In a global tourism market where the number of newly established travel agencies is almost equal to those which are closing doors, it is essential to keep all eyes on you in order to grow. As soon as your travel agency grabs people’s attention, you need to build a long-term personalised relationship with your customers through all available online and offline channels.

How can you make the most out of the Online Marketing opportunities?

In this article you will learn more about maximising your results as a travel agency, increasing your web visitors conversion rate, while also optimising your marketing costs! Here’s where to start:

1. Build a modern Website

• Optimise your site's speed

We all know how important it is to present to your potential customers the most beautiful pictures of the destinations or hotels from your portfolio, but what if we told you that the large size of these images could negatively impact the experience of your audience? Our first tip is to make sure the images on your website are not larger than the minimum required for a good desktop display (about 300-400kb size for full width, if possible, and definitely not more than 800kb for full banners).

When we talk about the loading speed of a site, we are actually talking about those few seconds that run until all the content of a page is fully displayed. You are probably wondering why should you pay such great importance to this aspect - it is only a few seconds after all. Find out that recent studies show that most visitors are willing to wait up to 3 seconds for a page to load before leaving it. Moreover, about half of Internet users expect a site to load in less than 2 seconds. As a result, a slow loading website will lead to an increase in the bounce rate, which means losing potential customers in front of competitors.

Load speed also affects Google search - a single second delay in loading a page means an 11% decrease in page views, according to a study by Skilled. For amazon.com, such a delay would result in a drop in sales of $ 1.6 billion a year.

Regardless of the size of the travel agency you represent, reducing you website loading time is a simple way to improve the user experience and even the image of your brand - it doesn't take more than a few minutes to check the current loading speed and make some minor adjustments that will result in increased visitor numbers and, subsequently, conversions. You can use Google PageSpeed Insights for this or Pingdom to check speed in specific regions. What's more, if you're interested in a quick audit of your organic search engine performance, Google Search Console is a free tool that can help.

• Mobile-friendly websites are a must

In 2020, having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional, as 52.2% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices. This means that if you do not have a mobile-optimised website, you will lose more than half of your potential customers. Moreover, this will impact your Search Engine Optimisation score and Google Ads performance

A mobile-friendly website means that it should look and work perfectly on any mobile device, no matter the size of the display - whether we're talking about a smartphone or a tablet.

Turning your current website into a mobile-friendly one will require an investment of time and money, but the benefits it will bring will be worth all the effort. Some of them are:

• It increases the number of website visitors - starting 2015, Google's algorithms favours mobile-friendly sites, so it will improve your position in the search results.

• It improves user experience - an organised website with content you can easily navigate through increases the chances of converting a visitor into a customer.

• Competitive advantage over the competition - a mobile-optimised site will make your brand stand out, so visitors are more likely to remember your name.

• Ease the access of users to key information, such as contact details, location or office hours.

• The number of recommendations increases - 57% of users say they do not recommend a business with a non-optimised mobile site.

• It expands the opportunities to reach your target audience: most of the public browsing Social Media is using mobile devices - that means the traffic coming from this source will be mostly mobile. If you have a strong Social Media strategy - an essential aspect in this industry - it is more than necessary for potential customers coming through this channel to have a pleasant experience on all your platforms. Furthermore, mobile platforms give you the chance to launch specific campaigns with exclusive placement in environments such as Instagram Stories - very effective for Awareness and Engagement, at a low price compared to other marketing channels.

The modern customer is always connected and eager to get in the possession of the information he needs, so a website tailored to their needs must be fast, secure, instantly accessible from mobile devices and full of useful content.

2. Content Marketing is king

• Encourage customers to create content

Whether we're talking about photos, videos or text, user-generated content (UGC) is a handy tool for any brand and it can be used no matter the size of your business. The tourism industry is one of the luckiest in this regard, as most tourists want to share with their online friends the experiences and places they have visited - and travel agencies should take advantage of this aspect.

According to a study conducted in 2017 in the UK, 97% of Millennials say they would share a positive travel experience on Social Media and 57% of Millennials have made vacation plans based on images posted by friends on Social Media.

• Develop a company Blog

According to Hubspot, companies that have a blog have 55% more website visitors. In addition to the fact that a blog brings new customers to the travel agency, the articles will also help at building the credibility of your brand in the online world by highlighting the expertise of your team.

While many travel agencies have blogs, most are not used to their true potential. Although the content of the articles is very good, agencies do not promote it through all available channels - and because a content promotion strategy is just as important as the content itself, make sure you have an established process to bring content to your readers - via email marketing, social media or other marketing channels.

Moreover, blogs are a very important element of SEO - especially by including keywords relevant to your agency in content, as well as for Internal Linking strategies.

3. Make use of Email Marketing

Email Marketing allows you to interact with the customers and visitors of your website, being the online marketing channel with the highest conversion rate. A study by Epsilon shows that 86% of users who sign up to receive emails from travel sites are looking for special travel deals - so you should focus in sending them the right offer.

Regardless of the type of content you want to send, all emails must contain some key information:

a. A catchy title, which will spark the interest of the readers - the opening rate of your newsletter depends largely on the subject.

b. The name of the travel agency in the sender's field.

c. Contact information - Your customers should always be able to contact you quickly when they need to, so it is essential to include informations such as phone number, address and links to your website and social networks.

d. Images - include photos with the destinations in your portfolio, but also with the hotels. As in the case of the website, this images also need to be properly optimised so they don’t increase upload and display time.

e. A Call to Action - Encourage your readers to take an action: either you urge them to book a vacation online, find out more details on your site, or read more information on your blog.

Having an up-to-date Email Marketing strategy depends on understanding your audience so you can deliver the right messages at the right time, to turn them into loyal buyers.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social networks are essential in tourism marketing. They allow you to communicate with customers and potential customers in a different way than any other marketing channel. The variety of the available platforms help you get to know your customers and build long-term relationships with them. In addition, more and more people choose their next vacation destinations based on what they have seen on Social Media, so this could also be a favourable environment in which you can find new potential customers.

What can you use social networks for?

• Promote offers and events: If your agency attends a Tourism Fair or an infotrip, Social Media is the best way to let people know about it. Here you can also promote your offers, regardless of their type - early booking, last minute, promotions for holidays, etc.

• Encourage your clients to talk about you: When returning from a vacation, you can ask clients to write a review on your Facebook page or post a photo on Instagram and tag your agency account - this serves as a PR for your business, bringing you in the attention of new people.

• Organise contests: Contests are an effective way to expand your fan base and generate new leads. You can use these contests to get user-generated content, to increase the number of subscribers to the newsletter or to increase your fan community on other social networks.

When we talk about the tourism industry, the decision to book a trip is, most of the time, triggered by a visual element - which is why platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Youtube are best suited to promote the services of a travel agency.

Examples of strategies that you should try

• Use social networks to showcase the trending destinations and resorts

•  Post about offers or sales

• Organise a contest

•  Share interesting tourism articles or videos

• Use social media to present your team's experience

The travel experiences your team had in exotic destinations will increase the confidence of your potential clients in your brand and services. In addition, social networks such as Facebook and Instagram allow you to easily reach your ideal customer by using advanced targeting options - that’s how you can reach only frequent travellers or people interested in a certain destination.

In short, these are the starting techniques that we consider to be essential when it comes to promoting a travel agency. Regardless of the size of your business, you need to bring your services in front of potential customers - use the tips above to effectively reach your target audience and, once you have their attention, rather than driving them crazy with all kinds of offers, try to give them useful travel advices and expertise, in order to build trust and generate bookings.

Want to find out ways to increase your tourism leads?

We wish you the best of luck, and if you ever want to discuss these tactics and find ways to significantly increase the number of customers and profits of your travel agency, contact us at hello@marketiu.com.