Who doesn’t want more travel leads? Sure, you work your butt off improving your SEO, growing on travel review sites, and even collaborating with partners and OTAs. Still, that effort doesn’t seem to be generating the kind of results you want.
Here’s the good news: there are marketing strategies out there that are designed to effectively capture the attention of travelers and eventually convert them to guests. These marketing strategies are widely used in different industries and are very useful in tourism, but not every tourism business has taken the time to apply any of them.
If you want to increase your conversions and move your business forward, perhaps these 6 effective ways to get more travel leads are helpful for you.
6 Practical Ways to Get More Travel Leads
With a little effort and focus, these common marketing activities can help you get high-quality travel sales leads for your business.
1. Create a Lead Magnet
What: A lead magnet is a useful piece of content that your target guests receive in exchange for their contact information, such as email.
Your lead magnet can be a checklist, a short outline of tips or steps, an e-book, or a short video. The most important thing to remember about lead magnets is that they should be useful and valuable to your guests.
Why: We live and work in a sharing economy—offer value first, then sell.
A lead magnet is one of the best lead generation tips because it provides you with a means to communicate with a website visitor. An email address allows you to build a relationship with them and move their purchase journey from awareness to conversion.
Further, a lead magnet helps build trust by offering something that meets a visitor’s needs. It is also a fundamental step to getting potential guests to know more about you and your business.
How: Creating a lead magnet is simple. There are all kinds of lead magnets out there—pick one that is effective (useful) for your guests and efficient (easy to produce) for you.
LEARN HERE: How to Create an Effective Lead Magnet for Your Tourism Business (with examples)
2. Market Your Lead Magnet on Your Website
Why: Website visitors may download your lead magnet even if they aren’t ready to purchase your products or services. Most likely, these readers are in the research phase. Your lead magnet becomes a valuable piece of content that you can use in various ways.
How: Add an opt-in box to your website and offer your lead magnet for free in exchange for their email. Placing it at the bottom of every page or every blog post is ideal. You can also check your website theme for different options.
3. Start Your Email Marketing Activity Little by Little
What: An email marketing strategy involves a plan of activities and procedures that you follow to achieve your desired email marketing goals. It makes use of the list of emails you collected, including the email of your past guests and those who inquired.
Why: Planning how your email marketing activity will go reduces uncertainty as you work toward your goal of getting more travel leads. Even if you think email marketing is annoying, it is highly effective in building trust over time. It converts your target audience to buyers 40x higher than Facebook and Twitter.
Email marketing also allows the people who reached your website to get to know you and your past guests to remember their trip.
Check out this study by McKinsey that shows why email marketing is so effective for obtaining travel leads online. However, don’t abandon social media marketing. Email marketing and social media marketing play different roles, and they can work together (see #4)!
How: Start slow. Using a simple service like Mailchimp (free) is a good start. Learn to manage your list as you discover how to write effective welcome emails and regular emails.
Once you get comfortable with the process, you can move into more advanced mailing strategies. Here is a great email marketing resource to help you start your email marketing activity. Stay tuned for more email marketing tips on this blog.
4. Use Your Lead Magnet in Your Facebook Ads
a. Facebook Awareness Ads
What: A Facebook awareness ad is an important element in your Facebook Ad funnel. It serves as an introduction to your business and can be useful for gaining brand awareness and acquiring new leads.
How: Create a Facebook awareness ad and use your lead magnet as a download. It can be used to drive travelers from awareness to consideration to purchase. You will need to test and try different titles and copy for different audiences to find the right ad that works for them.
b. Use Facebook Retargeting Ads for those who already visited your website
What: Facebook retargeting ads target those who already visited your website. A retargeting ad is a great way to promote your business using an approach different from your previous ads.
How: Send Facebook ads to travelers who previously visited your website. These travelers already have some level of familiarity with or interest in your business, so you have a good chance of winning them back with a retargeting ad.
5. Use Your Lead Magnet as an Offer with Your Connections and on Social Media
What: Whether you are speaking at a networking event or meeting a new customer, sharing your lead magnet with someone proves to be beneficial. Occasionally, you can do this on your social media posts.
Why: It is a great way to offer value to someone you met.
How: Easy! Just send a link via email.
