Episode 1: Destination marketers can do more to win over travelers in the current marketing landscape

Travel marketing has settled into a status quo over the past decade or more. Most marketers rely on the same advertising platforms, social media companies and OTA’s, and the result is that it’s hard to stand out. But it can be changed—starting with how we talk to travelers, and placing an emphasis on first-party data.

Contributors

Zach Stovall
Senior Creative Strategist, Flip.to

Greg Thurik
Strategic Marketer, Formerly Envisionit

Transcript

Zach Stovall: I'm Zach Stovall, and welcome to the Thought Starters Podcast. Today we're joined by Greg Thurik, a long-time strategic marketer who has spent more than a decade with Envisionit, spearheading media and creative strategies for big name destinations, hotels and attractions. Travel marketing too often focuses on short-term goals at the expense of long-term success. And Greg is here to help identify where long-term strategy really pays off, and to challenge industry norms that aren't as effective as they once were. Thanks for joining us, Greg.

Greg Thurik: Excited to be here. Thank you, Zach!

Zach: Greg, in the landscape of travel marketing, winning over new travelers is competitive and expensive. The cost of acquiring a new customer is an important part of profitability, and when we can lower that cost, profitability increases. Right now, travel marketers are reliant on third parties and dominant ad channels like Facebook and Google, which are getting progressively more expensive. Yet with all the awareness around privacy and tracking, marketers are actually getting less information.

Greg: Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you. I mean, it's, it's definitely on a path. Anyone who is in this space knows of almost a diminishing return. You're paying more and getting less—getting less information and less accurate data reporting. And really, at the end of the day, we can say that you're gaining an audience.

And, you know, there's other industries where lead generation is different, where you automatically collect more personalized information. But you were really learning nothing about the actual person who is clicking on your ads or engaging with your content. So you're essentially renting an anonymous audience at a really high cost that is increasing, right?

Zach: Yeah, And that's a problem. It’s a problem that's only getting worse. The challenges these dominant players have the market cornered. So what can we do to change the way marketers interact with these companies to set themselves on a different track?

Greg: Clarify, by no means are you insinuating or am I insinuating that any destination hotels should not be taking advantage and advertising running paid media. If that is—and unfortunately in my experience, I've seen it too often where all the eggs are going into those, those one or two baskets. It's understandable. You have to report on, you know, kind of where your investment went, where your return of investment was.

And those platforms give you some data to tell some kind of story with. But first-party data is probably the most valuable commodity a destination or hotel can have right now. And it is a longer-term play, but too many times in my experiences I have seen where first-party data in marketing priorities and strategies is either nonexistent at all or is relegated to newsletter sign ups and visitor guide downloads.

It really doesn't give you the opportunity to build more robust first-party data—and why first-party data in these industries is so important is because you have to find a way to enter into some kind of conversation with the people who are engaging in your brand. What I mean by “some kind of conversation” is people travel for different reasons.

Their search windows, planning windows can really vary. The amount of time they spend searching and traveling and understanding where they are in the travel and their travel journey then gives you the opportunity to be able to engage in a more meaningful and relevant conversation with them. I mean, it also allows you to do that possibly longer-term as well.

That data becomes your pathway, your entry way into essentially, you know, your audience is your tribe. I think I may have heard you say Zach, right?

Zach: Yep, I’ve said that a few times. It’s probably one of those social media terms that’s come about. But these are your people. You know, they're the people that are fans of your brand. They're cheerleaders. They want to know what you're doing, and they want to keep relevant with you.

Greg: And that's what makes them so important is where you can build that personal connection. That personal ability to communicate and engage with—you really highly are unlikely to by just a display banner ad or Google search ad where people are looking for information is people are willing to give you that type of information and engage with your brand.

Once they're engaged, then you have the opportunity to take them down that pathway, to turn them into advocates for your brand. Invite others to engage with your brand, and become advocates. And the end result of all that—which is the most valuable thing long-term—that you can be looking to build is a community, a community of advocates who become your brand ambassadors. Who are out there advertising and marketing for you through their own words, their own stories.

But most importantly, that is who other consumers and travelers are going to trust. That is who they want to hear from. That to them is going to be authentic. So when you can build—through utilizing your first party data to build those advocates—in those communities, they become the authentic storytellers that other travelers are going to look to—to trust.

Zach: And I think that's a great point. We trust people that we know, and we trust people that we’re related to—most of the time anyway—and we trust people that we like. And so if there's someone that we know has gone and had a great trip and stayed at that particular hotel and they loved it, we're listening to all the great things that they did at that place and the great time that they had and the experience that they had.

And we think, “Man, I'd like to have that experience, too.” It ends up not only that you're getting some word of mouth marketing, but you're actually reaching a demographic that is similar to the person that has already come to stay. So I think it's a great point to note that this word of mouth marketing is really important, you know, in first-party data, and really reaching that audience to bring in a new set of people that had no awareness or familiarity with your property.

Greg: I'm sure we will have listeners out there. We listen to this and say, “Great, couldn't agree with you any more, but what else could I possibly do besides, you know, asking somebody, give me their email address for a newsletter? This is all great, but what do I do?”

Zach: And who doesn't need another newsletter in their inbox? Right? Right. It seems like newsletters are the default way that most travel marketers are getting their first-party data. But the fallacy is that travelers aren't really getting what they want out of a newsletter. That needs to be part of the conversation. Newsletters highlight things that the property or the destination wants to talk about, but not necessarily the information that the traveler is looking for at that moment in time. And newsletters tend to be broad.

Greg: Yeah, and they tend to be one size-fits-all. One newsletter with content that every single person who signed up for your newsletter gets. So, odds are, if that content that you're serving is irrelevant to them for where they're at in that travel journey, probably future newsletters are going to end up unread, going to end up in the spam, going to end up deleted.

Greg: What can destinations—what can hotels do a little differently? Two things that I have recently seen more and more of, and done extremely well—is one, incentivizing people to share their experiences and their stories that they've had within your destination, encouraging them to then share with their network those stories as well, and by incentivizing it. And then that gives you opportunity, whether it's the person submitting the story or those who it's being shared with, to slowly gather some information, you know, an email address I've seen across several destinations and hotels.

It becomes, you know, a—almost like a contest. Share your story, which means you they have to sign up. You get their information. They're willing to give it to you, submit photo, a story, you have their first-party data, and now you can enter in a conversation. Having their social followers then vote on what they submitted, and have them kind of enter into—here's my name, my email address, and we can incentivize them on their voting.

So it's a way that you're more naturally getting that first-party data, but you're also now talking to people who are willing to be advocates of your brand.

The second way I have seen it, and if you want to see a real-life example, Margaritaville Hotels and Resorts has this implemented on their website. Really, what they're doing is they're treating visitors in a way that engages them as if they're having a conversation. They're not putting a button on the site that says “book now” and says, “Enter your date that you want to arrive, the number of your guests,” and then giving them a listing of here's all the rooms, or here's the 100 hotels that you can choose from.

So, a step-by-step process that is more natural that—in data I have seen—it's surprising how people if you can get them into that more conversational tone, are willing to give you information. So, “What's your name, and what your email address?” So it allows us to help personalize our conversation here. When are you looking to come? You know, what are your interests?

Are you dreaming of a trip? Are you planning a trip right now? Are you actually on the trip right this moment? So, you can, as if we were on the phone, and if someone was calling us to come visit or to book, you can ask this information. And that allows you to then begin understanding who they are, where they're at in the journey, what they're looking for.

So that then a follow up email is more personalized. It's content. You know, if somebody is on your site, and what they're doing is researching for a trip that's four or five months from now, then you can tailor that—things to do, experiences to have at that time. You can do a follow up email that's more personalized to where they're at in their travel journey.

Zach: So you're learning if you know, if somebody is booking for this weekend, you're going to speak to them differently than if they're booking for four or five months out because maybe the season isn't the same right now as it is and five months from now. And so if you have a summer season and there are outdoor activities, running, hiking, things like that, maybe in five months it's going to be snow season and there's going to be ice skating and skiing.

If you talk to people about those interests and those activities that are going to happen at the time that they're interested, then you're having a much more meaningful conversation with them.

Greg: Yeah, and I mean, I personally have seen data that shows over, you know, 50-plus percent of visitors aren't looking at the right now. They are planning much further out. In fact, you know, there's instances where those are the audience members. That's that first-party data that's so valuable because they're still in that planning mode and they're actually more open to content and continuing that conversation and learning more.

So it's you don't want to miss out on the opportunity to get that understanding, and think. And this is where, you know, long-term planning comes. It's like, “I can't do that right now. I have too much else going on. How can I do that?” There are products and tools out there that are already built that can help you do this, but you set yourself small, tangible goals of—maybe let's research and figure out what the timing and the cost of this is this quarter. Next quarter, set this as an implementable goal. But it's an imperative path to really building this first-party data audience, because then you have a way to reach them, communicate with them, engage with them and really at little to no cost at that point.

Zach: Those are really great points, Greg. My takeaway is that a lot of brands and destinations haven't prioritized first-party data, and that's eventually going to hurt them. If they don't start changing their processes, they're going to be behind the curve.

Greg: My advice is to move it from a low priority to a least mid-priority, if not high priority. It's time to start moving it up the priority ladder.

Zach: Of course, paid media isn't going away anytime soon, but growing an owned audience and focusing on first-party data are the kind of long-term priorities travel marketers need to be working towards. Thanks to strategic marketer, Greg Thurik, for sharing his take. We hope you'll join us for another episode of the Thought Starters Podcast, coming soon.