Travel marketers need to remember traditional lessons of marketing when using social
Veksner: Travel marketers are very privileged as they have great content
Travel marketers need to remember the traditional lessons of marketing when using social media to push their destinations or offers, Simon Veksner has suggested.
Speaking at today’s Travel Marketing Summit in Sydney, Veksner, the founder of social media agency Hungry Beast, said travel marketers are “very privileged” as they have great content.
“Compared to the poor insurance marketer who’s product is invisible or the mobile phone networks who are literally selling air, whereas you guys have amazing mountains, beaches nature,” he said.
“My tip is to remember some of the lessons from traditional marketing. There’s a lot more to marketing than just showing your product. For me, travel marketers who are just posting up ‘here’s my beach’, ‘here’s my mountain’ – that is the travel marketing equivalent to the people on Facebook who post up pictures of their baby, very interesting to you but not so to everyone else.
“My tip is remember the traditional lessons of marketing, not just the product but what’s the benefit? What do all these amazing beaches add up to? Is it about escape?”
Veksner was joined on the panel by Simon Bookallil, founder and CEO of creative agency Bashful, who argued there is a place in social media for a “hard sell”.
“There is a place for a hard sell, it’s all in the way you communicate it,” he said. “People want to know deals and what’s going on in their life and help them make decisions.”
Bookallil admitted there is a risk to the brand’s reputation when using social media to push for sales, however said social is an important part of the customer journey.
“There’s always risk, that’s a business decision. Is it a bigger risk not to sell the product? It’s down to risk management,” he said. “If you have a healthy brand and you invest in brand health in other ways there’s no problem with using paid for advertising in social.”
Nick Baker, Red Balloon CEO, who moderated the panel looking at how brands can use social media as meaningful marketing tool, added: “You get to a point where people want to know a price.”
On the return on investment social media can offer a brand, James Thornton, Intrepid Travel managing director, described it as “elastic”.
“From a measurement perspective wow much is a like or a follow worth? It’s elastic, until an individual engages with us we don’t know if it’s going to be worth nothing or $5,000” he said.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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I deeply recommend that marketers should read this. This is not actually all about travel marketers and how easy they do but the thing here is that marketers should know the “wants” of there customer before they introduce there product in the market. Technique and skill are all it need to be a good marketer.
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