06 Mar Word-of-mouth as one of the best travel promotion tools

Power of word-of-mouth or recommendations given from friends, family, and colleagues are the most credible for leisure travelers. When you can relate you can see yourself in the same place as you were recommended. It doesn’t surprise that personal recommendations and experiences sell the products best, and besides the online forums and popular travel social tools have best marketing results for your business. Travel agents are next in line as the most credible “live” source. Their endorsement and recommendation carry enormous weight. After leisure travelers obtain travel information either online or offline, many still need the validation of a travel professionals, especially for more complex travel.

What you give is what you’ll get

By focusing on the entire travel experience, from start to finish, as a travel business you can help to ensure your customers become evangelists of the brand. There is no substitute for authentic word-of-mouth referrals. Brand charisma is best achieved when customers actively seek you out and not the other way around. Demonstrating sincere respect and concern for your customers at every touch point will in itself create a great difference for your brand. Giving proper information, recommendations of “personal touch”, providing extra values, including your clients in your loyalty programs with some benefits, making efforts when they are not traveling but motivating them to think of travel and finally to think of you. Organize thematic events that don’t have to be grandiose but have to show your customers that you think of them and that you want to educate and to inspire them regarding some new destinations and products in your offer. Remember their anniversaries, birthdays, and always collect as much as information about your clients as you can, and use them in the relevant moment to make an emotional bond. A positive word of mouth is finally always happening when your clients are satisfied, or when you give them that extra feeling (small present, beautiful promo materials, birthday card…) that they will remember when they think of travel.

Word-of-mouth positive statistics

• 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision. (Ogilvy/Google/TNS)
• 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. (BrightLocal)
• 72% say reading a positive customer reviews increase their trust in a business; it takes, on average, 2-6 reviews to get 56% of them to this point. (BrightLocal)
• 91% of B2B buyers are influenced by word-of-mouth when making their buying decision. (USM)
• Word-of-mouth has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54%. (MarketShare)
• 43% of social media users report buying a product after sharing or favorite it on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. (VisionCritical)
• Millennials ranked word-of-mouth as the #1 influencer in their purchasing decisions about clothes, packaged goods, big-ticket items (like travel and electronics), and financial products. (Radius Global)
• Brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity receive 3x as much word-of-mouth as less emotionally-connected brands. (Keller Fay Group)

Word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals for your products and services are the best testimony of your brand’s performance.

Photo credit: Asif Akbar/Freeimages, Ivelinb Radkov/Stockfresh