Capturing your potential customers’ attention at the ‘dreaming’ stage of planning a trip is considered one of the most important things to accomplish. Video is a powerful way for travel and tourism brands to showcase the experiences they are offering and can help them tell stories to build trust, resonate with their audience and ultimately trigger bookings.
Click here for a more comprehensive read on the importance of video marketing in 2020 and beyond.
Travel purchases require an emotional decision to be made, so incorporating video into your digital marketing campaign can help boost the message you are putting across and as a result achieve bookings. Here’s why…
Does video content drive more engagement compared to other content types?
The answer is yes- there has been various studies that have investigated the power of video and the level of engagement it receives compared to other content types such as images or plain text. According to a Hubspot study, 83% of consumers would consider sharing a video with their friends if the content was relevant to their specific interests.
Video is on the up…
A study by Wyzowl found that in early 2017, 63% of businesses were using video within their marketing strategy and by the start of 2018, the figure had risen to 81%. The number has been rising since to 87% and is likely to continue to increase.
It has been found that 90% of marketers agreed that the level of competition and noise has increased in the past year, adding to the pressure to create engaging video content that is likely to be consumed and shared by followers.
The importance of video in travel marketing
With travel being such a unique, subjective experience, your audience is likely to respond differently to the video content you put out. Travel companies are finding ways to capture the attention of their audience and are quickly being exposed to the benefits that video marketing brings.
- 60% of travellers who view video content on social platforms use it as a factor in their decision-making process, whether that be choosing which brand to book with or their which destination they intend to travel to.
- Expedia experienced a 27% increase in referral traffic from YouTube and Skyscanner has reported a 59% increase year on year- a statistic that fully reflects the importance of video particularly within the travel and tourism industry.
- Almost half of travellers state that they are likely to book a trip immediately after watching a travel activity video and 62% of travellers stated that they would like to see a video before making a final booking decision.
Make your videos worth sharing
When it comes to sharing your own video content, there are some pointers to consider to ensure you are creating the best possible content that is likely to encourage engagement amongst your audience and social media following:
- Focus on the story you are telling- Ensuring that you have a compelling story around the video you are sharing will enable you to strike an emotional connection between the brand and the consumer. The better the story your video tells, the more engaging your piece of content will be and you will have a much higher chance of making an impact, especially in a crowded market.
- Timing is key- Research has found that on average, you have 10 seconds to make an impact on a consumer, before their attention is interrupted and you may lose them to another leading brand or competitor. You should aim to create videos that are around 2 minutes long, as research has found that engagement is significantly lower after this point. It is important to get all the information and messages that you want to get across in this time, but if this decreases the quality of your videos, split them up into shorter, more attention-grabbing pieces of content.
- Mobile Friendly. Over half of video content is viewed on mobile making it a hugely important consideration when it comes to posting video content. Consider optimising the orientation, aspect ratio and any captions on your video to ensure it is suitable for mobile use.
As the digital landscape continues to grow and evolve along with increased screen time and video consumption, travel video content is likely to continue to be a valuable asset to all travel and tourism brands. The role that video plays in the entire journey from raising awareness, assisting in the destination selection, right through to booking can ultimately be down to the way the video engages with the consumer, through sight, sound and motion. You can find out more about our travel digital marketing services here.
Social media trends in travel whitepaper
Social media has become the ultimate form of word of mouth marketing; so as a travel business, discovering how to leverage your audience is key.
In this whitepaper we cover a variety of topics from techniques to integrate into your social strategy, types of content to use, and the benefits of individual platforms, empowering you to head into 2020 with a social media strategy that gives you confidence.
