Reason #1 – A failure to plan

This 365 Marketing and Sales Tip is provided free to the travel agent community by:

Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Everyone has “plans” don’t they? Not really. If your plans lack one of these characteristics, they are not adequate to growing and maintaining a thriving business:

• Put your plans in writing – still carrying your marketing plan around in your head? When you put your plans in writing, they become more powerful. When you write something down, you articulate it and make it more real. You better understand your plans when they are in writing. Importantly, you also have a set of definitive benchmarks against which you can measure your progress.
• Establish goals for yourself – Remember “SMART“: goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Rewarding and Time-based.
• Monitor Results and Adjust – Take your goals and plans seriously and hold yourself accountable. Be your own coach. Make adjustments where necessary and learn from mistakes.

Take this short marketing audit and see where you stand in your own plans. Share the audit with your co-workers and peers. Discuss what you are doing well and what you need to do to come up to a higher standard of professionalism. Need some help to develop your marketing plan? Read through these articles for any assistance you might need in developing a business plan for the balance of 2010 and beyond.

Tomorrow: A failure to differentiate

Publishers and editors of magazines, newspapers and newsletters in your community need your assistance. Each day, or week or month, these hard working souls have to fill their periodicals with timely, interesting content.  If you have some writing skill, or you are willing to learn, writing feature articles for other publications is a terrific way to establish your reputation as an expert and to add another important tactic to your overall public relations strategy.  The authors of feature articles carry an inherent authority. By publishing articles in community newspapers, letters and blogs, you become the “local expert”.  Look at the “Point to Point” articles on TRO’s home page and you will get the idea.

Article continues below This 365 Marketing and Sales Tip is provided free to the travel agent community by:

Travel is an area of wide appeal for the public, and ideas for feature articles are easy to find. One of the best ways to create a feature article is to place a local slant on a national story. If the national news is “Airline Declares Chapter 7“, your article is “Protect yourself against airline bankruptcies.”

The purpose of your feature article is to inform and entertain. Avoid being promotional in the article. However, the fact that you are writing the story will help to establish you as a local or even national authority on the topic of travel. Newsroom editors look for stories that have an interesting, local slant to them. Make their job easier by providing a story already styled in that manner.

When all of the national news is bad, use it to your advantage. The dollar is off, the economy is bad. An airline declares bankruptcy, stranding travelers. A couple books online only to arrive at their destination to find no hotel room, ruining their honeymoon. A travel agent is jailed for defrauding a group on a cruise that did not exist. Left unanswered, the headlines at times such as these convince some not to travel at all or to ‘do it themselves”.  Bad headlines provide the perfect opportunity for a strong travel consultant to step up and do their job: help the public understand the travel industry. When the news is bad, offer your local news outlets, social organizations and clients an explanation. Write articles for the newspaper and letters to the editor. Use your insight into the industry to assist the public to understand how to mitigate the impact of these events:

• Yes, the dollar is off in Western Europe, so now is the time to see Mexico or use B&B’s in Ireland or to see Europe without crowds;
• Yes, the airline declared bankruptcy, which is why you advise your clients to use a credit card to book;
• Yes, the couple booking online needed the assistance of a good travel agent;
• Yes, the public should investigate the credentials of their travel agent.

The reading public likes lists.  That is why you so often see articles with numbers in them: “The top five reasons to go to Europe off-season“.  National newspapers and websites like MSNBC, USA Today and Budget Travel can provide you with excellent resources for article ideas.  TRO’s Travelgram is a very good source for a daily exposure to what the public is reading. 

If you are going to be a good writer, you must read a great deal to study the many styles and pitfalls of feature story writing. Start small and work your way up. Look to the local newsletters in your community such as those published by neighborhoods or retailers for their clients. Write the story and then put it aside.  Compare it to other feature articles written by professional writers. Re-work weak areas of your article, edit it several times.  A good, strong headline is a must.  The headline grabs the readers attention and pushes the reader into the article.  A good headline summarizes the importance of the article to the reader in a few short words.  Polish your headline to perfection.

Concerned that you don’t have the writing skills? Find a co-author and double your marketing efforts!  Hire a local English teacher to tutor you.  You will set yourself apart by writing useful articles in your field.

Send your article to the person responsible for your target publication.  Expect rejection – it comes with the territory.  But don’t hesitate to find multiple uses for your articles.  Create handouts for clients or for tradeshows. Use the same article in your blog.

Writing takes work, but with practice and persistence you may find your name on a by-line and you will soon find people seeking you out as a local expert!

Here’s how to get started - Make a list of some local publications to which you can submit an article.  Look hard.  Your local yoga studio, dress shop or neighborhood association probably publishes a newsletter and is in need of feature articles.  Next, start a collection of articles from popular travel newsletters, websites, and newspapers. Grab one of the articles and re-write it as an exercise.  Put your own slant on the article.  Embellish it, add to it.  Change every word.  Give it a better headline. If you are happy with your story, have your toughest critic read it for editorial purposes while you go to a bookstore and purchase a book on writing. Once you have an article with which you are satisfied, approach the owner of one of your local periodicals with the article. Once you are published, you will have the confidence, and the resume you need to build on your success.

Smart travel agents that know how to get their name in the paper know how to find a unique angle for their story ideas and to fashion and time the story to the needs of the press. By developing an awareness of trends, timely events and other cultural influences, you are more likely to find the public interest inherent in your story that reporters seek for their articles.

A crucial mistake is to approach a reporter or a press release with bare information on your services or on client product. Writers look for “angles” and for human interest. Writers and reporters are interested in stories that advance their reader’s interests, not your business. Don’t write your PR copy by listing the features of your agency or a mere mention of a recent company development. Good writing in a marketing context always talks to the benefits. Even if you do list a feature, you want to couch it in the context of the benefit to the client. So, for example, if you recently took a destination certification course, phrase the press release in terms of how local readers will benefit from your new status. Your press release or article cannot read like an advertisement. Reporters are quick to spot even cleverly disguised sales jobs from business owners. The story must have a unique twist that the reporter will judge to be of immediate interest to readers. Your mission as a good travel agency marketer is to find the “sweet spot” where the features and benefits offered by your agency intersect with the interests of readers.

An excellent way to properly time your PR campaigns is to take a look at the editorial calendars of your area’s local magazines and print publications. Most publications produce an editorial calendar – a list of themes for upcoming issues- to provide advertisers with an advance awareness of good issues in which to place an advertisement. However, editorial calendars also give the smart travel consultant insight into opportunities to have local media feature their travel planning practice in an article.

Let’s look at a couple of examples that might assist you to better understand the process of developing good copy. Let’s say that a few weeks ago, you wanted to start a public relations campaign designed to explain the customer service and relationships your travel agency has over the years cultivated. A press release explaining how many years you had been in business, how large your agency is, where your offices are and a copy of your mission statement to “be the best, blah, blah, blah…” is going to put every reporter in any newsroom fast to sleep. Instead, you need to find a twist on the story that presents a unique angle. Do you have a client that has traveled with you for 10 years? One that has been to every continent? One that is taking their first cruise? One that is traveling to visit a lost relative? These are the human interests stories that can serve to demonstrate the intersection of what you want to promote with what the public wants to read. That intersection is the PR copy sweet spot.

You can also generate the necessary reader interest by directly addressing current events and news. In fact, there is probably no better way to demonstrate your usefulness to the media than to help local reporters better understand the impact of current events. The dollar is off, the economy is bad. An airline declares bankruptcy, stranding travelers. A couple books online only to arrive at their destination to find no hotel room, ruining their honeymoon. A travel agent is jailed for defrauding a group on a cruise that did not exist. Swine flu devastates travel to Mexico. Left unanswered, the headlines at times such as these convince some not to travel at all or to ‘do it themselves”.

Do not allow news like this go unanswered in your community. Bad headlines provide the perfect opportunity for a strong travel consultant to step up and do their job: help the public understand the travel industry. When the news is bad, offer your local news outlets, social organizations and clients an explanation. Write articles for the newspaper and letters to the editor. Use your insight into the industry to assist the public to understand how to mitigate the impact of these events:

• Yes, the dollar is off in Western Europe, so now is the time to see Mexico or use B&B’s in Ireland or to see Europe without crowds;
• Yes, the airline declared bankruptcy, which is why you advise your clients to use a credit card to book;
• Yes, the couple booking online needed the assistance of a good travel agent – here’s why;
• Yes, the public is concerned about swine flu, but here are the facts and here is what you are advising your clients;
• Yes, the public should investigate the credentials of their travel agent – here’s how to do it.

Rather than ignoring these events, use them as opportunities to act as the expert you are. The next time bad news about the industry pops up in your community, consider how you might use it to your advantage. Offer your services and be heard. Those who listen will be potential clients. Those who do not will be potential victims for the next travel headline. Better yet, reporters will be turning to you for advice, information and insight.

Exercise: Make a list of your local newspapers, magazines and media. Now, under each outlet, list your contacts. Don’t have any? You have work to do. Begin developing a network of media contacts. If you advertise locally, ask your advertising representatives for introductions. Chamber of Commerce events often attract local writers and editors. Review the articles and news stories of your community’s media for stories you find interesting. Obtain their 2010 editorial calendars for story ideas. 

 Next, make a list of ideas for articles and press releases. Think first of the things that most interest you – perhaps you are a dog lover, a tango fanatic or a coin collector. Maybe you are going to put together a trip for the World Cup. Fashion article ideas that have a local, human interest and put your agency in the background of the article, not the foreground. If writing is a marketing tactic you choose to use, commit to how many you will do in 2010 and begin thinking about what and when.

Tomorrow – Public Speaking and Events