Destination Marketing Best Practices: Part 2

As you’ll recall from last time, I shared five of the biggest ideas I learned from the 2014 eTourism Summit in October. Here are five more destination marketing best practices you can put into practice today.

Leverage Pinterest

Lots of great case studies and examples, but the best three takeaways: vertical images work better on Pinterest; and additive, helpful text on images - not just beautiful photos - perform well on this platform in terms of engagement because Pinterest search relies on words, not just images; in pin descriptions, give context, information, CTA.

Harness the Power of Facebook

Visit Phoenix found that their Facebook fans booked longer stays than visitors who were not Facebook fans. Proof that nurturing fans and social followers has a bigger ROI.

Publish Higher-Impact Tweets

Twitter showcased a few great examples of Tailored Audiences where a brand can target people who have visited the brand’s website allowing brands to retarget interested, potential customers with Twitter website cards, promoted videos, tweets. Here’s a useful explanation.

Share Recipes

A panel of SEO professionals at the conference confirmed that adding recipes to a DMO site’s restaurant listings boosts Google organic search.

Get More Impact with Email

Here’s a tip from our presentation on email best practices.  A hot topic for marketers who use email to engage with customers was Gmail Promotions tabs and how to ensure your brand’s emails stay out of them. The truth is you really can’t avoid the dreaded Promotions tab, but you can get out of the tab quickly and ensure open and click through rates remain solid by keeping your database clean and focusing on deliverability, not list size: get rid of addresses that haven’t opened your emails in the past 6 or 12 months, depending on your send frequency. When someone registers for your emails, send them to a landing page that lets them know your email frequency and what type of content you’ll be sending them—better yet, let them choose what type of content they’d like to receive (e.g., send me emails about women’s shoes and purses or send me emails about men’s apparel). Also on that landing page, let them know that you’ll be sending them a confirmation email right away and that they should move that email out of their Gmail Promotions tab or junk folder to ensure they get future deals / offers / news from your brand. While you’re crafting that landing page, why not go ahead and ask them a few questions that will help you better personalize future email, for example, “Does your travel typically include children under 18?,”or “How many employees does your company have?” Understanding more about your subscribers will help you target relevant messages for better conversion rates. Because 65 percent of emails are read on a mobile device, emails should be responsive for better open and click through rates. I’m looking forward to next year’s eTourism Summit and whatever new trends or topics destination digital marketers will be talking about. We’ll be sure to share those too! Learn more about how we create even better practices for digital marketing in travel and tourism.