Ms. Vendice

Sales & Marketing

Using DRTV to Drive Online Travel Reservations

By Beth Vendice, President, Mercury Media Boston

Despite the growth of the Internet, social media, and mobile media usage, no company can afford to ignore the continued growth of TV. It is the ultimate audience driver and, for the travel industry, it continues to be the best way to communicate your most compelling offer. In fact, The Travel Channel’s CEO Ken Lowe recently told Mediaweek that direct response accounted for more than 30 percent of his business.

Lately, we’ve given a lot of thought to the integration of TV and digital media. From our point of view, TV is the driver of everything, including online reservations. On the surface, using DRTV to drive online reservations may seem like an easy and straightforward solution. Just list a URL along with the 800 number at the bottom of your commercial, right? Wrong. There are a lot of considerations a DRTV advertiser needs to make when integrating online data capture and reservations with a successful TV spot. We’ve identified the top ten, and they go for beyond the simple listing of a URL.

1. Define your objectives

This is not the old sales and marketing cliché. You need to pinpoint exactly why you are driving customers online from a TV spot. If your property or destination lacks historical customer data, adding online registration capabilities to your website can serve as an excellent way to begin collecting that data. If your destination offers a lot of package options and local tourist attractions, like Colonial Williamsburg, it may be the perfect candidate you may choose to drive potential customers to a more expansive web resource that you have housed on your website – serving first as an informational resource and second as a booking mechanism. This approach will also allow you to collect more information about potential visitors by monitoring what they are looking at on your website and asking them for contact information for follow up materials. If you are simply trying to entice existing customer to book successive trips to a familiar destination, using traditional direct response methods should do the trick.

2. Define the proper creative for the TV spot

The reason you would use DRTV to drive online reservations is complex. Enticing a customer to call immediately to book a travel reservation or to get more information about a destination is a very visual project. The images use have to look so compelling that the customer just has to see more. If you are a familiar destination or property, you may be able to simply offer an 800 number and limited time offer to entice reservations. However, when you’re asking customers to go to a website to learn more about a less familiar property, your pitch needs to promise valuable information. The website you’re asking customer to go to should be a compliment to your TV spot. So think of the TV spot as a promise for more information, along with compelling images that make the viewer want to learn more.

3. Define the TV offer

If you want to drive online reservations using DRTV you need to put serious thought into your offer. Make sure the TV offer communicates a special deal for customers that they can only get online. Repeat the URL several times. You might even think about dropping the 800 number altogether, but we wouldn’t recommend that. There will always be a segment of your audience that wants to call. But if you want to drive people online, give them a sense that something is waiting there that will surprise them.

4. Define the website offer

The website offer needs to make good on the excitement your TV spot created among your consumers. It can include a discount for booking online, a discount for forwarding to a friend, or a chance to experience something extra when they reach their destination as an online customer. Whatever it does, make sure an aggressive offer is extended for registering online and a more aggressive one is extended for booking online.

5. Consider the onboarding process

Onboarding is the practice of welcoming the customer, with the sprit and intention that they will be a customer forever. Now, because your online customer has already interacted with your TV spot, and has engaged enough to take the next step in that interaction with your company, you should be sure to roll out a digital red carpet. The language on the website must acknowledge that the customer is here as a result of that TV spot. The offer is important, but also make sure that the welcoming center is front and center so that your potential customers feel appreciated, know where to click for more information and always know where to click for booking. After all, the best customer is a repeat customer.

6. Create segmented landing pages

Consider creating several landing pages with unique URLs that offer different levels of onboarding and different kinds of onboarding messages. The URL listed in your print ads can have a slightly different address than those listed in your TV ads. The copy can be customized to reflect the original advertisement as well. Put simply, the spot you run on The Travel Channel can have its own landing page that reflects the ad and personally welcomes the customers visiting your website as a result of it. The more customized you can be in the welcoming process, the more intensely a customer will feel their engagement. In addition, segmented pages allow you to track response rates for each ad you have running.

7. Keep the web traffic limited

Remember that you’re running an online booking campaign, not a website. Keep it clean and quick. In fact, don’t push customers too far off the landing page. One or two clicks should be enough to book them.

8. Analyze all media

The beauty of DRTV is its continued ability to test before launch and then optimize after launch. But with an online campaign, make sure both digital and broadcast media are being analyzed. Maybe the first wave of spots is driving traffic but not conversions. Before you run to change the TV spot, make sure the website is user friendly enough to make those conversions easy. Analyze the TV driver and analyze the website performance as well.

9. Create and foster a dialogue

We all want 100 percent conversion rates. But for the customers who visit the website and don’t register, make sure you get enough information to follow up for next time. Keep that information simple. It’s more important to get an email address than to get an entire registration from a customer that is “just looking.” Your ability to stay in touch with a potential customer with new offers and information until they are ready to book is the key to your success.

10. Make sure your contact center is ready

As we said earlier, there will always be a percentage of your customers that needs to pick up the phone. And just because a customer has registered online, don’t assume they won’t want to call at some point before their trip. Cover all of your bases and have your contact center open for business.

At its best, the Internet is an information source and a platform for customer dialogue. For the travel industry, the internet is just starting to reach that potential. Meshing DRTV with online booking will help the travel industry achieve its full digital potential.

Beth Vendice joined Mercury in 2001 and brought with her over 10 years of national client service experience. Ms. Vendice has led the firm to significant year-over-year growth by attracting clients that include Mandalay Bay Resorts Group, Neutrogena, LifeLock, Liberty Medical, Boost Mobile, Conair, Vegas.com, among others. Ms. Vendice is President of Mercury Media Boston and is responsible for leading the strategic direction and day-to-day operations of the national short-form practice. She has over 20 years of experience partnering with clients in a range of industries to successfully extend their marketing scope and appreciably grow their businesses. Ms. Vendice can be contacted at 508-449-3222 or bvendice@mercurymedia.com Extended Bio...

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