1 Creative Ways to Get Millennial Travelers to Visit Your Destination
By \ January 20, 2017
When you combine the millennial audience’s use of technology with their love for travel, you’re left with a pretty dang exciting audience group to market to.
97% of this group use social media as they travel, 75% post to social networks at least once a day while traveling and 87% use Facebook for travel inspiration. They also travel more than any other generation, both for business and leisure.
As a group, millennials are prime targets for tourism and travel-related messaging. They’re almost always thinking about their next trip, are generally receptive to persuasive online messaging via email, social media or web ads, and, best of all, they tend to serve as voluntary destination ambassadors through social media.
How can you get them to choose your destination for their next trip? Try a combination of these 17 digital marketing tactics, thought up by our creative team.
Content Marketing:
The golden rule of content marketing is to provide something of value to your audience. Articles, videos, and graphics put together by your brand can help out travelers in a number of ways as they plan, pack, and embark on their travels. Here are a few ideas to jumpstart your brainstorming process:
- Articles/videos about local restaurants, popular attractions or the destination’s history.
- Online or downloadable maps.
- Road trip guides.
- Digital photobooks/slideshows.
- Travel blog contests.
- Photo contests.
Email Marketing:
Entering travelers into an email marketing flow or newsletter can be a great way to build interest. Email is by far the most effective way to generate leads, but the key is to nurture those leads until they’re ready to travel. Here are a few ways to do so:
- Send monthly articles/videos/photos related to the destination.
- Send out discounts to nearby attractions or vendors.
- Send out reminder emails in advance of upcoming events.
Social Media Marketing:
Your social channels can be used for two things: ads and presence. Millennials and younger generations will seek you on channels like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, so you better be there, be active, and have content available. To get the most out of your social presence, rely on a mix of organic and paid content to increase followers, and put a strong effort into creating quality content audiences will want to follow. Here are a few examples of social content:
- Facebook live videos of the destination.
- Facebook Event Pages for special occasions.
- High-quality photos of destination on Instagram.
- Snapchat filters.
- Collections of user-generated content on Instagram via hashtags.
Search Engine Optimization
Never forget about Search Engine Optimization. It’s especially important for destinations that travelers would take an impulsive day or weekend trip to, if only the info would present itself while they search over coffee. To ensure you’re found, here are a few SEO tactics to work on.
- Blog more often (see content marketing list above).
- Write descriptive and accurate meta tags and title tags for each webpage.
- Build more links to your website.
It’s an exciting time to be in tourism and travel marketing. The millennial audience loves to travel, they’re open to online promotions and when good times are had, they almost always promote the places they went on social media. But more importantly, it’s simply fun to read, watch videos or view ads about destinations. Much more so than with your typical product or service.
With these conditions, even the smallest of attractions can make a big impact, as long as you choose the right tactics for your goals and your destination.
To learn more about marketing strategies and what could work best for you, feel free to give us a shout or subscribe to our integrated marketing newsletter.