From your website’s conversion rate to your visibility on Google and working with Online Travel Agencies, making the most of tourism’s ever-changing digital environment can feel like a minefield.
A clear, intelligent digital tourism strategy is more important than ever.
Last year over 75% of travellers, both domestic and international, booked their holiday or a portion of their holiday. Print media and trade no longer has the impact it used to. Done right, digital offers the opportunity to cut out the middleman and connect directly with your target audience – pre or post arrival in New Zealand.
Digital goals and cost per acquisition
Your digital strategy is the ‘road map’ to achieve your company or organization’s online and direct sales goals. The absolute first thing we do is to clarify what success looks like in this space.
Break this down by working out online sales revenue targets for the year. As a starting point, we suggest 20% YOY increases in online revenue is achievable. Then, work out the cost per acquisition you’re happy to pay for each sale. OTA’s charge between 10% and 20% commission, so you want to ensure your digital efforts for direct sales comes in below what you would pay an online agent. We believe 8% is a good Cost Per Acquisition target to begin with.
What is 8% of your target online revenue goal? There’s the sweet spot for what your digital marketing budget should be.
Booking periods and lead-time
What’s the average lead-time for your online bookings? How many times does a visitor come to your site before converting? When does your target audience like to travel to New Zealand? The answers to these questions are valuable insights that form the basis of a potent digital strategy.
The travel research and booking periods for your target audiences should be matched with right place, right time paid and organic campaign activity. That’s where the travel conversion funnel comes in to play – knowing when your target audience is in the ‘Interest’ phase of their travel planning, and serving up content that helps to address their barriers to travel helps to inspire them to move closer to booking/converting online.
Which platforms, and when?
Once we know what success looks like and how your target traveller behaves online, we’ll know which digital platforms to use to help you achieve best bang-for-buck.
- Google, Facebook & Instagram should be core to your digital strategy because they are one of the key places your audience spends time online
- YouTube is great to build awareness with your target audience in the early stages of travel planning
- Adara and Programmatic display advertising is great for larger businesses or organizations that want to leverage actual travel data (think flight or rental car bookings) as part of their campaign activity
- Lead generation activity like downloadable content or email marketing flows are great tools for nurturing users through the funnel
What makes a tourism-specific digital strategy so much more effective?
The online travel research and booking landscape is highly niche compared to other industries. An effective Digital Strategy for tourism needs to incorporate everything from key travel research & travel dates, conversion funnel nurturing and barriers to booking for your target audience. There’s no point running an AdWords campaign asking somebody to book an activity 6-months from when they’re likely to be travelling.
Maverick Digital’s highly specialised team of tourism + digital specialists means we know online travel research behaviour like the back of our hands. Combine this with our cutting edge expertise in digital, and you’ve got a team of digital strategists that will blow your online sales goals out of the park.
I founded Maverick with digital strategy for tourism at its core. Without a holistic plan of where you’ve been and where you’re going, online activity for growth loses its effectiveness.
Tamaki Maori VillageThe Maverick team has a clear passion for tourism, a wealth of knowledge with online customer experience, online marketing & ultimately booking conversions. We are very pleased with the results we have had so far.
WhakarewarewaThe way you do your business is exceptional - you are all ‘can do’, love to go the extra mile, and get really excited about our product. Only two months in, our conversion rate is double what it was this time last year with our old website. I think that speaks for itself?
Rotorua Canopy ToursWe have been working with Alex and the Maverick team for 5 years now - their dedication to making our business successful has never been doubted and as a result our business has gone from strength to strength because of their work.
Destination CoromandelWe have to be focused on reaching our target markets with the right content in order to maximise our spend. Maverick Digital provide the expertise to make this connection work cost effectively.
Southern Lakes HelicoptersAlex and her team at Maverick have been fabulous in putting together our new website – which we love, and are proud to show to the world. At all stages Alex kept in touch and listened to our thoughts and ideas and built these into the site, along with all the enhancements that the Maverick design team brought to the table. We are delighted with the end result!
Hobbiton Movie SetWorking with the Maverick team has been a breeze. They understand our business needs and have quickly become a trusted and expert source of information on all things Digital. The monthly reports, regular comms and calls from Alex and the team ensures we are close to the data and are getting the best bang for our buck.
