Knowing who to market to is one of the most important aspects of online sales. Segmenting and defining your target audience are two steps that any tour operator should be carrying out before they spend any money
If you haven’t been segmenting your customers to improve your marketing, it’s time to start. The end of the season is here or approaching, and that means it’s time to start preparing your marketing. Segmentation is one of the first steps in getting started — it helps define your target audience, or you want to market to.
As tour and experience operators you’re in a unique position — you speak to your customers every day. You know exactly who they are, what they want and what they’re interested in.
Segmentation of your current customer base
Segmentation of your customer base is a relatively simple exercise that is easy to get lost in. It is separating out different sections of your customer base so that you can remarket to them and to help you reach new customers. It is most of the most valuable marketing exercises that you can carry out. However, you do not want to go into too much detail.
Jessica Gregory, VP of Marketing at Palisis says: “Segmenting your customers is valuable because you’ll be able to work out who your return customers are and whether you have to send them something a little bit more personalised. If you’ve already got a record of them within your CRM, then you are able to target them with specific marketing.
“If they haven’t bought from you yet but have downloaded a lead generation then that will give you the opportunity to continue nurturing them and eventually turn them into a customer. And that would be a different segment.”
You should use these two segments defined by Gregory: those customers that provide return business and those that have shown interest. Other segments that you could use are separating people by demographic, geography, interest, and by their behaviour, such as in the examples above. Try putting a few of these together, such as women interested in architecture who live in Ireland.
Gregory says: “You’re now running a Christmas tour. You also run a Winter Lights tour; you run a Halloween tour. That would be very, very important for local customers and you can segment them out if you have their address.
“But for anyone that is travelling in from out of state or who bought a product that was a one-time purchase, you want to be able to identify those and only market to them in a small way.”
This can become a rabbit hole. Try to avoid getting too lost in the data. What you are aiming to do at this point is to describe broad sections of your customer base in order to sell more tours to these people. There is some trial and error involved in defining these customer segments. There is also intuition — remember that you already know your customer base. If something looks incorrect, there’s a good chance it is.
Define your target audience
Segmenting your customer base makes defining your target audience easy. Create a persona — a fictional character that represents your customers — and build everything as if you’re talking to them. You can create as many as you require, but three is a good number. If there’s a demographic that you would like to reach but aren’t selling to, make sure you don’t forget them.
To create a persona, make a list of all your customers and analyse it. What traits do they have? What age are they? What are their interests? It is likely you will begin to see different groupings among the range of people that have taken one of your trips. You should include aspects like the amount spent and whether they’re a repeat customer.
Then you can carry out interviews or send questionnaires or surveys to those who have visited your experience. Doing a deep analysis of your reviews could also work, but this might not give as much detail. You want to find out answers to questions such as: Why did you choose our company? What do you look for in an experience? What concerns did you have before purchasing?
With this information, you can create the ideal fictional customers for your business. You know their demographic, what they want to experience, and where you need to improve your message to increase confidence. Don’t keep this a secret — make sure everyone in your company knows so they can sell and upsell.
Having personas helps you craft your messaging for your website, emails, content and social media. It will also determine where you use your messaging. Different age groups research their holidays in different ways. For example, older people are more likely to read blogs, while younger people will search Instagram and watch short-form video.