With marketing automation, travel business can streamline their marketing, deliver personalized experiences, nurture leads, and foster customer loyalty. Using these strategies helps drive sales by delivering relevant content to potential customers, nurturing leads through their journey, and providing a seamless and personalized booking experience.
We’ll look at how marketing automation can benefit travel businesses in this article, as we did before for food-tech industry.
Booking and Reservation Assistance
Marketing automation helps travel business help their customers book and reserve. Automation can guide customers through the booking process, provide real-time availability updates, and offer personalized recommendations based on their preferences. Following successful bookings, customers can get automated confirmation emails or push notifications with itineraries, booking references, and payment confirmations. The automation streamlines the booking process, improves customer satisfaction, and reduces manual work.
For example, a customer visits a travel website to book a hotel. The marketing automation platform tracks the customer’s browsing behavior and identifies their preferences, like location, travel dates, and budget. Dynamically display hotels, room types, and prices based on the customer’s preferences as they explore different options.
An automated booking assistance workflow can be triggered once the customer selects a hotel. It can guide the customer step-by-step to complete the reservation, making sure all the details are correct. Based on the customer’s preferences and availability, the automation system can also offer relevant upgrades, like breakfast packages or room upgrades.
As soon as the booking is confirmed, the automation system sends a confirmation email with the details, dates, and any other information the customer needs. The automated process simplifies the booking experience for the customer and reduces the need for manual intervention from the travel business.
Post-Booking Follow-up and Upselling
With marketing automation, travel businesses can upsell additional services or upgrades after customers book. Follow-up emails can be automated, providing customers with recommendations for additional activities, travel insurance, airport transfers, and room upgrades. Based on customer data and segmentation, the automation system can tailor these upselling offers based on the customer’s destination, travel dates, and preferences. The personalized approach maximizes revenue potential and encourages customers to travel more.
Let’s say a customer books a flight online. A post-booking follow-up workflow is triggered by the marketing automation system after the booking is complete. A personalized email is automatically sent to the customer, expressing gratitude and providing essential information like flight itinerary, baggage allowance, and check-in instructions.
Upselling offers can also be included in this email. It can suggest seat upgrades, priority boarding, or airport lounge access. Offers can be tailored to a customer’s travel preferences, loyalty status, or destination. Travel businesses want to entice customers to upgrade their travel experience and generate revenue by highlighting the benefits and convenience of these upgrades.
Further tracking of the customer’s interactions with these upselling offers is possible with the automation system. Customers who show interest but don’t buy can receive follow-up emails or reminders offering limited-time promotions or incentives to encourage them to buy.
Travel business can streamline the customer journey, provide personalized assistance, and drive additional revenue by offering relevant and enticing upgrades or add-on services with marketing automation for booking and reservation assistance, as well as post-booking follow-up and upselling.
Loyalty Programs and Rewards
Travel businesses can implement and manage customer loyalty programs with marketing automation platforms. Customers can be enrolled in loyalty programs, tracked for their activities, and rewarded based on their booking history and engagement. Your customers can get emails or push notifications about their loyalty status, upcoming rewards, or special promotions. Travel businesses can increase customer retention, encourage repeat bookings, and generate long-term revenue by nurturing customer loyalty.
Travel agencies, for example, launch loyalty programs. Whenever customers sign up on the agency’s website or app, the marketing automation platform automatically enrolls them in the loyalty program. Each customer gets a loyalty ID that allows them to track their bookings, points, and rewards.
Bookings and engagement with the agency are tracked by the automation system, and loyalty points are awarded. Customers can get automated emails about their loyalty status, points earned, and upcoming rewards.
Marketing automation can also trigger personalized offers and promotions. Automated emails can be sent to customers who’ve accumulated a lot of loyalty points, for example, with a special discount or deal.
Furthermore, the automation system can remind customers about their unused loyalty points and expiring rewards so they’ll make a new booking. Travel businesses can drive revenue growth by nurturing customer loyalty through automated communication and rewards.
Travel Updates and Notifications
Through marketing automation, travel businesses can keep customers up-to-date on flight delays, gate changes, and itinerary changes. To ensure timely communication and provide customers with information, automated notifications can be sent via email, SMS, or mobile app push notifications. Additionally, travel businesses can use automation to send pre-travel reminders, weather updates, and destination-specific recommendations. Automated updates and notifications make customers happier, improve the travel experience, and get them to write good reviews.
An airline has booked a vacation package for a traveler. An automated email or mobile notification is sent to the traveler before their departure date, giving them travel updates and info. Details like flight status, gate changes, baggage allowance, weather updates, and local restrictions might be included.
If there are any unexpected changes, like a flight delay or cancellation, the automated system can instantly send an automated notification with alternative options. The proactive communication keeps the traveler in the loop and minimizes any inconvenience.
Also, the automation system can send automated post-trip emails asking for feedback. This helps the travel business gather valuable insights, address any issues, and show their commitment to customers.
Using marketing automation for travel updates and notifications enhances the customer experience, reduces travel-related stress, and fosters positive customer sentiment. Automated communications show the business cares about its customers and build long-term relationships.
Usermost
Travel businesses can maximize their marketing efforts and drive sales with Usermost, a leading marketing automation platform. Travel businesses can target customers with tailored travel recommendations and exclusive promotions using Usermost. Businesses can engage potential customers throughout their journey, from initial inquiries to post-booking follow-ups, to increase conversions and upsell additional services. With Usermost’s dynamic website content capabilities, travel businesses can offer targeted offers, recommendations, and promotions based on visitors’ browsing behavior and preferences. As well as automating customer loyalty management and incentivizing repeat bookings, Usermost facilitates the implementation of loyalty programs and rewards. By providing real-time travel updates, itinerary changes, and important alerts, Usermost ensures timely and informative communication with customers. Using Usermost’s marketing automation platform, travel businesses can streamline their marketing efforts, enhance customer engagement, and grow revenue.