Nowadays, the way consumers research a holiday is very different to their approach five years ago. In this age, it’s not enough to run a fabulous tour, you need to be able to communicate it online. Whether you write for social media or your own website, the way you craft your copy can be the difference between winning a new customer or not.
1. Have a clear idea of who you are writing for
Your online content should be determined by your ideal customer. A great way to establish this is to undertake an exercise called ‘persona mapping’. You will need to:
- Interview some of your existing customers to identify what they loved about your experience
- Have a look at the customers who come to your website and who go on your tours to discover patterns regarding specific demographics. You can also create forms for your website that capture information you deem relevan
- Have a look at your social media followers. Google Analytics and Facebook analytics can unearth some very valuable information about your consumers. Given that they are both pretty intuitive (and free) they are a great place to start
- Browse on competitor’s sites to see who they are targeting. Where is their proposition similar to yours? Where does it differ?
2. Solve your ideal customer’s problem by improving your SEO
A part of understanding who your ideal customer is, is understanding:
What their problem is:
- How they would articulate that problem
- How you can solve that problem
For example, if your ideal customer was an 18-year-old girl looking to go travelling after finishing high school she wouldn’t write:
It would be more specific:
Or:
The copy on your website needs to ensure that your ideal customer can find your business quickly and easily, based on those kind of requests. Given that 75% of Googlers never get past that first page of results, it’s vital that your site is optimised to get the best ranking possible.
3. Write as though talking to a friend
This especially applies if your customers are a young and fun crowd. Use copy that they understand and enjoy. Contractions and slang are fine, if that’s the way your audience speaks. Have fun with your copy, but don’t go overboard on the hip lingo lest you sound like you are trying too hard. No matter who your audience is, being natural and authentic is key.
4. Don’t be complacent
In order to be sure that your copy is working, you need to constantly analyse results constantly and change it according to analysis. Your customers are rapidly changing, and what worked today may not work next season. There are some great online tools that you can access to see whether your copy is hitting its mark.
- CoSchedule – scores your headlines, assessing how effective they are.
- The Hemingway App – ensures your sentences aren’t too complicated. It can pick out complications and suggest replacements.
- Copyspace – ensures you have not plagiarised any copy or any site.
We hope these tips inspire you to get creative with your copy. `
