The content marketing craze that developed over the last few years has been a fascinating phenomenon to watch. As the zeitgeist took root marketers retooled en masse and turned to new – largely unproven – approaches to acquiring customers.
While a few smart people questioned the direction of travel, the idea – driven by the ponzi scheme of content marketers promoting content marketing – that brands must “become publishers” was widely accepted.
These days virtually every online travel business is doing content marketing in one form or another; diligently blogging, emailing, Tweeting and Instagramming just like all the ‘thought leaders’ and conference seminars told us to.
But how many of us know if it’s working? Is it actually paying for itself, or are we just throwing content out into the void and hoping something comes back?
The spray and pray approach might work in other consumer industries, but travel marketing is a unique challenge.
Regardless of how influential a blogger claims to be, no one ever chances upon a sponsored tweet and decides to drop $6k on a small boat Galapagos cruise.
According to Expedia, travellers can make up to 161 visits to travel sites in the 45 days prior to making a booking. Think about the months, years and decades of dreaming and planning that lead up to that point.
If we’re going to persist with content marketing, we need to recognise that “content” itself is not a viable marketing activity and that the metrics of content marketing are not useful KPIs.
Followers, impressions, shares and retweets are all meaningless concepts when it comes to attributing bottom-line return on investment.
So how do we turn “content” from a buzzword into a legitimate marketing activity for tourism businesses?
Invert your approach
One of the most damaging aspects of mainstream content marketing has been the trend for quantity over quality, with businesses prioritising sheer volume over purpose or value.
