Travel Marketeering (eBook)

A Complete Guide for Starting (or Refreshing) Your Travel Agency

Joshua Harrell (Autor)

Evan Greenberg (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
284 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8433-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Anyone can be a Travel Marketeer. It just takes the right mindset. Are you looking to become a polished travel professional but unsure where to start? It can be overwhelming to enter a new industry and make the leap to being your own boss. There's new vocabulary to learn, business practices to install, and workflow processes to design. That's why we're here to help. This guide is your passport to business success and becoming a true Travel Marketeer. With Travel Marketeering: A Complete Guide for Starting (or Refreshing) Your Travel Agency, we hope that you leave inspired and ready to take on whatever challenges come your way as a travel professional, aka a Travel Marketeer.

Evan Greenberg is the content manager for WorldVia Travel Group. With eight years of experience in journalism and content marketing, Evan focuses on providing travel entrepreneurs with the expertise and the materials they need to be successful to grow their businesses. A lifelong traveler, Evan enjoys connecting with those in the industry who share this passion. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Anyone can be a Travel Marketeer. It just takes the right mindset. Are you looking to become a polished travel professional but unsure where to start? It can be overwhelming to enter a new industry and make the leap to being your own boss. There's new vocabulary to learn, business practices to install, and workflow processes to design. That's why we're here to help. Do you need help attracting and retaining your customers? Are you looking to generate leads that will help you grow your business? This guide is your passport to business success and becoming a true Travel Marketeer. We will walk through the steps that new travel agency owners and those whose business trajectories don't align with their goals need to take to build a map to success. From branding your business to creating an efficient and lasting marketing plan, Travel Marketeering: A Complete Guide for Starting (or Refreshing) Your Travel Agency is just that a comprehensive roadmap for jumpstarting your travel business and, hopefully, toward lasting success. We hope you leave inspired and ready to take on whatever challenges come your way as a travel professional, aka a Travel Marketeer.

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Chapter 2:
Performing Market Research

So far, what we have done is brainstorm. We pulled ideas from our minds and put them on paper. We organized those ideas into words and a diagram.

You only performed surface research to help you define who you are.

Now that you have that definition of success, you’re ready to pull up your sleeves and fill in more detailed information. You will back your ideas with facts to ensure your vision of success has a high probability of success based on data.

We call this market research.

You will build your strategies on known audience behaviors and profiles rather than guessing what your clients want.

That’s good news for you. You don’t have to be a mind reader to be a good business entrepreneur. You just need to know what to research and how to pull relevant insights from your findings.

Think of it like a treasure hunt. Let’s grab those shovels and begin following our maps.

2.1 Defining Market Research and Analytics

Market research and market analytics are two steps in the same process.

Market research hunts down relevant information and compiles data about the market.

Who is your market?

Your market is a group of potential clients to whom you will sell your travel services.

You must research your audience, competitors, products, and industry. Market research aims to know how to market your services so they are most appealing, applicable, and purchase-worthy.

Market research is crucial, so you aren’t just guessing where to invest. You also aren’t blindly throwing your money into an endless market pit.

You’re identifying the X on your treasure map and then throwing all your effort into digging in that exact spot for maximum return.

Market analysis is the second part of the research. It’s the process of taking the information you compiled and identifying patterns. Are there common challenges among your potential customers you can solve? Is there a linked weakness among your competition you can fill in? You pull these from your analysis to have the best advantage going into your business.

The goal of your market research and analytics is to discover:

• Who your audience is (demographics)
• What your audience’s interests and needs are
• What your audience’s challenges are
• What your competition is doing

While market research and analytics are vital stops in building your business, they should be a continual process. Keep researching and analyzing your market as you run your travel agency, and watch it grow so you understand how your audience changes. You can also identify new needs and monitor your clients’ opinions of your brand.

Market research is especially important before launching new services or products or entering new markets.

2.2 How to Perform Market Research

We need to collect data before digging for those nuggets of relevant data treasure. Here are some of the best places to start market research and pull information you can use throughout your business strategy and while running your travel agency.

Browse Online

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Market research, while it sounds intimidating, is easy.

You don’t need fancy tools or deep insight from magical mages to understand the market.

What I recommend travel entrepreneurs use is Google search. Just a plain, simple Google search.

It’s the door to the entire digital universe. So, it’s all you need to get started.

FIRST, turn your browser on incognito mode. This step is a MUST! Incognito mode removes all tracking and cookies from your browsing, so who you are doesn’t impact what you see. It will offer an unbiased look at the beautiful world of travel entrepreneurs.

Next, dig into the niche you chose. Perform all types of travel searches related to what you’re offering.

You want to see what other agencies use to market their businesses. Take note about what works well and what makes you cringe or yawn.

I recommend snapping screenshots if you see excellent marketing examples or fantastic ideas. Screenshots are fast, easy, and fully capture what you see.

You’ll look at websites and search social media for ideas, inspiration, and marketing red flags.

After you compile a large folder of screenshots, use them to build a visual mood board, which summarizes all your ideas in one place to help you develop a concrete idea for messaging and branding.

Check Recent Publications

As much fun as Google search is, you will also need some concrete data. That’s why I also recommend checking recent publications. These publications can be an authority in your niche or the travel industry.

The publications will highlight the latest trends. One place you can start is the U.S. Travel Association. They publish annual, and sometimes more often, reports on travel trends. The United States Department of Transportation is also a valuable source of travel stats.

Some publications or authority sites sell survey results and data. If you are in a particular niche, purchasing that data may be worth the investment to have those concrete numbers.

In surveys, publications and industry leaders often ask hundreds of travel agencies or clients questions about the travel industry to see what’s working or what clients are looking for.

So, instead of guessing what’s working based on what people search for or like on social media, you have concrete numbers to start with.

CAUTION! Numbers feel safe. And they can quickly become a crutch. In other words, entrepreneurs may find safety in numbers and ONLY use strategies if there’s data to back it up. This will not help you grow. It will tie you down to doing what everyone else is doing.

Sure, the numbers might say clients like Option A best. That means you should consider offering Option A. But have you also thought that clients may not purchase much of Option B because no one has done it well? Instead of providing Option A like everyone else, the data might show an opportunity to reinvent Option B.

Research Niche Communities

Everyone remembers the game of telephone as a kid. One kid at the sleepover whispers a sentence (like lyrics to their favorite song, or maybe that’s just me) and by the time the whisper train goes down the line of giggling sleepover participants, that sentence becomes completely unrecognizable.

I’m still convinced there’s always ONE kid who intentionally changes it up for laughs.

Data can do something very similar. And just like with the game of telephone, there is always that one business that spins data in such a way as to say what they want to promote rather than trying to communicate what the original responders said.

Here’s an example of how that might go. Statistics show that people eat more ice cream in the summer. Did you also know that there are more home robberies in the summer? The Anti-Ice Cream Association of America (not a real thing, by the way) might spin the data to push their agenda that eating ice cream must, therefore, cause home robberies.

Sounds crazy, but people do that same thing with all data. They take two stats that correspond and make false assumptions to promote their agenda.

In reality, ice cream eating and robberies may correspond because they are both at their peak in summer, but other factors are going on. For example, it’s warmer in the summer, more people are on vacation, and more people spend their days outside. That makes the perfect opportunity for robbers. No ice cream involved.

While travel data from leading publications give you an overview of what people want, always look at the source. I always recommend monitoring communities, groups, and feedback from your audience in addition to surveys conducted by organizations that may have spun the data to promote their desired outcome.

Gather Your Own Research

I saved the best for last!

First-party data is data you acquire yourself rather than third-party data that another organization collects and shares with you.

With first-party data, you connect personally with your specific audience, know the responses will be relevant, and ask targeted questions, so you receive EXACTLY the answers you’re looking for.

Some ways to gather this data are through:

• Focus groups
• Interviews
• Observation-based research
• Surveys

For example, are you unsure what to offer with your new travel package? Ask your clients directly!

Are you brainstorming new ideas for your travel agency? Gather a focus group and get their input.

You are eliminating that game of telephone I referenced earlier and talking face-to-face (or computer-to-computer) with the source.

2.3 Identifying the Best Travel Suppliers

Building a business involves forming the right partnerships to raise you up. Your suppliers are crucial because they bring the items you need to provide excellent services for your clients. The suppliers you choose also determine the commission potential you can earn.

Who are some of your suppliers?

• Accommodations
...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Marketing / Vertrieb
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8433-0 / 9798350984330