In 2024 video is a necessity when it comes to advertising your travel business. There is no better way to demonstrate the emotional impact of a destination or experience than a well-crafted video. With over 80% of people between the ages of 18-49 using YouTube every month, video has become a powerful tool to bring future customers to you.
66% of people use video to help them choose a destination to visit and a further 54% use video to help them determine their accommodations. Given these figures, it's easy to see why video is integral in helping your agency reach customers, separate your brand from competitors, and drive bookings.
The Power of Video in Consumer Travel
Video is particularly effective in demonstrating your brand beyond just photography. While pictures can do a great job of showing events and activities Video takes it a step further and puts the customer in the shoes of the experience.
Video allows the emotion of the experience to cross boundaries through the computer screen and impact them in a way that no other medium has the power to do. A video takes a customer from mere curiosity to excitement and action.
Whether it's the feeling of adventure in a jungle safari, the thrill of a zipline, or the relaxation of a tropical cruise in the sun-soaked Caribbean, video breaks barriers and prompts emotional responses.
Video Stages in the Travel Customers' Journeys
There are three different stages of the consumer thought process that video helps with. The first stage is awareness, The second is consideration, and the third is decision.
Awareness
Video platforms such as YouTube draw in 100 million unique visitors who travel each month. 64% of people who watch travel-related videos do so when planning for a trip. Videos are also extremely sharable, and through social media can reach a much wider audience than traditional text-based content alone.
The primary objective of the Awareness stage is creating destination videos that inspire the customer to take action. Videos that get them thinking, “Wow I could see myself on this vacation or experience!” Tapping into emotions is a video's specialty and drives consumers to make decisions. Once travelers are inspired by the destination videos they move onto the Consideration stage.
Consideration
The consideration stage is where the consumer is looking for more resources to determine whether they want to go with your company or not. Three in five travelers who watch video online do it to narrow down brands, destinations, or activity choices. Showcasing specific tours, activities, and customer testimonials is important in this stage.
A company could also make videos about performing certain activities such as ziplining or riding on a helicopter to reduce people's uncertainty who are on the fence. Demonstrating an activity lessens the barrier between the customer and it.
Decision
In the decision stage, consumers are ready to book but are still comparing your company with your competitors. In this stage “why us” videos are used to separate you from your competitors. In these videos, you can emphasize the unique selling points or values of your company. Emotionally charged content can play a big role in this stage and help get prospective customers over the finish line.
You can also choose to create promotional content that focuses on seasonal events or limited-time-only videos. This creates a sense of urgency and fear of missing out prompting the customer to take action.
Types of Videos that Drive Engagement
Destination Highlights
Destination highlights showcase the natural beauty of a destination. From lush rolling hills to waves on a beach. They allow the consumer to get a taste of what it’s like to experience a destination and whet their appetite for more. Destination Videos serve as a powerful call-to-action prompting the would-be traveler to truly envision themselves in the destination.
Influencer Collaborations.
Influencer collaborations are an effective strategy that leverages an influencer’s audience and gets your brand wider recognition. There is no shortage of Influencers on video platforms willing to collaborate for travel opportunities allowing a lucrative partnership with your company.
User Generated Content
Encouraging customers who have used your brand to share their experiences is another powerful way to get your brand in front of the public eye. Having third parties share their experience gives social proof and leverages their following for potential business leads.
Running contest campaigns and rewarding creativity is an effective way to get high-quality video content for your company. Offering discounts and promotions for quality content is a powerful incentive. Encouraging customers to share content under a single hashtag makes it easier for your company to aggregate the content.
Explainer Videos
Explainer Videos allow you to demonstrate more complex activities or tours showing a step-by-step process. This takes all of the guesswork out for the consumer and makes it an easier experience for them overall.
Storytelling Techniques in Tourism Videos
Creating emotional connections
Video is invaluable in making emotional connections with your customers. According to a USC study, 16% of purely rational advertisements succeeded vs 31% of advertisements with an emotional pull. At an almost 2x success rate it's clear to see how much emotions play in consumer behavior.
I want to challenge you to think about your favorite movie and why it's your favorite. You would probably come up with an emotional response first before formulating a rationale behind it. That's the power of emotions.
Showcasing Authentic Experiences
Showcasing authentic experiences goes a long way to building trust and credibility with customers. Whether documenting excursions, customer testimonials, or activities. Authenticity showcases reliability and trust.
Leveraging Video, Audio, and Pacing
Creating stunning landscape shots, dynamic action shots, or culturally rich city shots all help convey the emotional appeal of the destination. Music and audio helps to set the tone of the entire piece. All of these factors used in congruence with pacing allow you to create a slow relaxing video or an action-packed fast-paced video. Using these three pieces with the final intent in mind helps craft a compelling story for the viewer.
With notoriously shrinking attention spans of modern audiences, it’s important to capture their attention in the first few seconds with a hook to keep them engaged for the duration of the video.
Best Practices for Creating Effective Travel Videos
Planning and Production
When creating effective video content related to travel the groundwork is laid in the pre-production stage. Here you determine your overall goal of the content. Is it to inform? A call-to-action? To humanize your brand?
Understanding intent is important at this stage. What do you want out of it and what do you want the customer to get out of it? Useful tools in this stage include storyboarding, scriptwriting, and pre-production meetings with the production company of your choice.
Optimization for performance
When it comes to the success of video content it is important to optimize it for the platform you intend to put it on. Optimization looks different on YouTube than it does on TikTok. There are other platforms you can optimize for such as Instagram and Facebook. You can take a video and optimize it for all the different platforms or pick a single platform and run with that.
Call-To-Action
A call-to-action informs the viewer what next steps to take after viewing a video. Some examples include “Click here for more” “Book now” or “Visit our website for more details.” An effective call-to-action offers a clear and easy path to the next action you want your viewer to take.
Measuring Success and ROI of Video Content
Key Metrics to Track
The Key metrics to track include viewer engagement rates, how long a video is viewed, shares, and conversions. Depending on your goal each metric has its place in the success of your video content. High viewer engagement and shares directly reflects strong interest, while higher conversions affect monetary outcomes.
Refining Strategies
Using key metric data along with viewer feedback can help you refine your content for better results in the future. Making tweaks like the video's message, the call-to-action, or using different visuals or overall tone can improve the outcome of the video depending on your goals.
A/B testing is where you compare two competing types of content to see which performs better. Using A/B testing is an effective way to determine the best advertisement. You can use it to test videos of differing lengths, different call-to-actions, differing visual styles, and differing platform optimizations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, video is an extremely effective way to connect with consumers and improve awareness and revenue for your travel company, with the growth of short-form content on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok and the prominence of long-form content on platforms like YouTube, The future looks bright for using video content to connect with travel consumers.
Understanding video and the impacts of emotionally packed content is vital in converting prospective customers. With over a decade of experience, The Film Crew Company has the knowledge and skill to help your company navigate the world of effective video advertising. Click this link to schedule a free consultation today.
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