Episode #9: Research and your tourism social media strategy

Tourism Tweetup the Podcast

Chatting with Bronwyn White from MyTravelResearch.com about how and where research fits into your tourism social media strategy.

Episode #9 of Tourism Tweetup the Podcast we talk to Bronwyn White, co-founder of MyTravelResearch.com a fantastic online membership portal offering special reports and training material to allow your business to make better, 'evidence based' business decisions.

Highlights

The Internet has allowed research done by other large third parties such as Tourism Australia, the state DMO's and companies such as Google to become accessible to all businesses regardless of size.

Also with tools such as Survey Monkey and others, primary research is now accessible and all businesses can now also do market research without having to have big budgets.

Research such as who your customers are, what are their trigger points, what do they want to know about, what are they interested in, knowing how to talk to them and talking to their pain points is all extremely valuable.

If you are a tourism business and you don't have a decent website you will be thrust out of the customer decision process almost immediately.

[Tweet ""there is a disconnect between the traveler & the travel industry re technical capabilities""]

The traveller is looking for certain types of information over all stages of the path to purchase.

When they are dreaming or thinking of a holiday they require certain types of information that may be different from when they are planning or booking a holiday. So travellers needs and requirements in terms of information are more sophisticated than what a lot of the tourism industry is delivering.

"Travellers needs and requirements in terms of information are more sophisticated than what a lot of the tourism industry is delivering."

The industry needs to focus on their content marketing more, in order to help customers get over the line. The travel industry should look at different content for different stages of the path to purchase that is Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing, Sharing. More information on this here.

[Tweet ""Marketing & market research should take up a great deal of your time if you are in business""]

"What we are finding is Internet search is number #1 across all path to purchase platforms" says @TravelResearch0

"If you have limited budgets and you can't do both print and online, steer towards the online because that is where the customers are looking! And there are plenty of statistics to support this."

[Tweet ""Research is fundamental & should be at the core of all social media strategy" @TravelResearch0"]

What we are finding now (with semantic search) is that the search engines are looking to social media for social signals. Google and the search engines are using social media as a measure of how compelling and interesting your content actually is. Information on semantic search for the tourism industry. The search engines are also using social as a measure to assess you area of expertise.

What this in tern means is "gone are the times were we as an industry can be all things to everybody" and what this means in terms of research is that 'knowing who your customer is, finding your customer voice and really targeting your product or service to your customer is key."

Bronwyn White says a great way to do this is by creating customer personas to really visual your customer as a person. Give them names and activities and a story. Talk to their needs and their pain points.

[Tweet ""Don't market to yourself...market to your customer" says Bronwyn White from @TravelResearch0"]

Bronwyn White talks about Anna Del Rio, Coorong District Council's community and tourism development officer who was named ARTN's Young Tourism Professional of the year last month. From about the 18 minute mark of the podcast Brownyn describes ...

Tourism Tweetup the Podcast

Chatting with Bronwyn White from MyTravelResearch.com about how and where research fits into your tourism social media strategy.

Episode #9 of Tourism Tweetup the Podcast we talk to Bronwyn White, co-founder of MyTravelResearch.com a fantastic online membership portal offering special reports and training material to allow your business to make better, ‘evidence based’ business decisions.

Highlights

The Internet has allowed research done by other large third parties such as Tourism Australia, the state DMO’s and companies such as Google to become accessible to all businesses regardless of size.

Also with tools such as Survey Monkey and others, primary research is now accessible and all businesses can now also do market research without having to have big budgets.

Research such as who your customers are, what are their trigger points, what do they want to know about, what are they interested in, knowing how to talk to them and talking to their pain points is all extremely valuable.

If you are a tourism business and you don’t have a decent website you will be thrust out of the customer decision process almost immediately.

“there is a disconnect between the traveler & the travel industry re technical capabilities”
Click To Tweet

The traveller is looking for certain types of information over all stages of the path to purchase.

When they are dreaming or thinking of a holiday they require certain types of information that may be different from when they are planning or booking a holiday. So travellers needs and requirements in terms of information are more sophisticated than what a lot of the tourism industry is delivering.

“Travellers needs and requirements in terms of information are more sophisticated than what a lot of the tourism industry is delivering.”

The industry needs to focus on their content marketing more, in order to help customers get over the line. The travel industry should look at different content for different stages of the path to purchase that is Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing, Sharing. More information on this here.

“Marketing & market research should take up a great deal of your time if you are in business”
Click To Tweet

“What we are finding is Internet search is number #1 across all path to purchase platforms” says @TravelResearch0

“If you have limited budgets and you can’t do both print and online, steer towards the online because that is where the customers are looking! And there are plenty of statistics to support this.”

“Research is fundamental & should be at the core of all social media strategy” @TravelResearch0
Click To Tweet

What we are finding now (with semantic search) is that the search engines are looking to social media for social signals. Google and the search engines are using social media as a measure of how compelling and interesting your content actually is. Information on semantic search for the tourism industry. The search engines are also using social as a measure to assess you area of expertise.

What this in tern means is “gone are the times were we as an industry can be all things to everybody” and what this means in terms of research is that ‘knowing who your customer is, finding your customer voice and really targeting your product or service to your customer is key.”

Bronwyn White says a great way to do this is by creating customer personas to really visual your customer as a person. Give them names and activities and a story. Talk to their needs and their pain points.

“Don’t market to yourself…market to your customer” says Bronwyn White from @TravelResearch0
Click To Tweet

Bronwyn White talks about Anna Del Rio, Coorong District Council’s community and tourism development officer who was named ARTN’s Young Tourism Professional of the year last month. From about the 18 minute mark of the podcast Brownyn describes several hands on marketing activities Anna roles out for tourism in her region with little or no budget.

From the 24 minute mark Bronwyn and I chat specifically about the seniors market and how they are using online in relation to travel. The findings are there is really no difference between internet search on age demographics anymore when it comes to travel research. The research shows that the first port of call for seniors (over 60 years) is the internet if they are going to travel.

Special offer

MyTravelResearch.com is offering Tourism Tweetup Podcast listeners a free two hour consultation around market research and how to use market research for your tourism business.

This is a great offer I would strongly recommend for any tourism business. These guys scan all the best tourism research and data, interpret it and break it down into easy to understand useful information.

Call or email them and mention Tourism Tweetup Podcast to claim the offer.

Links we mention in this podcast

Survey Monkey

Tourism Australia research site

Google travel research site

Information on semantic search

Seniors Travel Tips at New Young Travel.com.au

Listen below or listen and subscribe to the podcast series on iTunes

The post Episode #9: Research and your tourism social media strategy appeared first on Holly G.