Travel Agency Tribes Email Marketing

Advertisers, salesmen, and marketers are not the most popular people among the business professionals. In the travel industry, people will mostly roll their eyes when you tell them you are an advertiser with a travel agency or travel supplier.

And to tell you the truth, you are not helping your case if you are doing any of the following 14 things that travel customers hate about your ads. Take a look.

#1 Glitzy Ads with NO CONTENT

In the age of megapixel high quality video cameras, you will be tempted to capture the best images and videos on your ads and then fail to provide the relevant information. Customers hate it! Instead, combine great graphics with helpful content that they can act on.

#2 Overpromising a Destination with Photoshop!

Despite the constant urge to make a sale, don’t overhype a destination. A customer that really wants to visit a destination will research it on other platforms before they buy from you. Long term travel agents/customers relationships are based on truth.

#3 Failure to Follow Through By Sales Team

Placing an awesome ad and then failing to follow up on customers that have acted on it is a waste of time and money. All travel agents must have a motivated sales team.

#4 Outright Lying To Get a Sale

Your customers have probably seen enough rip-offs online to last them a lifetime and the last thing they would want is another lie from a respected travel advisor. In fact, the only reason you are still in business is because they trust you over the thousands of scams published online every day.

#5 Ads that Don’t Address the Customers’ Needs

Before you place an ad, ensure you have understood the needs of the customers you are targeting otherwise your ad will be ignored or flagged as spam.

#6 Refusal to Accept a “No”

Don’t keep bombarding unwilling customers with unwanted ads. It shows desperation. Your email may also be flagged as a source of spam email assuming you are placing your travel ads using your travel agency’s email.

#7 Ads that Take Forever to Load

Your ads should load in fleeting seconds. Using heavy images and videos that take long to load just yields territory to the competition. Test all your travel ads before you publish them to make sure they load in a desirable manner.

#8 Ads not Optimized for Mobile

About 90% of your ads will be viewed on mobile. Why? Because people go to the office to work and not to view ads. It is most likely than not, that their office laptops and desktops will have an ad blocker.

Most people surf the internet through their smartphones during lunch breaks, on the long commute to and from work or when they are relaxing at home. If you want your ad to get maximum views, optimize them for mobile.

#9 Ads with Poor Navigation on the Nest Steps to Take

This should be obvious to a travel marketer. Unfortunately, marketers opt for a long circuitous route on the action to take, probably trying to make the customer see more of their products. Unfortunately, the customer is lost in-between. Your ad should either connect your customers to the sales people or lead them to a buy button with only one click.

#10. Ads with Excessive Pop-ups

Do you hate the ads that pop-up on your screen when you are trying to read something? I surely do. And so do the people that you are trying to sell travel products to. If your ad has a pop-up, it should not be trying to introduce a new subject. Rather, it should help the targeted audience take the next expected action.

#11 Ads with Pop-ups/CTA’s that Guilt Customers Into Buying

Most folks are honest. They want to feel that they are doing what upright citizens do and so when your ad gives a lot of content and then try to guilt them into buying, they will feel guilty, and they may even buy your travel products, but then they will keep off your ads in future. The feel-good feeling when they see an ad from your travel agency will not be there anymore.

#12 Ads that Distract them From ImportantWork

If there is one thing that everybody hates about marketers, it is the fact that they find the right time to distract you from an important task. This is probably the reason most ads end up being deleted or relegated to the junk email.

Do you get annoyed by the ads on YouTube videos that distracts you when you are trying to watch a good “how-to” video? Now you know how your audience feels about your distracting ads. Find a good channel and opportune moment to publish your ads.

#13 Ads that Pretend to Know What Customers Need More than the Customers Themselves

Your “know-it-all” ads will attract ridicule rather than help you sell your travel products. Try to keep your ads friendly, but NOT familiar!

#14 The “Magic Pill” Ads

These ads promise to solve all the travel customer’s problems. They cannot! Try to solve one problem at a time and soon enough, your customers will see you as a resource and will thus come to you for the solutions to their travel problems.

Did you find these tips insightful? Do you have additional ideas to help our community of Travel Agency Tribes? Feel free to share with our travel consultants by clicking here.