25 Aug
2022

Meet the team: Lizzie Andrews, Digital and Marketing Manager

The following article was originally published in the August 2022 edition of ABTA Magazine here.

We spoke to Lizzie Andrews, ABTA’s digital marketing manager, about how social media can support ABTA Members.

I work within the communications team. The main function of my role is running ABTA’s social media and digital channels and thinking of creative ways to communicate messages in different formats.

I support ABTA’s head of brand and marketing to deliver ABTA’s annual Travel with confidence advertising campaign, which we launch each December in time for the early booking period. And then throughout the year, I am always looking for ways to promote ABTA Members and the benefits of booking with them.

For example, ABTA has just launched a new summer competition called #HelloHolidays which encourages customers to share a picture of their summer holiday and tag the ABTA member they’re travelling with.

Daily, I scan social media and report to my team on the common issues and concerns people have on travelling abroad. This information impacts how ABTA responds to these concerns and helps the media team develop ABTA’s position on certain topics or helps inform and develop the advice we’re sharing with customers at the time.

One recent example has been listening to concerned parents about the rules on children’s passport validity. We got in touch with the passport office to confirm the rules and updated the passport advice on our website accordingly.

I also turned our advice on passport validity for travelling to the EU into a social media graphic, which is also available for ABTA Members to use and can be downloaded from the marketing toolkit. Over the last two years, ABTA has increased the number of explainer videos and infographics and consumer competitions to ensure our audience stays engaged and continues to trust the ABTA brand.

Mastering social media can be very useful for a small business. If you’re inventive and understand who your customers are, you can create a community of followers that trust you and see you as an expert.

One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is to stand out from your competitors, and this can be mastered in a few ways. It is important you know your USPs, to ensure they shine through in your social media content.

For example, if you offer a complete personal service, why not ask your customers to leave you testimonials and share photos from their holidays with you? This will show that real people have a great time on the holidays you’ve sold.

Another way to stand out on social media is having a quick and effective customer response plan. I’ve seen travel companies master WhatsApp messaging to help them reach their customers quickly and effectively either through pre-sales or post-sales.

You also have to make a judgement call on which channels are most effective to help you reach your goals and this will depend on which demographic you’re trying to engage with. Each channel requires you to think creatively about what content works.

So, my top social media suggestion is to choose one channel first and master it. Sign up to social media marketing newsletters and read all updates regarding that channel to stay up to date with the latest ways to use it and reach your customers.