Travel blogs have an audience that is different from the traditional means of communication. While major web sites, newspapers and magazines disclose their information to the masses, travel blogs disclose information to niches.
Travel blogs that specialize in specific destinations, like the USA, Argentina, Europe, the Netherlands are common. There are also blogs that specialize in travel styles, like backpacking, round the world travel, low cost trips and even those that focus purely on luxury travel.
It’s no different in the tourist trade. There are companies that specialize in market niches while at the same time continuing to publicise their services in the traditional means of communication in the expectation of reaching their niche audience.
An opportunity that is little explored, however, is forming partnerships and reaching the audience of niche blogs at a cost that is significantly less than disclosing to the masses.
Some numbers
A brief consultation of the major news web sites shows us that there is an advertising material cost of as much as R$ 180,000 a day for a single banner on the opening page. Most of the blogs do not charge even 0.1% of this amount and can be very much more effective.
Using market tools for measuring audience on three major Brazilian web sites, their monthly audiences reaches 1.1 billion visits. This a truly significant number, but the people reached may not be interested in travel.
In measuring the audience of 100 travel blogs, on the other hand, using the same tools, monthly visits were almost 9 million and the audience is fully interested in travel.
Which is better: to reach the masses without knowing if that audience is interested in the subject, or reach a niche audience that is fully interested in travel?
Doing the sums
Doing the sums we have the following situation:
Major web sites
● 1.1 billion visits
● R$ 180,000 a day (100%)
● x 30 days = R$ 5,400,000.00
● A cost of R$ 0.0049 per visit
Travel blogs
● 9 million visits
● R$ 180 per day (0.1%)
● x 30 days = R$ 5,400.00
● A cost of R$ 0.0006 per visit
As can be observed, the cost of investing in advertising campaigns in travel blogs is significantly smaller. We’re also talking about a niche and the possibility of securing buyers is proportionally much greater.
Other advantages
But the advantages do not stop only at the cost. Closed blog campaigns are generally divulged not only on the blog itself, but also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and even in videos on YouTube. Blogs are always attuned to new trends in order to attract new and faithful readers.
The number of users on the social networks in the same 100 blogs that were surveyed is 7.8 million fans on Facebook, 1.4 million followers on Twitter and 2.2 million followers on Instagram. Which web site, newspaper or magazine discloses not only on the web site, but also on its social networks? If you form true partnerships, be in no doubt that blogs will help you publicise and spread your brand.
That’s why you shouldn’t ignore travel blogs for publicising tourist packages in your next advertising campaign. You may be surprised with the results you achieve.
Thiago Busarello is an author and creator of the Vida de Turista blog (http://www.vidadeturista.com), which has already published more than 2,000 articles and has been in the market since March 2007.
The opinions expressed in this text are the author’s opinion and do not necessarily reflect the position of WTM Latin America and ABBV as an entity.