Your 2009 Marketing Plan: Develop a Marketing Calendar – Part One
October 23rd, 2008 . by Richard EarlsTRO is devoting the next few weeks to assisting agents in developing a 2009 Marketing Plan. Follow along with us each day to gain the traction you need to make 2009 your best year ever.
Every travel consultant is very much aware of the seasonality of the travel business. In the winter people head south and in the summer they head to Europe and in the fall they seek out New England, except for the real bargain hunters who decide to cruise during hurricane season. A time and a season for everything, right?
Actually, that is exactly right. We can improve on our marketing by being a bit more scientific in our examination of the calendar. Smart travel consultants who pro-actively market know they have to stay ahead of the calendar. They are constantly looking “down the road” to see what holidays and destinations are around the corner. Spring coming up? Let’s promote some early cruises during January and February. Valentine’s Day in February? Let’s make some calls to some husbands in January. Spring Break this year? Let’s promote Mexico to some families.
Too often, we rely on last minute urgency prompting us to market too late or too little. By rigorously using a Marketing Calendar travel consultants can better stay on top of their Marketing Plan. A Marketing Calendar, noting when to market and on what destinations to focus, will enable you to be better prepared and to market more efficiently. Set up a Marketing Calendar and revisit it each week, making notations of what marketing you did and how effective it was. Make adjustments as you read about new destinations, economic conditions or other factors influencing the market. Next year, you will have a terrific written record to assist you with formulating a new Marketing Calendar for each season.
Exercise – set aside time this weekend to sit down and begin to work on a marketing calendar, plotting when to market particular programs. Over the next few articles we will add new categories of information to your marketing calendar. Let’s begin with seasons and special holidays. For example, with Valentine’s day occuring in February, you should begin marketing packages for the date in early January. Likewise, how will you market to clients this year with birthdays and anniversaries? When will you be marketing summer vacations, fall foilage and ski vacations? Tomorrow we will look back over the past four weeks to see how we have progressed and will gather our thoughts for properly organizing and calendaring other aspects of our 2009 Marketing Plan.
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5 Responses to “Your 2009 Marketing Plan: Develop a Marketing Calendar – Part One”
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October 24th, 2008 at 6:19 am
[...] we laid out the broad parameters of a Marketing Calendar by noting the major holidays and travel seasons and planning to market well ahead of those dates.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
[...] You want to make certain that your goals are measurable and achievable.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:20 am
[...] you have committed. Further, you will have a document to hold yourself accountable. Along with your Marketing Calendar a written plan is an indispensible tool in effective marketing. You will re-visit the plan [...]
March 25th, 2009 at 5:02 am
[...] spring cleaning and revisiting your business plan. An important part of every business plan is a marketing calendar. Too few travel consultants incorporate the use of a marketing calendar in their practice. Yet, [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 10:29 am
[...] the written marketing plan, however, every travel agent needs a marketing calendar. Many agents take that first step of writing down their marketing plan and then fail to execute for [...]