Holidaysplease has improved its conversion rates on enquiries driven by consumer marketing featuring sample pricing.
The agency said the approach had lowered the number of overall enquiries generated by communications featuring prices but said customers who did respond were “serious about booking”.
Speaking at the agency’s first conference since 2019, director Charles Duncombe said the company’s Holiday Booking Guide had been kept “largely informational” during the Covid pandemic but was now being updated with more product information and guide prices.
He said the pricing experiment was introduced three to four months ago and would now be extended to more destinations, with the prices shown a “halfway house” between lead-in and average.
“We had feedback that some customers didn’t have realistic expectations of what a destination was going to cost,” he said.
“[Showing prices] has reduced the conversion rate from visit to enquiry but the enquiries we have been getting have a greater conversion rate.
“It is attracting customers who are serious about booking.”
Duncombe said Holidaysplease continued to invest in its marketing and technology, including additional server space which should improve email speeds and reduce website down-time.
The agency is also expanding its social media focus, producing support and assets for agents marketing on Facebook and increasingly on other channels including Instagram.
Delegates at the conference were shown examples of how filtering Facebook posts to target specific groups of customers could dramatically improve response rates.