The foundation of your brand story is in place. Now, take it further with more exposure for your content, and boost your business prospects!

Yes, good-looking content is important but that’s not enough. It must be seen, accessed and engaged with widely to make its mark on your bottom line. It needs to work for you in a variety of marketing and sales channels on a global stage.

It started with the Story of your Product

You’ve invested blood, sweat and tears to get your product content looking the part – the heart, in fact, of your brand story. It’s vivid, interactive and visually-captivating: a feast for travel-hungry eyes and any computer mouse worth its cheese.

Your content has the ability to attract your target audience and take them on a sensory journey of moving imagery. It draws them in deeper and invites them to engage with the info that most interests them, retaining quality attention for longer. It’s a virtual experience of your offerings with the power to convert interest to action far better than the dull reams of clichéd text.

Then you bring your story to a call-to-action that makes it easy for travellers to act on a decision once it’s made. Now to give your golden goose some wings.

Then came the Digital Strategy

In a flash of magic, technology birthed the mighty hyperlink, with its clever cousin, the embed widget not far behind. Before you knew it, those complicated-looking URLs and lines of code simplified the movement of chunks of content from one place to another, effortlessly, super fast, without a drop of sweat spilt or trees felled in the process. These tools empower content to reach the eyes of a broader global audience easily and fast, exactly what a digital strategy should accomplish. Are you using it? If not, why not?

The hyperlink is versatile. It’s a supersonic choo-choo engine you can attach a single car to and send bite-sized content on its way, or attach everything at once as a comprehensive, self-contained, content express. The big difference is, a train only runs as far as there are tracks, whereas digital goes everywhere in cyberspace. Sharing it is as easy and sending it: highlight, copy, paste, send, repeat.

Like hyperlinks, an embed code is surprisingly unpretentious and simple to use – the geek gods made it so. Wherever you want to display your content – your website, partner sites, blogs – make this part of your strategy. Don’t let third parties misrepresent your product with a skewed version of your content when you are the authority on your brand and you already have the fab content to show for it.

Consistency in travel content has nothing to do with pancake batter, but everything to do with how the world out there perceives your products. You should control that – digital empowers you. Being online gives it a global reach, timeless across time zones, with optimal, around-the-clock access. If you translate it into different languages, it reaches even more souls. More eyes on and more traffic to your content bring more interest in your product, and better global sales prospects.

Along came Social Media Strategy

We live in an age when social media (SM) has become ubiquitous – it compels us to get involved and exploit it as a business resource. It comes ready-made with multiple audiences spanning from Baby Boomers to Millennials, and all the Generations X, Y and Z. This is where travel inspiration is most sought, destinations are researched, and peer reviews are shared. To be present and visible in that space, you need a strategy that takes your content into social sharing communities that influence each other’s travel choices.

  • Hyperlinks shared in Twitter and Facebook posts pull through the main image(s) attached to that piece of content like a show-n-tell product promo.
  • Tag trade partners and make them part of your story to foster credibility among your audience.
  • Post pretty pics from your image library and add your iBrochure link in the bio section of your Instagram account for viewers to click and consume.
  • Run direct-to-consumer campaigns via WhatsApp or email with a simple, succinct message sent to your contact list. It’s as easy for recipients to share your link with friends and family – like tentacles reaching out, touching here and there, in all different directions like a content octopus.

The worst case scenario is a couple of people get annoyed by the contact (like we all do after the umpteenth marketing cold call) but the best case scenario is this: People who are interested in your product content will appreciate being able to easily access relevant content at their leisure.

Also, there’s always someone who knows someone who’s planning a trip – it ultimately drives traffic to your content, with permission. That’s the last salvo of a good social media strategy for the global exposure of your products 24/7: a nice, organic nudge towards more sales prospects.

Mobile Strategy enters the fray

The importance of a mobile strategy is directly proportional to the modern consumer’s propensity to conduct their lives on mobile devices. Content that looks weird or is unpleasant to consume on a smart/iPhone, won’t cut the mustard. As the demand for great user experience (UX) design grows, consumers will assume a brand isn’t very tech savvy (or considerate of them) if its content bleeds off-screen.

It’s got to be easy to use, navigate and interact with. Trends indicate that travel research is most likely to start on mobile. Also consider how frequently people access Facebook while they’re playing on their phones – these are opportunities for your content to earn views and engagement. Your content operating in that space must be made-for-mobile, accessible anywhere, anytime, translated into multiple languages – it’s a way of communicating directly and deliberately with your target audience.

Your operators clients and agents are already building mobile-friendly itineraries; so support them with product content that fits the format, and let your brand soar further still.

Collaborations Bring it Full Circle

Speaking of serving trade partners, nothing serves you exposure on a silver platter like making it easy for operators, DMCs and agents to use your content for their own campaigns. Easy access to your digital content boosts their sales prospects as it helps them sell an experience, and in the process re-market and sell your products. The wily widget works well here too – they can use it to display your content together with their itineraries and digital catalogues on their websites.

Did I just say one piece of content does double, nay, triple the work at no extra cost to you? There’s more.

We call it branding: re- and co-branding. Simply put, it’s your trade partner’s logo either instead of or combined with yours on your iBrochure for double impact. And so it is further exposed to the world, entering channels you might not otherwise access. It’s the difference between doing all your marketing solo and making child’s play out of joint marketing with multiple partners.

And so the story ends, just before it begins again on the digital content merry-go-round. Better access to your storytelling content and increased exposure in multiple sales and marketing channels can only translate into better business prospects. With beautiful, inspiring content strapped to the magical coat tails of a digital brochure, you’ll experience first-hand what it means to unlock the power of your content. And sell happily ever after…

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