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Do not stop marketing
Declining sales year over year can lead to a more cautious approach when it comes to a tourism marketing or attraction marketing spend, but it’s essential to maintain resilient strategies in order to increase sales with marketing efforts. BlackDog Advertising has seen over the years, even in challenging times, that strategies with a goal of increasing sales without cutting back on your marketing budget are not beyond the realm of possibility for any business. In the tourism marketing and attraction marketing industries, a well-planned approach can help your growth-oriented brand navigate periods of financial restraint and come back stronger than your competitors during periods of inactive tourism.
BlackDog Advertising has a long history of staying competitive and keeping accurate data top-of-mind (especially when sales are down) by crafting tailored marketing strategies to ensure our partners reach their audiences effectively. With a healthy balance between long-term solutions, capital investments and flexibility to pivot your strategy on-the-fly, your tourism marketing or attraction marketing will maintain a competitive edge in any market. BlackDog Advertising’s key takeaway with these strategies to increase sales is to never stop marketing.
Why wouldn’t I stop marketing?
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Connect with your audience
Tourism marketing and attraction marketing are not effective when you are not reaching an audience. If a brand chooses to stop marketing, the line of communication to potential guests is cut and reach is diminished to critical levels. With any type media spend comes the ability to influence guests who might be considering purchasing a product. Instead of alienating your entire audience, BlackDog Advertising suggests that brands shift tourism marketing and attraction marketing efforts according to highly targeted audiences where your brand would see the highest ROI (Return on Investment). Even if your marketing takes a more passive approach during these times, this will maintain brand awareness and potentially convert a “looker” to a “booker”.
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Pinpoint obstacles
Halting marketing efforts during a sales slump is a short-sighted strategy that ignores the underlying problem. Instead of shutting everything down, invest in robust data analysis and reporting. This approach will uncover the true cause of the downturn – be it seasonality, external factors, or something else entirely. Armed with these insights, you can strategically adapt your strategies to increase sales and drive visitor numbers back up.
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Maintain momentum
When marketing efforts fall short of expectations, brands often contemplate reducing their investment or even halting marketing altogether to cut costs. However, BlackDog Advertising has found that this is rarely a productive solution. Instead of making the wrong cuts, tourism and attraction marketing businesses should leverage available data — such as their own analytics, competitor research, and insights from local tourism development councils (TDCs) — to inform robust strategies that will genuinely boost sales. By identifying the most effective channels and tactics, you can ensure that your marketing budget is allocated to areas that deliver the highest return on investment.
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Proactivity > Reactivity
Reactive tourism marketing and attraction marketing can keep you behind the curb and a step behind the competition. The risk that accompanies the “stop marketing” approach is that bad sales could get even worse, creating a downward spiral for your business. Competitors are may now take your seat at the table, bidding for audience share real estate. However, with innovative strategies to increase sales, you can maintain that stake in the market and be the travel and tourism business to reach guests first, as they’re searching for their next adventure.
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Bounce back
BlackDog Advertising and our partners have navigated numerous downturns within the travel and tourism sectors. Whether dealing with the impact of a hurricane season or a global pandemic, our experts recognize that recovery can be challenging and anxiety-inducing. However, rest assured, there are proven strategies to increase sales regardless of market conditions. Maintaining a calm and proactive approach, staying connected with your target audience, and diligently monitoring and analyzing data are key to navigating these challenging periods. The most crucial takeaway is this: NEVER stop your marketing efforts, even during a slump. Consistent communication and strategic adaptation are essential for long-term success.
I won’t stop marketing! How will this fix my sales?
Effective marketing strategies for tourism and attractions hinge on granular data analysis. By meticulously tracking key performance indicators, you can build a robust understanding of your business and its target audience. This “action-oriented data” provides insights into sales channels, visitor demographics, and website engagement, empowering you to craft targeted campaigns and optimize your marketing spend. Remember, it’s not just about taking action, but taking the right action based on data-driven insights. By leveraging this information, you can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your tourism and attraction marketing efforts.
An integral part in devising strategies to increase sales is to have a plan in place in the event that your sales decrease. In the travel and tourism industry, where sales are affected by an array of factors such as weather, season, recession, global events and more, it’s important that your travel brand takes a firm hold on what it can control. Attraction marketing in these scenarios will feel much more manageable with preconceived strategies to increase sales filed away. In other words, if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.
When competitors’ actions impact your revenue, it’s vital to identify your unique selling proposition (USP). Pinpointing what sets you apart allows you to develop a targeted attraction marketing campaign that showcases your distinctive offerings. This strategy is particularly effective in a saturated market, not only driving sales but also solidifying your brand identity in a way that’s difficult to replicate.
Moreover, periods of low tourism but high local traveler activity present a golden opportunity to ramp up your tourism and attraction marketing spend. This scenario may indicate that your current marketing efforts are insufficient. If you’ve paused your campaigns, now is the ideal time to resume, capturing the attention of those travelers already present in your city.
If external factors can’t explain a decline in sales, it’s essential to critically evaluate your attraction marketing strategy. BlackDog Advertising possesses extensive experience in pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses within your tourism marketing efforts. This analysis is crucial for optimizing your campaigns and maximizing your strategies to increase sales. While pausing investment in underperforming areas might be beneficial, it should be done strategically to reallocate resources toward tactics that are yielding positive results.
Never stop marketing!
At BlackDog Advertising, the “never stop marketing” initiative has proven amongst the most effective strategies to increase sales. Staying eager to grow your travel brand means reaching guests with an intentional brand strategy focused on increasing direct sales before the competition, collecting first-person data and improving brand trust through well-crafted, consistent communications.
