As a travel brand, you’ve probably heard of personalisation before – it’s the idea that every customer gets a unique experience on your website by tailoring the content to their interests, location, and other factors.
Online platforms like Amazon, Netflix and Facebook have raised customers’ expectations for how they should be treated online. Nowadays, customers expect the brands that they shop with to be able to treat them as individuals.
This is especially true for travel brands.
People’s holiday and travel plans are very personal to them, and we all want that unique holiday experience. So when shopping for a travel purchase online, we want to see something that relates to us, whether that’s a romantic city break, a lifetime bucket list trip to a far flung destination, or a trip to see a big sporting event.
If you can show that you are taking a customer’s requirements and preferences into account with what you are offering them, that’s half the battle in winning them over. These days, it is table stakes for eCommerce businesses.
Personalisation can make a big difference for travel brands. It allows you to stand out in a competitive market, and give your customers the feeling that you really understand their needs. 80 percent of frequent shoppers surveyed in a 2019 report from Smarter HQ said they only shop with brands that offer a personalised experience.
With personalisation, you can create a custom experience for each customer that reflects their individual preferences increasing the chances they will buy from you, and encouraging them to return to your website.
But personalisation can be more challenging than it seems. It requires a brand to have a deep understanding of their customers and think strategically about their content and product offering.
A focus on personalisation can ultimately lead you to more thoughtfully gather valuable data about your customers’ interests and behaviours, which can be then used to improve your marketing strategy and target your customers more effectively. It can be a continuous loop of improvement, but you have to take that first step. It’s a competitive market out there.
If you’re in the industry, you know that competition is fierce and each brand strives to offer a unique experience in person to stand out from the rest. The online experience should be customised and reflect the same quality experience you aim to give your customers post-booking.
Here are some of the benefits that website personalisation can offer your travel brand:
1. Increased Engagement – When you personalise your website, you are speaking to them on an individual basis. This creates a feeling of connection and engagement that will encourage them to stay on your site for longer, exploring more of what you have to offer, and (hopefully) making a purchase.
2. Improved Conversion Rates – A personalised website experience can result in improved conversion rates as visitors are more likely to take action when the content is relevant to their needs and preferences. It can cost a lot to get customers to actually visit your site in the first place, so it’s essential to make the most of each visit that occurs.
3. Greater Customer Loyalty – Sharing relevant content and offers to your customers can go a long way to strengthening customer loyalty. If you shop with a certain brand regularly but you visit their website or app and they don’t offer you personalised content or recommendations this creates a disconnect. Show your customers that you understand them and value their loyalty.
4. Boosted SEO Rankings – Personalised websites tend to perform better in search engine results due to the increased engagement and conversion rates mentioned above. This means that more people are likely to find your content online.
Now that you know why personalisation matters and the benefits it has for your brand, it’s time to understand how to start implementing website personalisation. When done well, website personalisation can provide a significant boost to your travel brand’s bottom line. Once buy-in has been reached, it now falls to finding the best software.
One of the industry leading digital experience platforms that can get you started with personalisation is Sitecore. Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) enables brands to use customer data to provide users with a unique experience and the analytics to measure the impact of their strategy against their business KPIs, cutting out the guesswork and focusing on data-driven decision-making. Sitecore also enables beautiful, intelligent, and consistent experiences that directly speak to each customer no matter the channel.
If you’re ready to hence the capabilities of website personalisation get in touch with Sitecore Platinum Partner, Sagittarius at hello@sagittarius.agency.
Don’t let your competitors be the only ones to reap the benefits of website personalisation.
