a special tour to an untouched and secret area.
Added value: free additional products and services related to
the tour
A website can often tell more about destinations than lots of brochures, and
readers expect that the information is more updated on websites.
The winners are the companies that provide visitors with inspiring
and useful information, and also provide a booking service at the same
time.
There is no monopoly on truth in marketing. It's very often trial and
error, collection and exchanging of experience. By learning from your own
experiences and observation market leaders, you can also make progress. Precise
marketing is the professional keyword today in professional marketing. It means:
get the right message to the right people at the right time! I think that this
is the main key to success. So good luck!
Stein Morten Lund, 21 December 2004
Additional information
Travel Explorations assist companies within the travel industry!
Our services cover:
Strategic internet marketing
Website design
Website submission to search engines
including site optimization
Distribution of e-mail offers and
e-newsletters
Writing effective messages and
presentations
Translations
And more
We can assist you through five steps process, from
plan, goals, implementing to evaluation:
1. Market size analysis for your products and
services
2. Defining of your customer segments
3. Formulate
goals for what to achieve
4. Planning and budgeting for advertising and
sales work
5. Action and follow this up with close
monitoring of results to make sure the results match your
goals
Contact us at stein@travelexplorations.com.
Travel Explorations
Benediktsvei 25
1362
HOSLE
NORWAY
E-mail this
Print this
