10 min read
Those who have a passion for sightseeing and traveling the world understand the benefits of working alongside a travel agency for all of their booking and accommodation needs. As the owner or manager of a travel agency, learning how to market travel agency services is essential to maximize your opportunities and ability to attract new clients to represent.
If you are the owner or manager of a travel agency and you are learning how to market my travel agency, there are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind to help attract and generate as much success as possible, year-round.
Get to Know Your Clients
Getting to know who you represent is essential when learning how to market travel agency services, even if you consider yourself well-versed and experienced. Knowing how to market my travel agency is not easy without a firm and complete understanding of the clients you intend to represent and assist with their traveling needs. The better you know what your clients want and need from the services you provide, the easier it becomes to develop a travel agency marketing plan that works and delivers results.
Demographics
Developing a working marketing strategy for travel agency businesses is not possible without defining the target audience and demographics you intend to reach. When building and establishing a professional reputation for a travel agency, it is important to determine what type of clients you want to appeal to and why. Ask yourself the following questions while you are putting together your marketing plan and strategy:
- What demographics (age range, gender, and specific locations) am I targeting?
- Why do I want to target the specific demographics I have in mind? Am I looking to help single people, families, or even those on business to solidify their travel plans? Am I interested in booking cruise deals, or exotic locations to strange and unknown areas around the world? What type of customer am I most interested in guiding through the process of booking and enjoying their next vacation?
- How does the audience I intend to reach typically discover more about travel plans? What methods does my audience typically use to book and purchase travel plans and accommodations for both vacations as well as business trips?
- How do I intend to spread the word of my travel agency business to the demographics I want to reach with any marketing campaign I launch, both online and off?
What Problem(s) Are You Solving?
One of the most important marketing tips for travel agents to keep in mind is that you must always work towards solving a problem, even for your traveling clients. Problem-solving is a key element involved in just about any successful business or brand’s marketing strategy, whether you are selling clothing or local services.
Identify the pain point of the customers and clients you are most likely to receive to determine how you can best help them to address and solve their travel-centric issues. The more in tune you are with your clients and target audience, the more likely they are to feel satisfied with the level of service and attention they receive while booking their next vacation or getaway.
How Will You Reach Your Clients Over Time
Once you have considered the main demographics you want to reach with your travel agency marketing plan, it is important to think of the ways you will reach your clients on an individual level.
How do you intend to reach and communicate with those who have a genuine interest in the travel planning and booking services you offer? How does your audience typically access information about traveling and making plans for personal or business purposes? What platforms, networks, and marketing techniques are likely to work best for you based on the demographics you are targeting as well as your current location and surrounding demographics? You can come up with other ideas by looking at your competitors. One way you can do this is with competitor tools like this one:
(Image Credit: Brandwatch)
Setting Short and Long-Term Goals for Your Travel Agency
Setting both short and long-term goals for your travel agency is key to ongoing and continued success, even if you are entering a highly competitive market or niche. When you have both short and long-term goals in mind for your travel agency and its future, it is much easier to develop a working plan of action that helps you to reach your goals every step of the way.
When you know what audience you want to target and how you intend to help your clients, you can begin working towards setting and accomplishing both short and long-term goals for any size travel agency.
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Build an Online Presence
Building your online presence matters, even if you intend to only serve a small group of clients and travelers with your local travel agency. Travel agencies without an online presence are less likely to appear trustworthy and/or credible, which may make it more difficult to attract and garner new clientele.
Having an online presence opens the door to many new opportunities that are otherwise unavailable offline, which may lead to client referrals and generation. With an online presence, it has also never been easier to promote the work you do as well as the testimonials and reviews of satisfied clients you have represented and helped in the past. The right online presence and digital marketing strategy can make all of the difference when it comes to standing out and leaving a positive professional lasting impression on prospective clients.
Create an Official Website or Blog
Creating an online presence for your travel agency is possible with an official website and blog as well as a social media presence. Launching your very own travel agency website with an official “.com” is essential in a competitive market such as travel booking and travel agencies altogether.
An official website is not only a way for you to increase your online visibility, but it is also a way for you to establish and build a professional look, feel, and brand for your business and your travel agency itself. Using your online presence provides the ability to share your professional logo, office space, as well as the type of work you do and provide for your clients. For example:
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With an official website, maximize your online reach as well as your local visibility, even if you have other competitors in your area. By creating a professional presence online, you can significantly draw and attract more clients to your agency in less time.
Brand Your Travel Agency
One of the best reasons to develop an online presence for a travel agency is the ability to brand your agency as you see fit. Whenever you are browsing for a new product, service, or brand, you are likely to experience an immediate reaction each time you stumble upon a new business, company, or service. By effectively and professionally branding your own travel agency, you can help leave a lasting positive and professional impression.
Provide a Unique and Memorable Experience
A major advantage of developing an online presence is the creative freedom and flexibility the process provides. When you create a website for your travel agency, you can do so with your own vision in mind, down to your logo choice as well as the color scheme you choose to use to represent your brand.
Having fun with your travel agency is another way to stand out from the crowd, especially if you are working in an area with high traffic or one that is highly competitive and saturated with travel services and solutions.
Using your online presence is the perfect opportunity to offer a unique, memorable, and unforgettable experience for your visitors who have a genuine interest in learning more about your representative services as well as travel discounts and deals they can also receive.
Use Social Media to Establish Your Travel Agency
Putting your online presence to work would not be as effective without the use of social media. Launching a website for your travel agency without social media is simply leaving opportunities on the table. Although having an official website and online presence is advisable with or without social media, having a social media presence can help any business, brand, or individual to outperform and outshine the competition in no time.
Social media marketing on top platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Pinterest provide access to thousands and millions of users from across the globe. Even if you are targeting specific local regions and zip codes, it is still possible to drastically increase your reach with the use of social media and social media marketing. Here is an example of a travel agency Facebook page:
Use an Email Marketing Strategy
Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is still one of the most intimate and highly effective digital marketing tools used today. With email marketing, reach prospective clients with intimate and personal deals, discounts, or package offers right in their individual inboxes.
The Power of Email Marketing
With email marketing, it is much easier to drive home sales and to attract more visitors to your website with the use of eye-catching and relevant subject lines. Emails are considered one of the most intimate digital forms of communication, which is why it is still used and preferred by many professional marketers and strategists in all industries and markets.
Benefits of Using Email Marketing for Travel Agency Blogs
Using email marketing is not only simple and straightforward, but it is also extremely cost-effective. For those who have already set up a newsletter or email subscription with their website, attracting new followers and readers is extremely affordable and will likely cost next to nothing without additional marketing campaigns in motion.
Some of the most notable advantages of using email marketing for travel agency blogs include:
- Simplistic: Sending an email is simplistic by nature, making it easy for just about anyone to launch an email marketing campaign of their own.
- Cost-Effective: If you are on a tight budget or just getting started with the marketing of your travel agency for the first time, email marketing is highly recommended. Email marketing is cost-effective and a great way to share travel and vacation offers with current readers, subscribers, and online followers of your agency.
- Customizable: It is possible to get a bit creative with your email marketing campaigns. Use various headers, graphics, subject lines, and imagery to appeal to your readers and those who receive your regular email updates.
- Highly Targeted: Another benefit of using email marketing is the ability to implement A/B testing and to use highly targeted campaign measurables.
Setting Up and Launching Your Next Email Marketing Campaign
After establishing your website and social media presence, you can begin the planning and setup process of your next email marketing campaign. Before launching your email campaign, consider the following:
- What type of email marketing campaign am I launching? How long will this campaign last and how many emails or messages do I intend to share with users throughout this campaign?
- Am I targeting a specific group of users, or all of my followers and subscribers? How can I distinguish between different subgroups and subsets of people I intend to target with my emails?
- Do I intend to implement A/B testing to gauge which subject lines and CTAs (calls-to-action) work best to appeal to my core target audience(s)? What metrics will I be tracking and which systems or software solutions will I be using to complete this process?
- How will I determine which email marketing campaigns are successful and worth the time and effort? What measurables am I intending to use to determine the overall success rate I achieve with each individual email campaign I launch?
Here is an example of a fun travel agency email:
Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is one of the most important elements of any successful online business, brand, or agency. Without a proper and consistent content strategy, establishing your travel agency as reputable, trustworthy, and professional becomes increasingly challenging in a competitive market such as traveling. Using content marketing can help you to prove your own knowledge and to solidify your travel agency’s place as an authoritative source, both locally as well as online.
We hope that you found this article useful.
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Why Content Marketing Matters
Content marketing helps to boost a website’s SEO, or search engine optimization, which is imperative for new websites and agencies looking to establish themselves online. The more unique, original, engaging, and useful your content is, the less time it will take to garner a following and appeal to the audience you have in mind. Additionally, content marketing is free of charge and can also be utilized in conjunction with email marketing as well as social media marketing strategies and digital campaigns.
Choosing Titles, Topics, and Subject Matter
When building your content marketing strategy, choosing titles, topics, and subject matter is essential. Studying the various market and keyword trends within your industry is also important as the representative or owner of a travel agency. Use tools such as Google Trends as well as platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to research keywords, trending phrases, as well as hashtags that are most relevant to your services and most likely to resonate with your prospective or current clients. For example:
(Image Credit: Amazee Metrics)
Ways to Put Your Content Marketing Strategy to Work
Once you know what type of content you plan to create, you can begin implementing a content marketing strategy with a content schedule and calendar in place. Consistency matters when developing and building an online presence.
Post at least once a day to your social media accounts, with at least one to two blogs per week added to your official website or blog. Interact and engage with followers and clients on social media to help remain relevant within newsfeeds and timelines. Answer questions and respond to comments as well as criticism to help showcase transparency for your agency. You can track your social media analytics by using tools such as this on from Diib:
Share your blog or website’s content across all of your social media platforms simultaneously. Use tools and software to automatically update your website(s) and social media pages with ease. Use hashtags and relevant keywords to help boost visibility as well as your website’s overall search engine optimization, or SEO.
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Building and promoting travel agency blogs with the right marketing strategy for travel agency businesses is not an overnight process. With an understanding of the clientele you intend to reach and a pulse on the latest trends in the travel industry, maximize your ability to reach and attract new clients to represent year-round with ease.
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FAQ’s
There are so many ways to market your travel agency. 1) Create a monthly newsletter to go out via email. 2) Be active and unique on social media. 3) Advertise at a local fair or trade show. 4) Start a referral program. 5) Focus on local ads. 6) Direct mail campaign to your clients.
Travel agents should look at the following groups as potential clients:
- Households that have a gross income of over $100,000.
- Other travel agents and professionals with an established client base.
- Corporations, civic groups and nonprofit organizations, interested in incentives, retreats, field trips and fundraisers.
You should start marketing on social media through Facebook. It’s a great place to promote positive experiences with your agency, promote content, share high quality photos of amazing destinations, answer questions, create events and advertise.
Defining your target market in order to plan a content strategy doesn’t have to be difficult. 1) Look at your customer base. 2) Research your competition; see what works and what doesn’t. 3) Analyze your travel products/services. 4) Choose your target demographics (income, family status, age ect.). 5) Choose appropriate keywords and use them carefully.
First off, show an off-beat angle and geo-tag your images. Run photo contests and build digital brochures that are easily shareable. Create brand awareness through hashtags.
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Greg Centre says:
Thank you for providing the travel agency marketing information. Which creative marketing techniques, in the current digital era, do you believe work best for drawing in new customers?