It’s that time of year again – Black Friday is around the corner, and the Christmas season is almost upon us.
And what better time to supercharge your travel marketing materials than right now?
Personalisation is critical when it comes to grabbing your ideal clients’ attention, and at one of the most crucial commercial periods of the year, it’s more important than ever that your voice gets heard above your competitors.
Luckily for you as travel agents, our data-driven search and recommendation tool, Insights, has a unique flyer creation tool which allows you to create bespoke marketing in just a few clicks.
Gone are the days of time-consuming marketing! Easily create custom flyers that shout out your amazing deals or compare bespoke hotels which are perfectly tailored to your clients’ preferences – it’s the best way to secure those deals. Especially when customers are becoming more and more savvy when making their travel choices, and even more so when you consider that 80% of today’s clients expect their retail experience to come with some level of personalisation.
The reality is, the traveller’s experience starts with you, their agent. When travellers come to you for your services, they’re relying on you to keep them up to date with the best rates, the hotels and experiences that suit their needs best, and destinations that suit their budget and travel styles. This fact becomes even more crucial during one of the busiest commercial periods of the year, where deals are being brandished by nearly every brand imaginable.
And as travellers get even more savvy with creating their own bespoke trips using Online Travel Agents (OTAs) for example, it’s critical to your success that you’re able to offer travel options that not only speak to a travellers budget, but also to their individual needs – and even better if that’s all at a glance.
So read on to discover just how to create personalised Black Friday marketing flyers with Insights.
The most important skill any travel agent must possess is the ability to understand and empathise with your clients’ needs. This can include the type of holiday they’re looking for, when they’re hoping to travel, and how best to communicate their most suitable options.
Insights allows you to translate this knowledge into potential booking options by selecting filters relevant to the client.
With Insights you can filter for:
Of course, being able to filter for traveller preferences, types of hotels, and the properties you should be taking advantage of to uplift your revenue, also translates to your travel marketing and how you’re communicating any deals or offers with your customers.
Different clients will respond positively to different offers, so it’s important that you’re presenting the most enticing deals at the right time, to the right client.
With Insights, you’re able to build travel marketing materials with the Custom Flyer Tool which are entirely tailored to your client’s requirements!
Insights’ share functionality seamlessly builds flyers fit for distribution with just a few clicks. When plotting your travel marketing or communication strategy for any client, consider how best they’re going to receive information from you, and under which circumstances.
Are they the type who are always on the go with barely a moment spare to read through booking options? Or are they somebody who would prefer to pore over more in-depth hotel descriptions?
This phase of planning is going to play a valuable role in your relationship with the client, as not only should you hope to delight them with your service, but you want to secure the booking – and should aim to become their go-to travel agent for all future trips.
Discover more about Insights as the go-to search and recommendation tool for travel agents here!
Listen – we understand that a travel agents' value is often found in the unique knowledge they’ve earned through adventures of their own. But, as much as there is a place for your individual expertise (and there always will be), trusting in artificial intelligence is certain to elevate your worth as a well-rounded travel provider.
Insights is loaded with real-time data which gives you a clear idea of what today’s travellers are booking and what’s competitive in your specific market. By utilising this live global data, you’ll gain access to valuable information that ensures you’re remaining competitive, and taking advantage of opportunities your competitors may not have access to.
Depending on the information you’ve already gleaned from your client, you can amend Insights' filters to bring up the most relevant data relating to the customer.
Say, for example, you know that your customer is planning to travel from the United States to somewhere in Europe within the next three months. You also know that you’ve got high growth-potential properties in this destination thanks to your top recommended destinations shown on the Insights dashboard.
This means that when you click into any of these recommended destinations, which are ranked by their potential for you and your business, you'll be able to not only filter for hotels in this destination that suit your clients perfectly, but also maximise your revenue by selling stays that will benefit you the most in terms of revenue!
By adjusting the filters within Insights you’ll be able to see the top recommended that benefit your business, as well as those your clients will prefer – which leads us onto our next step.
Now that you know where your client wants to go (and what offers they’re most receptive to) it’s time to make things personal!
Head to Insights’ dashboard, as a first step. Once you’ve looked through your top recommended destinations, handpicked for their potential growth opportunity for your business, you’ll notice a ‘Create Your Flyer’ sharing option.
Click this button, and you can select up to eight hotels you think your client will love.
If we’re to give a top tip, we’d suggest filtering the hotels out further by traveller type, star rating and TripAdvisor rating. You can also accommodate for essential travel preferences like sustainability by using the appropriate filters.
Once you’ve settled on your top picks, you’ll notice that the blue button now prompts you to download or share the hotels. Go ahead and press it!
You’ll now be asked to select a format: portrait or landscape? The landscape format offers a little extra information about each hotel, while the portrait option is great for making quick comparisons between lead photos and key pieces of information, such as price.
Once you’ve decided which your client would prefer, click the option, and move on through to the next stage.
At this point, you’ll be encouraged to add your logo to the marketing materials. That’s right – you’re able to personalise the flyer to suit your business, as well as to your client’s needs!
Independent and home-based travel agents will particularly benefit from this feature: we know how costly and time-consuming marketing can be, but with Insights it’s easy and free to make your mark with bespoke branding.
Next, you’ll be asked if you’d like to customise your content. This is a brilliant way to personalise your marketing materials to a specific client, and we’d recommend adding the client’s name to the header to let them know that these choices are far from generic – in fact, they were carefully chosen by you, their go-to travel provider.
Personalisation gestures like this can have an amazing impact on your relationship with any would-be customers, with up to 72% of consumers electing to respond only to personalised marketing messages. So be sure to think back to step one and tailor your headings accordingly.
After taking one last look at your selected hotels (and reshuffling their order/hiding the cost, if you wish), it’s time for you to distribute your marketing materials to the client.
You can either download a PDF/image version of the flyer, share it straight to WhatsApp, via email, or even a personalised QR code. Whichever your client’s preferred method of receiving the information may be, Insights has got you covered.
So, there you have it! Insights’ personalisation features require minimum effort, but could bring maximum rewards.
