The five biggest challenges travel marketers face

Llama herd-member Dean Harvey summarises the biggest hurdles he’s faced during his career in travel marketing

1.       To in-house or to outsource: The perennial and cyclical debate, but the challenge is understanding when to bring skills in-house, and what roles in particular, and, if you do choose to use an agency, having transparency of cost versus expertise versus time/resource.

2.       The continued fragmentation of the media landscape: Customers are consuming media across an ever-widening range of channels, making it difficult for marketing directors to reach their target audience with their messages.

3.       Listening to what the customer thinks and feels about the brand and proposition: All too frequently, marketing leads are asked to make decisions in a vacuum of empirical information, ignoring the client as a touchpoint or feedback. Choices are made on instinct - or worse – ‘because its what we’ve always done’. Marketing directors can only focus on customer experience by building relationships with customers.

4.       The lack of interest in results: Time and time again, marketing teams (and agencies) zero-in on the ‘doing’ - getting work/campaigns/comms out of the door - and once it’s gone it’s forgotten. The test-learn-refine cycle – to understand exactly how the marketing has performed – is too often the victim of urgency.

5.       Low understanding across boardrooms of the intricacies and importance of brand and brand building: The internet provides instant ROI results for digital activity, meaning many companies have become hooked on low funnel activities (such as PPC) and activations where immediate results can be seen. If you truly want long-term growth you need to build your brand by selection, recognition, and choice (see below graph).