Share the experience – Using video in leisure marketing

As HubSpot have identified:

• 43 per cent of people want to see more video content from marketers
• 9 per cent of marketing professionals globally have identified video as being the content with the best return on investment
• 85 per cent of businesses have internal resources and staff to produce videos
• The top 5 per cent of videos published in the last year retained an average of 77 per cent of viewers for the whole duration of the film

That’s a whole lot of attention from an active audience ready to watch. It’s no wonder so many businesses are employing video as part of their strategy. It enables them to send out high-quality, engaging messages to their customers or would-be customers, in a way that is friendly and approachable.

Leisure marketing

It is thought that the human brain can process a video roughly 60,000 times faster than with words. Therefore, video helps people make decisions quicker and more easily – ideal for creating a more pleasant experience and improving customer retention.

When it comes to leisure, video can:

• Inspire someone to take a trip
• Help them choose a destination
• Enable them to decide on the right accommodation
• Inform them what activities they can do at their destination
• Boost positive visitor reviews by eliminating unrealistic expectations

So, whether you’re promoting a restaurant or social hangout, travel company or accommodation, a chain of shops or a small boutique, one brand or many, you can utilise video in various ways to share your messages.

For hotels and other types of leisure venues, video allows you to showcase what a place looks like before anyone arrives. 360-degree video can work wonders for hotels and other boutique locations, helping to increase visibility and interest.

Many tourism companies are investing heavily in video to show how beautiful their destinations are. Often, they send a videographer to a stunning hotel to film around the location, which is then shared on social media to create a viral video. This is the best type of marketing as it starts to gain a life and momentum of its own.

Where to share

Along with uploading your video content to YouTube and your website, you can also be creative with how you share video.

From posting it on Facebook and Instagram to including audience interaction as part of your strategy, digital innovation is keeping brands alive and interesting. On Instagram, you have a much more limited time to capture your audience’s attention – you must be snappy and intriguing.

Build excitement

Keeping in regular contact with your audience will help build excitement about their visit. Between booking and their arrival, sharing links to video content will keep visitors engaged for longer.

How Outlook can help

As Google found in 2014, 35 per cent of leisure travellers and 56 per cent of business travellers were engaging with travel-related videos. This number has no doubt risen dramatically thanks to improved internet usage, social platforms and video-led devices.

We travel all over the world to film for our clients, delivering high-quality, engaging content.

Check out our leisure content showreel:

Get in touch to find out how we can put your leisure destination on the map.