Vice President of Marketing, Travel Leaders Group CHALLENGE A - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Vice President of Marketing, Travel Leaders Group

A Rapidly-Changing Travel Market

CHALLENGE

Lead Gen Driving Deal Seekers

CHALLENGE

Selling the Travel Agents (Not Travel)

OPPORTUNITY

Evolving to Reach Those Who May Not Consider a Travel Agent

THE NEW CHALLENGE

The Travel Leaders Group Customer

7

Travel Leaders Group

Brian Hegarty

Vice President of Marketing, Travel Leaders Group

• APPROACH

2 3 4 1

The Travel Leaders Group approach

2 1 2 3 4

Understanding the challenge we are solving

• Unqualified inquiries through third-party channels resulted in

low-quality ity traffic ic and nd leads that frustrated agents

• Randomized assignment of leads that did qualify meant a

disconnect between the customer’s needs and the agent’s expertise

Cust stom

• mer:

r: Kate Mom of 2, looking to book a Disney cruise Agent ent: : Thoma

• mas

Specializes in European bicycling tours and foodie getaways

Not this: But this:

Not this: But this:

3 4 2 1

To run perpetually and at scale

• A marketplace

etplace of agents ts who have quali alified fied attrib ibutes utes in defined areas of expertise:

• Destinations,
• Interests and types of travel
• Suppliers
• This allows us to present

ent search h resul ults ts to prospects with agents who match h the expertise rtise quali lific ficatio ations ns that a customer is looking for

• The platform was plan

anned, ned, develop eloped ed and maintain intained ed in-hou house se by the TLG marketing and dev teams

Training ng

• Training, tip sheets and best practices
• Online training sessions on-demand
• Workshop sessions at events

Adoptio ption

• Leveraging the audience of agents who had a desi

sire e to drive e new traffic fic and no resources to drive demand

• The program feeds itself, su

success ess drives es the agents nts to engage ge in improving their profiles

Storytellin g Workshops

• Fost

ster ering ng content development skills

• Giving

ng the agents nts reso sour urces ces – help them do what we can’t:

• Discovering their value

proposition

• Capture and telling their stories
• Writing and editing
• Proving the case with

su successful essful early adopter ters s to encour urage ge growth wth

63 344

1 2 2 3 4

Investment doesn’t end at launch

• Use

ser testing sting

• Website UX
• Mobile focus
• Recorded sessions
• Data analysi

sis

• Acquisition channels — SEO/SEM/PPC, 3rd Party, email, social, etc…
• Matching algorithms
• Weekl

ekly and monthly thly tweaks aks

• Iterative development approach
• A/B test

stin ing: Button placement, multivariate, headline placement

• Agen

ent t particip cipati ation

• n optimization

• Cont

nten ent t is king ng

• Agent profiles with enhanc

nced ed conten ent t received 91% more lead ads vs. agents with basic profiles

• Technol
• log
• gy

y fac acilit litate ates opportu

• rtunit

ity

• Faceted search functionality expanded Google

indexed pages from a few w hundred ed to 100K

• Value

e of orga ganic ic traf affic ic

• SEO/SEM

/SEM accounts for 25% 25% of site traffic but 70% of leads generated

• Spee

eed d wins ns

• Agents who respond to a lead withi

hin n 24 hours have ve a 75% % increased eased chance e of closin ing g the lead

• Agents were nervous to launch a feedback mechanism
• Made it optional & provided training on how to turn a negative

review into a positive

• Less than half the agents have it on their profile
• Almost 20,000 reviews published on all profiles
• Search results now favor agent with more reviews

• Agents were nervous to launch a feedback mechanism
• Made it optional, and provided training on how to turn a

negative review into a positive

• Less than half the agents have it on their profile
• Almost 20,000 reviews published on all profiles
• Search results now favor agent with more reviews

What t have we learned? rned?

• Focus on agent as product
• AGC is the ‘secret sauce’ to success
• More unique content = more lines in the water
• Higher quality content = better bait
• Customers favor expertise over convenience of location

What t is new? ? What t is next? t?

• Travel Leaders Network impact
• Network affect
• More Agents = More Unique Content = More Authority = More Leads
• Result = 30%+ YOY growth in Q1

1 2 3 2 4

Broader (campaigns) and deeper (funnel)

• Incorporating profiles into specific marketing promotions
• Sign off and call-to-action from personal agent

• Moving up the funnel, optimi

imizi zing ng dema mand

• Very specific, hi

high-quality quality cont nten ent t su supporti

• rting

g cus ustom

• mer

er research habits, decision process and buyer journey

• Test

st pilot a relatively untapped market segment, then n expand pand

Destination Weddings & Honeymoons

Test Segment #1

• A new brand
• Lifestyle brand — emotional connection of WHY people travel
• Perpetual

etual demand nd gener erati ation

• n platform

rm

• Customer-centric and content-focused
• The

he importance rtance of the he rese search you u cond nducte cted

• Customer journey
• Persona targets
• Content mapping
• Content

tent variety ety targete eted to audience ce

• Transfo

sformatio rmation

• People, process, technology, content, data

The Results

• 100,000

00 leads generated

• 25% conversion rate from

lead to closed won

• $5,000

0 average sale

• $1

$125 25,00 000,000 0,000 in sales generated from this program

• Busi

sines ess s is P s P2P

• UCG Perso

sonaliz izes es your brand

• Authenticity, passion & credibility
• Life moves

ves fast st

• Good to be aware of trends

nds — bad to just st be trend ndy

• Know your customers & your product
• Build foundation on core fundamentals

Roundtable

Vice President of Marketing, Travel Leaders Group

Thank You!

Brian Hegarty, Travel Leaders Group