What’s your marketing strategy for mobile travellers? I’m not talking about making sure your website is mobile optimized – everybody knows that’s a must. What I’m referring to is devising a strategy for integrating your brand into the research journey which, increasingly, is taking place on smartphones.
According to Google, the share of mobile visits to travel websites has grown 48% while conversion rates have rocketed 88%. Clearly, people are now comfortable researching and booking on miniature screens. And if you want to profit from it, you need to find ways of engaging with them earlier in their mobile journey.
How to engage mobile travellers earlier
Early actions influence later booking decisions. That’s a fact. Instead of sitting back and hoping that by pure chance mobile travellers make it to your booking form at the end of their journey, try attracting them to your site much earlier in their journey.
How can this be done?
By creating content that addresses their key questions, motivations and dreams at each stage of the research journey by mobile travellers. When your content is helpful and informative it naturally builds trust in your brand and increases conversions as a result.
So the next question is ‘what are these questions and what content do they want to read’?
The answer lies in understanding the research journey taking place on smartphones and delivering the content travellers are looking for.
Tracking the mobile research journey
Luckily for us travel and hospitality marketers, Google generously directed its vast resources at identifying exactly what the mobile research journey is.
The Big G published some solid research that revealed the abundance of intent rich ‘micro-moments’ involved in planning a holiday. These are quick searches people are making in spare moments on their smartphone to find inspiration and insights on travel experiences.
In one study, Google found that a user had 419 digital moments, of which 87% were on her smartphone:
Source: Luth Research ZQ Intelligence™ – Cross Platform Digital Behavior Measurement, Nov-Dec 2014 via thinkwithgoogle.com
Currently, these travel intent searches are untapped by travel marketers. I guess if enough people read this post, that could soon change.
Google has divided these ‘micro-moments’ with samurai precision into five key stages:
Read rest of the article at: FIZ
