Visual marketing is an important tool for all businesses but none more so than the tourism industry. Good visual marketing allows your customers to see themselves in the places they want to visit and they can be inspired to enjoy new places and experiences. Grabbing the first images you come across, however, just isn’t enough.
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Your Website
When you are looking at visual marketing within tourism never underestimate the power of the images on your website. The placement of those images on your website is also critical. Your best photography and images, which captures the real spirit of the holidays you offer should be “above the fold” so that your returning and new customers see those images as soon as they visit your site. The images need to entice your customers to click through or to find out more. Andara Travel are a small independent travel company who specialize in tailor made holidays. Their website showcases their best destinations with a carousel of images. Making sure that your website is mobile friendly is also important – many of your customers will look for holiday or travel inspiration on their tablets or mobile devices so your images should work equally well in those formats as well.
Talk To Your Audience Using Images
Talking to your audience isn’t just about having a physical conversation with them. You need to tell your audience a story in such a way that they can see themselves in it and this is especially true of your images. Using the wrong images for your audience will divert them away and make them much more likely to go to one of your competitors. To get the images right you have to understand your customer. Who are they? What sort of places do they want to visit? What type of holiday appeals to them? When you know who your customers are, then choose your images to appeal to them. If you specialize in luxury holidays, for example, don’t choose images of a basic camping holiday.
Get Creative
Visual marketing is no longer just about one great shot. For it to really work you need to get creative with your images and mix them with different options like video or infographics. Video is an important part of any visual marketing strategy and works particularly well within tourism. On Contiki’s homepage, for example, they have a montage of short videos. These capture the experience side of their travel packages which are specifically aimed at 18-35 years olds. A well-designed infographic that gives you tips about a particular country communicates a lot of information all in one go which appeals to your customers and can enforce your position as an expert. These work particularly well on platforms like Pinterest.
Blog
Blogging is one of the best ways to pull traffic to your website and can help to establish you as an expert within your industry. For travel blogs, the right image can draw a potential customer in so that they click through and read the rest. Using video in blogging and collaborating with others can also help to drive traffic to your site and can really engage with your audience. Contiki also has a successful collaboration with several vloggers through their Contiki Legends campaign and actively encourage their customers to share their video content with them and showcase them in ‘Our Stories’. Sharing content from their customers not only acts as a recommendation but also lets their customers see themselves doing the same thing.
