John Wanamaker was responsible for many great retailing, marketing and organisational innovations in the latter half of the 19th century, perhaps best known for the quote ; “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”
What would someone of such creativity and insights make of the current obsessions with measurability in online marketing ? In travel marketing at least (an area of particular focus for me), I’d argue that were John Wanamaker brought through time to consider how to market for the travel industry in 2010, he would say something like ; “All of the money I spend on online advertising works, I just can’t work out which parts work better than others”.
My favourite and simplest advice to travel marketers is “try to think like your customer”. How are people researching, pricing and booking travel today compared to just a few years ago ? I could and do spend inordinate amounts of time researching and keeping up to date with these trends in minute detail, but my simple answer is….we don’t know !
There is no straight line anymore from ad campaign to purchase, and this is particularly true in travel marketing, as there are just so many paths from first thought to final purchase. In googling around the name Wanamaker, I came upon this insightful blog from Rob Jackson of Latitude Marketing on the aspect of how to measure “conversions” online. At the end of some excellent analysis, Rob advises “my advice is to speak to someone who has asked these questions in great detail already: there will be a solution that can add value to your campaigns finding that one quickly can be less than straight forward.”
My own parting advice on this post ? Apart from agreeing with Rob (of course!), I’d add…. try something, try to measure it, but don’t get downcast if the “measured results” you come up with don’t gel with the revenue gained… marketing, more than ever, is an art, not a science….. try, try and try again.
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