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Even when sales are up, do not give up! Keep growing your travel brand with the right marketing strategies.
Making mindful investments in tourism marketing for your travel brand has been paying off just as you’ve hoped, and you’re feeling tempted to stop marketing after reaching your goal. If you continued to dedicate resources to attraction marketing, however, you could see sales up higher than you thought was possible. Whatever you do, don’t stop marketing!
Smart marketing, not stop marketing
It takes great attention to detail to devise successful strategies to increase sales, so why abandon a plan that has proven to be effective? The temptation to stop marketing once you’ve seen the returns you were hoping for could be detrimental. Don’t leave anything on the table when it comes to increasing your sales. Here’s the “why” and “how”.
Your attraction marketing is what attracts customers to your business in the first place.
The strongest strategies to increase sales include both active and passive efforts to put your travel brand in a position to reach future customers before the competition. If you were to cut your tourism marketing spending when your sales are up, it would provide your competition with the opportunity it needs to seize a larger piece of the hyper-competitive travel and tourism market. Sure, you could pick up where you left off, but the foundation you so meticulously built before wouldn’t be as strong as it could be. Dealing with highly perishable attraction dates in the hyper-competitive travel and tourism market leaves your travel brand with no time to waste.
To keep your sales up requires constant investment and attention.
Deciding to stop marketing because sales are up ultimately has an adverse effect on the sales you worked so hard to generate. Travel brands can suffer from complacency during prosperous times for the tourism marketing industry, but building a robust plan to carry your business deep into the future could establish a consistent culture of strategies to increase sales. At BlackDog Advertising, we put marketing plans in place to drive ticket sales as close to selling out as possible. We advise businesses to set goals beyond increased revenue and take full advantage of peak seasons, keeping the focus on growth even when sales are up.
Identifying the specific aspects of your strategies to increase sales that are working is crucial when tailoring your attraction marketing plan moving forward.
It is not only important that you don’t stop marketing when sales are up but that you know what parts of your strategies to increase sales are working and which parts aren’t a good allocation of resources. With that valuable information at your disposal, and the know-how to apply it properly, there is no limit to the growth your travel brand can see.
When your attraction marketing plan shows the positive results you were hoping for, your focus should be on keeping that ball rolling instead of putting yourself in a reactionary position when there is a dip in sales.
The best way to follow up action in attraction marketing is with continued action. The most successful travel brands know that when it comes to tourism marketing, action is invaluable, and reaction is unfavorable. The key to success is to make sure you are getting your data from a reliable place and to not be overemotional when creating your strategies to increase sales.
When things are good, invest in long-term projects that will mean the most in the long run.
A tried and true way to make customers feel like they’re receiving the best possible experience with your travel brand is to maintain a dedication to all tourism marketing channels, which doesn’t just boil down to digital media buys. Other channels your strategies to increase sales should include are capital investments that support your brand. Your website, the buying experience, organic social media, a fresh photo or video — these are tourism marketing channels that are part of the customer experience and can lead to a positive ROI on direct ticket sales. BlackDog Advertising clients have seen a 15%+ increase in conversion rates after any website redesign. Maintaining, or even increasing, your investment in tourism marketing demonstrates to potential customers that your travel brand cares about improving their experience, and not just selling tickets. Employing this strategy makes return customers out of first-timers and builds you a glowing reputation among potential customers.
Don’t stop marketing, do it where it works best for you
Strategies to increase sales work best when they are born from accurately collected and applied data. Raw numbers alone can be difficult to interpret in a meaningful way, so the numbers you pull from matter! Some examples of first-person data we prioritize at BlackDog include the sales channel report that details where people are purchasing tickets. What ads are bringing in the most sales? What attractions are performing the highest? Which webpages of yours are grabbing the eyes of travelers the most? Pair website data with reports from your local tourism office to know your market better than anyone. Don’t stop marketing, and do it where it works best for you.
Seasonality moves the travel and tourism industry like tides, so knowing its cycles is important to stay tapped in. Knowing the peaks and valleys of your seasons helps you track progress and plan the best strategies to increase sales where you need them most. Create the best opportunity to book up whenever you can by being aware of what is informing your sales report the most, and when.
Honing in on the finer details of your tourism marketing plan helps you do the same with the results. Identifying acute causes and effects keeps your investment keen and efficient. Ask yourself: Are your upward-trending sales a result of peak season, or is it your approach to attraction marketing? What is going on in the rest of the market that could be affecting your sales? Sales are up, but can they be even better?
Act, don’t react!
Action is invaluable when it comes to marketing. When you get ahead of the competition, staying ahead requires a steady dedication to growth and continued investment. Why shy away from success? BlackDog Advertising emphasizes acting above reacting when it comes to strategies to increase sales. To stop marketing is to operate from the disadvantaged position of reaction. Staking your claim in the dynamic travel and attraction market goes best when you make a concerted effort to stay ahead of the curve through thorough, informed planning and attention to detail.
BlackDog Advertising specializes in attraction marketing and advertising that inspires travelers and drives ticket sales for tours, attractions, adventures and destinations.
