Travel: a thrilling escape or a stressful juggle? We know it can be both! As advertisers, tapping into those “moments that matter” within the travel journey is crucial for grabbing attention and influencing audience decisions. But how do we navigate this emotional roller coaster and deliver impactful messages?
Let’s break it down.
Know your audience✅
- The planner: Stressed, organised, seeking control. Hit them early in the research phase with helpful info and deals.
- The seasoned traveller: Less stressed, more spontaneous. Catch them near travel moments with relevant offers and incentives.
- The newbie: Wide-eyed, open to possibilities. Engage them with captivating visuals and inspiration early on.
Focus your message ✅
- One clear goal: Brand awareness, sales, downloads? Prioritise and tailor your message accordingly.
- Less is more: Bombarding with messages dilutes impact. Choose one key point that resonates and focus on that.
- Value-driven communication: Speak to their motivations. Why should they choose you over the competition?
Audience channel selection✅
- Reach mass audiences: Utilise broad platforms like social media and video for initial brand awareness.
- Target contextually with specific touchpoints and behaviours: For in-depth engagement, target relevant websites, travel apps, or review sites for frequent travellers.
Remember, it’s all about the customer ✅
- Plan through their eyes: Put yourself in their shoes – stressed planner, excited newbie, or relaxed regular.
- Align with their journey: Deliver the right message at the right time – inspiration during research, deals closer to booking.
- Make it relevant: Speak to their current mindset and needs. A last-minute offer for a stressed planner? Probably not helpful!
By understanding your audience, focusing your message, and choosing the right channels, you can transform your travel advertising from a missed connection to a smooth ride to conversion. So, ditch the one-size-fits-all approach, embrace the traveller’s journey, and watch your campaigns hit the road!
Bonus tip: Don’t forget the emotional punch! Travel inspires, excites, and connects. Infuse your ads with that magic to truly capture hearts and minds.
Happy travels (and advertising)!
Route Agency has won multiple awards for its successful media and marketing campaigns, where we have helped clients understand their audience, and their transport habits. We have significant experience in planning, activating and measuring public transport campaigns. Route helps to identify the marketing challenges a client faces, works with the owner, senior management team and marketing team to identify customer segments, opportunities to reach and engage with these segments, creating an overall strategy, and implementing a tactical approach to deliver brand awareness, service offerings, new product understanding, price changes, route timetables, and many more.
This in turn helps in a variety of ways including:
• Increasing public transportation usage
• Improving customer knowledge of the brand and its services,
• Supporting employee recruitment.
