Look out for creative application of Big Data in travel in 2016, says Melt Content

Applying the concepts of Big Data to power creative social and cross-device campaigns has been picked out as the digital marketing trend to watch in 2016. UK agency Melt Content says firms will seek to move on from last year’s trend of starting to see appreciable returns from their investment in data analysis.

Applying the concepts of Big Data to power creative social and cross-device campaigns has been picked out as the digital marketing trend to watch in 2016.

UK agency Melt Content says firms will seek to move on from last year’s trend of starting to see appreciable returns from their investment in data analysis.

Melt’s ‘Digital Marketing in Travel: 2016 Trends Report’ picked out four key areas to watch:

• Video Content;
• Social Media Insight;
• Social Commerce;
• Cross-Device Tracking.

The report states: “At Melt, we are already seeing an appetite for using diverse datasets to underpin creative digital marketing campaigns. The four key trends we’ve described for this year all orbit around that key concept.

“From a sophisticated video marketing strategy to cross-device tracking to new approaches to social media, 2016’s trends will be underpinned by the use of technology to capture the expectations, opinions and experiences of customers.

“Those insights then become a starting point for personalising and enhancing the digital experience, creating rich, customer-centred content strategies and ultimately driving online revenue.”

Melt says the long and convoluted path to purchase in travel means it’s more important than ever that brands have visual and easily digestible content for consumer to engage with.

It points to a generational shift that is seeing YouTube vloggers becoming stars and starting businesses by building huge audiences through social networks.

“A diverse video strategy should take advantage of huge consumer appetite for gifs, sub-30 second films, user-generated content and curated video, particularly at the inspiration phase of the purchase journey,” the report says.

Melt predicts that 2016 will be the year that the travel sector realises the true commercial value of social e-tailing by using insights from social listening to augment traditional customer research to hone their product offering.

The report predicts: “In 2016, travel businesses will need to create specific social commercial strategies, in particular targeting Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, and putting rich, aspirational content at the heart of their activity.

“This will drive much bigger increases in qualified traffic than any other online channel.”

Aligned to this will be advances in cross-device tracking that Melt says will “give marketers a new level of insight, helping them to create personalised and contextualised content”.

For a copy of the report email Melt Content business director Dan Miles on dan.miles@meltcontent.com