Web 2.0 has been touted as the future of internet marketing for some time. The growth of social networking has been of great interest to marketers and it certainly has massive potential in terms of creating brand awareness and, more importantly, driving traffic to your site. Once this traffic is generated to your site, some kind of social interaction element can also greatly improve site conversion rates.
Businesses need to consider two things before jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon:
According to a recent social networking study conducted by JupiterResearch, one in three internet users have said that their purchasing decisions are affected by websites with social content. In this context, this doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook, MySpace and the other champions of user generated content but something as simple as a website offering user reviews, like TripAdvisor.
This is actually easier than it sounds if kept simple. As our previous statistic shows, a third of people want assurance from other consumers that the product or holiday they are buying is right for them. Including (and posting advice to) a forum on your website, where customers can discuss their experiences with your holidays, can make a huge difference to site conversion; without a third party assurance of package quality, your potential customer may find themselves drawn to your rivals.
Better still, in terms of ease of implementation, is a system allowing users to rate and write comments about your holiday packages. This will have a similar effect, but will require less maintenance and won’t need lots of user content to be effective – if a forum only has 20 posts on it, then it’s regarded as a ghost town, but if 3 people have left glowing reviews of a holiday package then it seems a safe endorsement.
This is especially beneficial to niche holiday companies: customers who have bought your niche holiday packages in the past will often have been attracted to the deal because of the unique experience offered. If they enjoy the package, they will often be happy to share their pleasure at finding their niche catered for, and may feel compelled to share their experience with others. A positive review from a fellow enthusiast is likely to convince others to try a package, thus improving site conversion and, as more people buy a holiday package, more people will log back on to chronicle their experiences.
In many ways, internet marketers are yet to find the best way of harnessing the power of social networking and Web 2.0, but at LeadGenerators we appreciate that often a simple, honest customer experience will be very effective at achieving results, before graduating to more ambitious and costly feats of Web 2.0 marketing.
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