Why online marketing for the tourism industry ?
February 15, 2010 by isabelle du Plessix
Unavoidable
Internet has become the main source of information when it comes to holiday’s organization (75% of the French holiday makers). Customers now make decisions on their own terms, relying - in seconds - on friends, family, colleagues, and other trusted networks to inform their opinions. With this in mind, it is critical for any travel related company to build and manage its online presence to meet these new customer expectations. Key benefits exist for those that develop core market online strategies to cover an international online focus.
Good value-for money
Online marketing gives you the ability to reach a wide but targeted audience for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising budgets.
We tie together creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and sales and our online services include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, online reputation management and also Social Media Marketing Methods such as blog and viral marketing.
While the online techniques can be complicated and specialized, the essence of the activity resides in traditional marketing ethics - placement of brand, distribution, pricing, communication etc. However, the opportunity is greatly enhanced due to the wide audience targeting and paradoxically the one-one relationship that potentially exists between organization and customer.
Key benefits of an internet travel marketing campaign include:
- Convenience: An internet travel marketing campaign puts an organization's message in front of consumers precisely when and where they want it.
- Customization of on line advertisements & easy to change
- The flexibility advantage: it enables advertisers to cost-effectively launch ad campaigns at short notice in response to specific needs. Easy to implement and easy to withdraw.
- Immediate publishing of information and content
- The ability to run multiple campaigns
- One-to-one vs. one-to-many approach: The targeted user is typically browsing the internet on their own, and the marketing messages reach them personally.
- Demographics targeting vs. behavioral targeting: Off-line marketers typically segment their markets according to age group, sex, geography, and other general factors. Online marketers have the luxury of targeting by activity. This is a deeper form of targeting, since the advertiser knows that the target audiences are people who engage in a certain activity e.g. searching for flights, uploading photos, blogging etc.
- Measurability: Almost all aspects of an online travel marketing campaign can be traced, measured, and tested.
