How can you convey the real feel of a place online?
Over the last few weeks of conducting web research with real site visitors, I have been reminded that while facts are important online, decisions are made with the heart.
While exploring a series of sites, the users consistently told me “it doesn’t give me a feel of the place”, “its better on facts than feelings”, “I don’t really connect with it emotionally” and “I want to be able to imagine what it is really like”.
Anticipation, imagination, emotional connections – isn’t that a pretty tall order for a humble website?
Not really – after all, we’re talking travel, not concrete, enemas or animal feed.
The Internet is full of travellers already sharing their experiences and feelings about tourism destinations and businesses. Tapping into that (or simply learning from their vocabulary and examples) will help you ensure visitors can’t help but feel their hearts flutter!
So how can you inject a bit of soul and feeling into you site? Here’s a bit of insight I can share from my recent research – and I again thank the participants for their forthrightness!
1. “Show me, don’t make me read”
100 useful words and one useless yellow button and what do you think gets all the attention? People will read when they’re ready, but it is only one way to make an impression and a fairly considered one at that. Irrational excitement and anticipation comes from engaging several senses and igniting imagination. The users I was working with said “show me,” and who could argue that this display of the Northern Lights is better watched than read.
And the same could apply to “let me listen.” (Check out this evocative audio of waves breaking on Pebble Beach, Victoria, Canada and tell me you aren’t moved just a little?)
Text isn’t the only option online and potential travellers want their senses tickled!
2. Using images and multimedia
“TVtrip films your hotel (for free!) and your hotel is then featured on TVtrip.com… You also receive a copy of the video to use on your own website, again for free.”
So tickling senses is all very well, but video, audio, high quality images – that all sounds jolly expensive. And it is true that should you wish, you can quickly blow your annual budget by making stuff look really, really pretty.
But it doesn’t just have to be your content that you use. Before you call the police, I’m not suggesting you steal anything or use any content without permission. Because the fact is your visitors, people in you area, friends and strangers are taking all photos, making videos and uploading them to the web. Flickr and Youtube are some of the most visited properties on the web. You can choose to link to that content, or you can go further and either ask if you can access the content for your site, or invite people to submit it to you directly.
There are also companies like TVTrip who will produce cheap or free multimedia content for you. They make their money on the usual affiliate model, happy in the knowledge that multimedia content has a great uplift on hotel bookings. You can (but of course) see their explanatory video here.
3. Testimony – don’t just take my word for it
I’ve already written about why you shouldn’t be afraid of Tripadvisor and should be brave enough to share your user reviews direct with potential customers. But if that is simply a leap too far, you can still tap into the power of realistic, authentic testimonials.
The wise and delightful Sean de Souza has a great article called Is There Too Much Sugar In Your Testimonials? There’s a danger of on-site testimonials seeming phoney, but a sprinkle of realism and some photos for a personal touch make them far more credible. But nothing beats unbiased, off-site comments – and you can always link direct when you earn these. ExtramileScotland is a great example.
4. Ground the place in relative terms
“So where is it then?… Where is it near?… Where in relation to London?” Pretty obvious questions when you think about it, but you can really convey a sense of place when you ground yourself relative to a better known or more evocative destinations. Not only does this improve your search engine rankings, it allows potential visitors to make a mental map of where you fit in to the wider context of their travels.
5. Cater for multiple perspectives
People like pictures of people like them.
Hence me including this entirely gratuitous photo of travel bloggers.
But what is familiar, engaging and reassuring to some (like white water rafting or travel blogging) is dreary or downright off putting to others.
To build emotional connections for different segments in your target market, it is important to carefully choose a range of people focussed images that broadly reflects these different groups, their interests and tastes. You can probably narrow your key market segments down to between 4 and 7 groups, so there’s no need to go picture crazy.
Are your senses tickled yet?
Hopefully I’ve conveyed to you that web visitors are open to sensory stimulation on multiple levels. And when they find it, the results are typically greater emotional engagement and increased likelihood to buy.
Sadly I failed in my quest to tingle all your main senses, so if anyone knows of a smelly or edible website, please let me know!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 1:55 am and is filed under Destination research, Online customer behaviour, Tourism market research, Travel 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.