Travel Agency Marketing Ideas For The Modern Digital Landscape

Digital Marketing Blog May 31, 2018
How to find your customers right when they need you!
The marketing landscape has been evolving for some time now and travel agencies aren’t sure of the best strategy. Here are a few travel agency marketing ideas to get you started.
Rule Number One — Make it AS EASY AS POSSIBLE for your customer to find you.

Today’s travel consumer is incredibly impatient. If they need to jump through too many hoops to find the information they want or your phone number is hidden at the bottom of some blog post on your webpage, they will take their business elsewhere.

This is why setting up “Google My Business” is important. Especially for a travel agency marketing plan, your local online presence is key and Google My Business will help make you more visible when a prospective customer searches for you.

Once you create an account, it will prompt you to set up the correct phone number, address, hours of operation and a few other details. You want to do this for two reasons:

  • You take up more real estate on Google. Think about when you ask google something. Especially if you’re searching on your phone, a business listing with the above-mentioned details will take up almost the entire screen.
  • You make it easy for the customer. (Are you starting to see a trend yet?)

Google My Business also allow you to manage and track reviews. It will provide insights so you may see who’s looking for your travel agency, who’s clicking on your website, and show you if those numbers are up or down.

With more marketing efforts being pushed to online, it’s difficult to determine if your online activities generate offline actions such as phone calls and office visits. Google My Business ensures you can track those metrics associated with your business listing as well.

This rule may seem simple, but it costs nothing and it is the easiest travel agency advertising marketing idea to implement.

Rule Number Two — Create social media presence.

Travel ambitions are run by visuals and a perceived lifestyle.

Strategy – It’s about showing customers the possibilities. People travel for emotional reasons… mainly to escape the mundane and add extra zest to their life. What better way to show them what they are missing than to talk about it on social media?

Creating an agency Facebook account is an obvious answer but other not so obvious options are Instagram and Pinterest. Why?

Your agency needs to be available when people are ready to buy. Having a page where people can follow without being bothered is a great way to ensure you are there.

Special Note: Social media accounts are not for pummeling followers with constant “deals” (or asking them to share your information with friends every other day).

One, deals are no longer special if you always post them and two, you want to focus on giving back to your followers. By doing this, you can get ask them something or post a special promotion without it being intrusive or disingenuous.

Think about it, if you just met someone (in person), and you say “hey I have this awesome deal! it’s a $4000 vacation… come buy it!” They might look at you a bit strange.

But if you meet them, connect on social media, post pictures, vacation reviews, sample vacations… etc… Later, they will be more likely to come to you with questions. Furthermore, they are more likely to trust you because you’re not constantly asking for their money.

Rule Number Three — Add Value.

If that’s posting a photo of a customer’s recent trip (so someone looking on social media may have a moment to envision taking a trip in the future) or your agency posts “5 Must-Do Activities While Traveling to the Cayman Islands,” you must add value.

Expert Tip: It is important to post regularly. This may take some trial and error. Doesn’t mean you need to post if every day… especially if you don’t have the workforce. But once a week is a minimum. Try out different strategies and see what your followers respond to.

[Paid Media] Travel Agency Marketing Ideas

Yes, you do need to pay for advertising. A few things first, one… what is the value of a new customer for you… this will help shape how much you spend on advertising.

Facebook allows you to target people based on several categories. First, narrow down your location. If you’re new to Facebook, start by picking zip codes and a specific number of mile radius within this zip.

Depending on the type of campaign you want to run you can narrow down based on basic demographics, interests, behaviors, the list goes on. If you’re promoting an all girls trip you might not want to advertise to men. To get started, you can choose to target based on someone who used a travel app in the past 14 days.

Advertising is not an exact science. It takes patience and tweaking things until you find the perfect formula.

Most importantly… track, track, track! Determine what’s working and what’s not working so you can save money and make your customers happy.

You’ll have your hands full with the above-mentioned activities. So those are just a few to get started.

If you need help getting started, or don’t have the personal in place to manage everything, we’d love to help. Contact us!

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