In our webinar poll, we asked viewers how often they are currently refreshing their creatives. The majority said they were doing monthly updates (29%), followed by quarterly (27%), and the remaining results fell into buckets of every six months (17%), over six months (15%) and can’t remember/don’t know (12%). In today’s ever changing world, where travelers need reassurance to trust the safety and cleanliness of your destination or property, updating advertising copy has become a necessity to drive engagement and bookings. What’s more, with the right creatives, you can ensure you’re flexible on cancellation policies, and advertise promotions and special offers to your audience.
Here we take a look at 7 tips for your advertising creative during COVID-19 recovery with a few examples for each.
Target Locals: Staycation copy is the most requested copy the creative team at Sojern has been receiving during the pandemic. Travelers are staying closer to home more than ever before. Try these in your ad copy.
Safety and Cleanliness: Remind your potential customers that you are committed to a safe and clean environment. This doesn’t have to mean showcasing masks in your images or specifically calling out COVID in your copy, but rather the unique offering you have or precautions you’re taking to give guests a safe experience. Here are a few copy recommendations you can use in your ads.
Show Flexibility: Travelers are reluctant to book in advance in uncertain times. If they can’t change or cancel reservations as things fluctuate with COVID-19, they’ll be less likely to book with you. Better yet, give guests the opportunity to make a purchase at a later date. Here are a couple of ways you could use this in your own ad copy.
Remote Working: People around the globe are working and learning from home. Some are looking for a safe and comfortable place where they can focus outside of their homes. The latest trend arising during the pandemic is remote work and learning opportunities from hotels. Some hotels are offering “schoolcations” with desks for Zoom meetings, fast wifi speeds, and kitchens for family dining. Do you have a unique offering to support remote work or homeschooling? If you do, try using one of these copy options.
Call-to-Actions: Your call-to-action can and should vary depending on where you’re located and the phase of reopening you’re in. We’ve seen that softer calls-to-action are performing better right now in some of our A/B testing. For example, in an A/B test performed in Asia Pacific, when paired against a lower funnel “book now”, the upper funnel phrasing “start planning” had a 7% higher click-through rate (CTR) and an 88% higher conversion rate. Consider using one of these softer call-to-actions in your ad copy today.
Images: Your images tell the story of your offering. When social distancing is top of mind, you should avoid showcasing images with crowds. Try these suggestions:
Don’t forget the holidays: Amidst the chaos, it’s easy to forget the holidays and the major shopping events they bring in some regions, for example, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Combined with holiday travel–which may be lighter this year but is sure to happen–this is an opportunity to advertise you don’t want to miss.
This is just the “tip” of the tips you’ll find in our webinar, loaded with inspirational ideas for driving engagement with your advertisements as we near the end of 2020.
More than six months into the pandemic, what have we learned about what types of advertising copy and images drive bookings? In our webinar, Corporate Director of Brand Marketing & PR at Valencia Hotel Group joins Sojern’s Creative Manager to share what they have learned through managing thousands of ad campaigns in the midst of this crisis. We explore which ad creatives performed best during these challenging times and give you actionable takeaways that you can apply to your creatives today.
For real-time insights specific to your region or country, check out our insights dashboard.
Download the slides here.
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