Travel agents are just getting round to collecting emails for marketing purposes and now the guru’s are telling us email is dying and being replaced by RSS! For those of you that read this geeky stuff you have probably noticed that every article starts with a lengthy and detailed explanation of what RSS is and by the time you get to the point of the article you are fast asleep.
So lets not go there! Check RSS out at http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english and view the 2 minute video. Its all you’ll need to get it!
So why should you care? Because it’s going to affect the travel industry and how we currently do business online. What it really means in travel terms is that your customer can subscribe to their favourite travel websites (probably three to five) and every time the website is updated, that information is fed to their ‘reader’. That way, instead of having to go visit the site or be peppered by hundreds of email updates, they receive a feed, stay up to date and read it when they want to.
I believe that over time, (1-3 years?), barring the invention of a better mousetrap, RSS will become the cleanest and most efficient way to communicate and customers will subscribe only to what interests them and unsubscribe from the rest. Still awake?
I don’t believe RSS will replace email altogether but in my opinion it represents some major changes. For example, it will adversely affect website visits and therefore change is coming for those of you that either sell of buy travel advertising based on visits. As an online marketing company our greatest enemy is spam and bugs. RSS eliminates this problem but it also further shifts the balance of power to the customer by limiting access. As a rule, when customers go RSS they unsubscribe from most other subscription based email.
Wakey wakey… what better time than now to harp, yet again, on the mantra of most of my marketing articles, Travelwatch website, blogs… “the consumer is sitting in the drivers seat so the importance of the ‘relationship’ between you and your customer should be your number one priority.”
Develop and keep on developing your email list. I can’t say this enough. If (or as) email begins to loose its direct marketing power as we know it today, ensuring that your customers are interested in what you have to say is best achieved by email. The ability to develop and maintain customer interest is an art, as part of our Touch™ program we hammer the point home that ‘because your clients are not always buying, you shouldn’t always be selling’! Stay in constant contact; make it fresh, interesting, educational and yes send them product/price deals but just not ALL the time. If you don’t have the time to do it then hire someone to do it for you but make sure you are front and center when your clients decide on an RSS reader for their travel information.
behave,
Frank
