2009 Survey – Online Marketing and Web Content Executive Summary Frommer’s Unlimited in conjunction with TravelMole surveyed 225 travel companies worldwide on online marketing and web content priorities. The results indicate 2010 will be another bumper growth year for online marketing spend in travel, with over half of those surveyed indicating they plan to increase spending next year. Of that group, half plan to increase their budgets by 11-50%. According to respondents, engaging with social media is the biggest priority for travel marketers, followed by search engine optimisation, and content as the next largest areas of increasing spend. Two thirds of respondents plan to increase spending on content. We believe one possible objective is to improve search engine marketing performance, which also reflects the fact that unique content is a priority for twice as many respondents as last year. Among the other areas respondents ranked as growing in importance are destination content (70% this year as compared to 20% last year) and addressing international markets with investment in multilingual content as a priority.
Introduction Frommer’s Unlimited undertook this survey in an effort to better understand how companies are maximizing their online investments to yield meaningful results. With the increasing importance of the internet as a sales channel, along with the growth in cost per click marketing and customer lead generation through natural search, there are tremendous opportunities in the travel sector. This second annual survey was carried out to determine trends in digital marketing and web content development priorities. The opportunity to complete the survey was offered to a wide range of travel businesses marketing and ecommerce managers. In addition, we partnered with TravelMole.com to solicit global responses through their newsletters.
Who responded? There were 225 respondents to the survey across a wide range of sectors within travel, with 115 completing all ten questions. The sectors represented a good cross section of the travel industry and included: media/publishing, travel agencies, hotels & hospitality, operators/consolidators, airlines, tourist offices, rail, cruise, car rental and travel insurance.
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Results Marketing Budgets Online marketing continues to be a priority for survey respondents, with 86% planning to either keep spending at current levels or to increase budgets. The majority (54%) are increasing their online marketing budgets, with half of those planning an increase of 11-50%.
Is your online marketing budget changing this year?
31%
Increasing Decreasing 54%
Remaining the same
15%
Priorities for online marketing Social media marketing is gathering attention and budget share with 60% reporting that they plan to increase spending this year. Search engine optimisation and content also captured increasing spend for over half of the respondents. Display advertising and spend with meta search companies remain static again this year.
Of your online spending plansonline this year, is yourplans spendthis on: year, is your spend on: Of your spending
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Increasing
Remaining the same
Decreasing
Social media marketing
60%
22%
4%
Search Engine Optimisation
57%
30%
5%
Content
54%
34%
4%
AdWords
39%
35%
11%
Display advertising
26%
35%
22%
Meta Search
26%
47%
6%
Frommer’s Unlimited & TravelMole
Frommers.biz
Cost per visitor Of those that responded to this question, 76% reported a cost per visitor across their online marketing mix of under $5 with 36% being less than $1 and 39% falling between $1 - 5.
What is your average cost per visitor across your online marketing mix? (in US dollars)
11% 36%
13%
Under $1 $1 - $5 $5 - $10 Over $10
40%
Budgets for online content Spending for online content continued to track closely to online marketing budget trends this year; however, there was a higher priority on content than online marketing. We saw an increase in the percent of respondents that plan to increase spend on content or keep it at the same level, 95% this year compared to 90% last year. The majority this year (66%), plan to increase spending with an increase of 11-50% being the most common in this group. Only 5% planned to decrease their online content budget this year, compared to 10% last year.
Is your web content budget changing this year?
29% Increasing
5%
Decreasing 66% Remaining the same
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Priorities for online content Overall there seems to be a much higher interest in improving the broad range of content offered by travel sites. Search engine optimisation continues to be a top priority for web content budgets this year, selected by over 84% of respondents, up from 67% last year. In tandem with this spending, unique content has shown a dramatic increase now being included in 81% of people’s plans, nearly double last year’s of just 41%. Adding destination content was in the plans of 80% of responders, up from 57% last year, as were adding events content up from 26% to 70%. There is evidence that companies are looking to international markets more this year, with the number planning to invest in multi-lingual content up from 13% to 79%. Adding to or improving hotel and property descriptions is also up from 26% to 76% and image galleries increased from 28% to 75%. Mobile phone delivery, audio, and video were the lowest priorities this year, yet identified as top future initiatives.
Where do you plan to spend your web content budget?
Where do you plan to spend your web content budget?
Search engine optimisation Unique content Destination content Google or other mapping Multi-lingual sites Product/property desc.(eg hotel desc) Image galleries
This year
Marketing campaign microsites
Next year
Blogs Events listings User-generated content Video Mobile phone delivery Audio or podcasts 0%
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25%
50%
75%
100%
Frommers.biz
Multi-lingual priorities English is the most common language currently used to reach customers (98%), with 65% targeting European and 53% Asian language markets. About half of respondents indicated they plan to use European (49%) and Asian (56%) languages in the future.
languages do you use,toorreach plan your to use, to What languages What do you use, or plan to use, customers? reach your customers?
100% 75% 50%
Currently use
25%
Plan to use
0% English
European Asian languages languages
Priorities when adding content What are companies trying to achieve by adding content to their sites? Top priorities have shifted this year. Attracting search traffic was the first priority for 35% of respondents, compared with 19% last year. Increasing conversions, which had the top spot last year, was the second most popular priority. The presumption could be made that those surveyed believe that more qualified traffic to their site will help drive more customer conversions. Building community and capturing customer data were least often selected as priorities this year, which was consistent with last year’s survey.
are your top 5 priorities adding content to your website? What are your top What 5 priorities when adding contentwhen to your website?
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1st Priority
2nd priority
3rd Priority
4th Priority
5th priority
Attracting search traffic
35%
22%
29%
7%
8%
Increasing conversions
29%
32%
16%
16%
7%
Brand Building
25%
12%
21%
22%
21%
Other
23%
0%
8%
0%
69%
Targeting customer sectors
18%
29%
14%
28%
11%
Improved service and loyalty
10%
19%
23%
28%
20%
Capturing customer data
6%
14%
23%
22%
34%
Building community
5%
10%
15%
25%
44%
Frommer’s Unlimited & TravelMole
Frommers.biz
In house or outsourced content? Sixty percent (60%) of the respondents already outsource their content creation or plan to. This is an increase from last year, when 52% of those surveyed currently outsourced or planned to in the future. The remaining 40% do not outsource their content creation and plan to continue to service these needs using internal resources.
Do you currently outsource content creation?
40%
42% Yes No but plan to No and don’t plan to 18%
Content problems The overwhelming issue facing our respondents again this year is keeping their content up to date. 74% of those surveyed identified this as a problem, up from 66% last year. Creating content on brand, dealing with multiple sources, and integrating their content effectively with their products were each highlighted by a third of respondents. Write-in replies highlighted problems with having unique content for SEO and translation issues.
WhenWhen dealing withwith content, which dealing content, whichof ofthe the following following problems do do you experience? problems you experience? Keeping content up-to-date and accurate Creating content consistent with the brand Dealing with variety of third-party content providers Integrating content with products No problems Other 0%
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20%
40%
60%
80%
Frommers.biz
Research For a copy of last year’s survey and consumer survey, please visit frommers.biz/research
About Frommer’s Unlimited Frommer’s Unlimited is the business-to-business division of Frommer’s Travel. For more than 50 years, Frommer’s®, a branded imprint of Wiley, has been the trusted source of useful and engaging travel information. Frommer’s Unlimited enables businesses to create high-value propositions for their customers by leveraging Frommer’s travel expertise, rich content resources and technical capabilities. Products and services provided by Frommer’s Unlimited include global destination and events content, private label Websites, mobile applications and custom publishing. Frommer’s is a registered trademark of Arthur Frommer.
For more information visit frommers.biz or contact us: The Americas Craig Schickler Director of E-Business Development 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Phone: 201 748 5659 Fax: 201 748 5612 info@frommers.biz
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About TravelMole.com TravelMole is the oldest and largest online travel and tourism media company, serving over 400,000 travel and tourism industry professionals and 40 million consumer globally. In addition to the highly acclaimed TravelMole online publication, it’s five news bureaus around the world also publish VISION on Sustainable Tourism, Cruise Mole, Secret Agent, Travel Technology Digest, Hotel Resort Insider, WEEKEND destinations and various custom publications. Whether you are a consumer, travel agent, tour operator, conference and meeting planner, group travel organiser, tourist officer, trade supplier, hotelier, travel journalist, destination marketing officer, or other travel and tourism professional you will find a wealth of relevant, useful information here on TravelMole.com. Its Hollywood based film crew produce over 1,000 shorts clips each year, published on TravelMole.TV.
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