Five tips for keeping up with mobile travel technology
As the leader of Fahlgren Mortine’s tourism practice, I read a lot of articles and blog posts about trends shaping the travel industry. Last week I came across an article in USA Today titled “Smart phones have changed the way we travel.” You can say that again.
The article gives a long list of examples of how today’s travelers are using smart phones, and it provides more evidence that the travel industry is leading the way with some of the most innovative applications. As marketers, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by new technologies.
So do you need a mobile Web site? Should you create an app? The answer is almost always “it depends,” and it would take much more than a blog post to explain how to evaluate your specific needs. In today’s world, it’s easy to get “caught up in keeping up,” meaning that there’s a huge temptation to jump into new trends because everyone else is doing it. I would contend that the most important thing you can do is relax and take a step back.
If you’re in the beginning stages of creating your mobile strategy, here’s a list of five basic things you can do to ensure your strategy is on target before you take a costly leap into mobile marketing.
1.) Get the right equipment. If you’re the one driving strategy on mobile efforts, you need to be comfortable with smart phone technology. No offense to the Jitterbug, but you simply can’t afford to resist making the switch to an app-friendly device.
2.) Register your mobile domain. Even if you have just begun thinking about mobile marketing, visit GoDaddy.com or another domain registrar to claim the .mobi version of your attraction or brand’s URL.
3.) Play. Once you have the right phone, play with apps - particularly travel apps relevant to your specific sector of the industry. If you represent a hotel, experiment with booking engine apps such as Kayak, and visit the mobile sites of some large hospitality brands to learn best practices you can apply to your own strategy.
4.) Practice. Experiment with the sites and apps making headlines, such as Foursquare, Urbanspoon and Yelp. You may not care to be the mayor of the local public library or Starbucks, but learning how these tools work often inspires strategic, marketing-focused ideas. It’s also an important part of learning the mobile language.
5.) Pretend. Forget everything you know in your daily job and pretend to be a potential visitor, armed with nothing more than a smart phone and maybe a suitcase. I truly believe this is the best way for any attraction, DMO, property or brand to improve customer service and find new marketing strategies that work. For example, pretend you’re new to the city and trying to find information or driving directions via your phone. Is your site easy to find? Are you performing well in search results? Is there anything leading traffic to your doorstep?
These are just a few of the basic things you can do, and the theme here is just to jump in and start exploring. Think of it like swimming. No matter how many how-to guides and blog posts you read about swimming, there are certain things you just can’t learn until you try them for yourself.
And remember, if at first you don’t succeed, there’s an app for that.
