When it comes to your marketing and advertising strategy, how and when you share it on your channels is just as important as the message itself. When your emails or social posts go unseen, your ROI greatly suffers.

To see major benefits of your marketing campaigns as well as an increase in revenue, you must expertly plan when you should communicate to customers and what your post should say.

Here are a few ways to use timely, targeted messaging to boost your revenue, improve your ROI, and more!

How do you build an intentional marketing strategy around timing?

Understanding your target audience is a great place to start. You need to learn your customers’ habits and communicate the right message during the opportune time in their booking journey. For instance, when you know someone is engaged and paying attention to your business, you can send them a 10% off promo code to initiate a booking.

Luckily, there are tools that can help you determine when your audience is most receptive. For example:

• Look into email send time optimization with your preferred email marketing platform.
• Use Google Analytics to determine when your audience is most likely to interact with your business.
• Study your social media metrics using each platform’s built-in analytics.

Tips to Improve Your Timely Communications

Know Your Customers’ Browsing and Booking Behavior

To learn when you should send your messages, ask yourself the following general questions (and get data to back up the answers!):

• When do my tours typically get booked?
• Are people booking months in advance or at the last minute?

Pro Tip: Use FareHarbor reporting to help guide your research! Our robust software is easy to use and will help provide insight into your customers’ booking patterns. You can find booking trends by time of day, by time of week, how far in advance customers book, and more!

You need to also consider more specific factors to determine what your messaging should say and further dictate when you should send it. If your target audience is young adults, consider running a campaign during spring break months. Or if you typically see families, capitalize on the times local schools are on break.

Match Your Messaging to the Season

Aside from knowing what time of day you should send a communication, you also need to consider changing your messaging throughout the year to reflect the season.

A change in season can mean a lot of things for your business. If you operate seasonal activities, a change of season determines if you are open or closed, whereas a year-round business can highlight each season to make more sales. Say you have a farm that hosts a festival in the fall, sleigh rides in the winter, and fruit picking in the spring and summer—use those details to your advantage!

There can also be seasons within seasons. For example, if you are a boat tour operator, your messaging will change from the beginning of the season to the late summer months.

Pro Tip: Update your imagery and messaging not only on your emails and social posts, but also on your items and website. Create a unified feeling across channels to help customers dream about your offerings and further entice them to book. Showcase seasonal details like the first snow or fall foliage or get specific by saying something like “last chance to go white water rafting this year with our lowered water levels!”

Highlight Scarcity to Create FOMO

If your tours are regularly selling out—congrats! Use that to your advantage and target customers with messaging that tells them they must book now.

If you only have a few spots left on a tour or your season is ending in a few days, get customers to book by including that information in an email, on a Facebook ad, or by adding a sticker to your Instagram story.

When you do this kind of communication often, your audience learns that your tours or experiences are a hot commodity and they better act quickly!

Use Ultra-Relevant Messaging

Want to fill last-minute availabilities and boost your sales? Highlight a topical message, like weather or day-of plans, that will get customers excited to book.

For example, if you run a winter sport like snowshoeing, send a message that your area just got six inches of fresh snow. Or, if you have a SUP company, show the three-day forecast of beautiful, sunny weather.

Similarly, you can also use weather in the opposite way. If it’s going to be gray and rainy, lure customers to book by mentioning that the area will be less crowded than usual.

You can also send out a simple message on a Thursday or Friday that reads “Still have not made plans this weekend? We’ve got you covered!” that targets locals.

Messaging will vary for each company, but knowing your target audience and emphasizing relevant information will help you succeed in maximizing your marketing ROI. As the saying goes, timing is everything, and the same applies to your marketing strategy!