The Essential Ingredient For A Travel Website That Sells

Quick question: what do you think is the most important part of any website or blog?

The design? The copywriting? The photos? Nope, nope and nope.

If you want to get the best results from your online marketing, there’s one thing you must devote a ton of attention to: customer research. I’m talking about surveys, interviews and voice of customer data mining (we’ll get into this later).

Basically, figuring out exactly what type of messages will have the biggest impact on travelers. With the right information, you’re far better equipped to create a website that:

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• Contains the exact information your audience is looking for
• Shows images that will snatch the attention of your prospects
• Has headlines that’ll entice travelers to click deeper into your site
• Uses a tone of voice that resonates and connects with your visitors

[/custom_list] If you aren’t doing a swack load of customer research before writing your web copy, blog articles or e-mails, how do you know what will work?

For OTAs and travel startups, this type of research is even more important because you probably haven’t spent much time chatting to your customers.

Research will help you figure out what your prospects really want. It’ll also allow you to develop a value proposition that will differentiate your company from the competitors. But even if you’re the hands-on manager type who’s been running your hotel or tour company for years, the right research can help you re-focus your marketing efforts and fire up your ROI. You just need to ask the right questions.

And the best way to do that is with a survey or interview. [toggle_content title=”An Example Of How Research Helps”]

Still not 100% sure if doing loads of customer research is worth it? Here’s a scenario that I hope clarifies things.

It’s a hypothetical situation, but one that reflects a challenge my clients encounter all the time.

Let’s say a rock climbing tour company decides to redesign its website. The owner fills the homepage with action-packed copy and thrilling images of daring twenty-somethings dangling from jagged cliffs. It looks awesome.

The website is intense, maybe even a little aggressive. And everyone who works at this company (all twenty-somethings themselves) thinks it’s the coolest thing since Red Bull.

The problem? Every rock-climbing tour company in this operator’s market are all portraying the same adrenaline-soaked image. Meanwhile, there’s a growing number of families taking up the sport – in fact, this market is starting to outpace the younger demographic.

But when these family-minded folks Google ‘rock climbing tours’, they’re hit with images of young thrill-seekers, flashy designs and hyped-up copywriting that orders them to “Conquer These Cliffs!”

The 45-year-old father of three who’s looking at the website isn’t up for conquering anything. He just wants to have a nice time with his kids. So he bounces off the homepage. A website survey would have painted a more accurate picture of the type of people dropping by this tour company’s site.

And then, the text and images could have been adjusted accordingly. And even if these twenty-something rock climbers knew that more families were interested in the sport, they may have no idea about what type of messages that would resonate with this emerging market. Until the survey went up, of course.

Now, I’m sure you have a better idea of your target market than this fictional rock climbing company.

But are you 100% positive about what your prospects want when they arrive at your website? Are you confident that the tone of voice your website uses will connect with your ideal customer?

Unless you’re clear on this, there’s a good chance some of your top prospects are leaving your website without realizing that your business is perfect for them. So survey your customers or website visitors and see what they have to say. [/toggle_content]

So here are 3 ways to survey your customers to create targeted content that’ll connect with your ideal traveler.

Customer Surveys

These are great for understanding the mindset of your customers.

A well-crafted survey sheds light on why they chose your business, which is essential for figuring out what to say on your website or blog. So fire off an e-mail with a quick survey after travelers have taken your tour, stayed in your hotel or booked a flight on your site.

Once you have enough survey data, you can reflect those responses in everything from your website copy to your design and choice of photos.

The type of questions to include in your surveys really depends on what you need to know. Are you confident in who your target audience is? If not, ask for more demographic-focused information: age, gender, profession etc. This will help you develop a clearer customer persona.

But always try to nail down what was going on in their lives before they started looking for the type of service or experience you provide. Were they hunting for a solution to a problem, such an easier way to find cheap flights? Were they trying to find the swankiest hotel in Vancouver? Or were getting your newsletter for months before finally deciding to book a once-in-a-lifetime tour? If so, what made them decide to buy at that moment?

And of course, ask them what they liked best about your travel company and why. Were they all blown away by your hotel’s pool? Maybe you should highlight that amenity on your homepage. Did they love how affordable your tours are? Stick it in your main headline.

Be sure to include at least one open-response question. Multiple choice or radio buttons will earn you more responses, but an open question will give you insight into the natural language of your prospects. The words they use, the phrases they prefer — all stuff that should influence your website copywriting.

I’d keep the survey to 5-8 questions, with maybe 2-3 fill-in-the blank style questions. A few Qs you might ask include:

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• What was going on in your world that caused you to coming looking for a [product/service/destination] like ours?
• What did you like best about your experience and why?
• What three words would you use to describe us?

[/custom_list] If you operate a travel website, like an OTA, your questions are obviously going to be different from a survey for a hotel or tour company. Just keep your goal in mind: finding the words that reveal what your prospects want most and how they feel about your business.

Website Surveys

These type of surveys are perfect for determining who’s dropping by your website and exactly what they want when they get there.

The trick is to keep ‘em short and simple. Your website visitors won’t be nearly as engaged with your brand as your customers, so they’re going to be less likely to fill out a long survey.

I recently worked on a project where the client’s site got 10,000 unique hits a day. Yet in one week, we had just 70 responses (I intentionally made the survey a tad on the long side, though).

So depending on the traffic you get, it might be best to just include a few multiple choice questions. Better yet, slap a single-question (non-intrusive) survey on your website using a service like Qualaroo or Feedback Daddy (just look to your bottom right to see one in action). It’s a great way to confirm or bust an assumption about your target audience or to quickly discover (in your prospects’ own words) what they want from a website like yours.

Customer Interviews

Ah, the one-on-one interview. I admit, these aren’t always easy.

Folks are busy these days and not everyone will be willing to give up 30 minutes of their time to chat about their experience with your business. But getting a great interview can reveal valuable insight.

Unlike surveys, live interviews allow you to tailor your questions to the customer’s responses. You can get more specifics, clarify their answers and uncover much more in-depth information.

Unless you do a lot of them (which will take a while), customer interviews shouldn’t be used in isolation. It’s important that you cross-check your interviewees’ responses against your survey data to make sure you’re not basing any decisions on a single person’s preferences.

Not comfortable interviewing people? OK, fair enough. If you’re in the enviable position of speaking with your customers on a regular basis, you can slip a few questions into your conversations in order to gain some insight. Just be sure to document the results.

What if you can’t survey your customers or site visitors?

Are you a startup that doesn’t have many customers yet? Or maybe you’ve determined that surveying or interviewing them is too difficult.

Next month, I’ll delve into the fine art of voice of customer data mining – a technique I learned from conversion copywriting guru Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers. This involves digging into reviews on TripAdvisor, forum posts and social media to find the messages that’ll help you engage, inspire and convert more travelers.

If you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter already, that’s the best way to get the article as soon as it’s published. And in the meantime, if you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments below.  

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