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Posted In: The 365 Guide

Your company needs to do a SWOT analysis.  SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The traditional SWOT looks at Strengths and Weaknesses of a business (internal factors) and tries to thereby ascertain the relationship with Opportunities and Threats (factors external to the agency). Doing a periodic SWOT analysis is a good exercise as your develop your business strategies and tactics and assists with developing the appropriate goals for your travel practice.

Generally speaking, your travel practice has certain strengths that justify its existence. These strengths give rise to the ability to take on opportunities.On the other hand, your agency probably has weaknesses that provide an opening to your competition where they are better capable than you of taking advantage of the market. A SWOT Analysis makes each of these factors clear and provides a guideline for approaching each in your planning. Our SWOT Analysis Worksheet will assist you in performing your own analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Social media and social media marketing are deceptively easy to undertake. Sign up for a Facebook page or a Twitter account and start posting and tweeting. Hundreds of millions, literally, of individuals and companies do it, right? So how hard can it be?

Like many business undertakings, social marketing is a study in fundamentals. Far too many travel agents jump into the fray without serious consideration of the need to be authentic, intentional and consistent in their social media Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

The Most Common Branding Mistakes Travel Agents Make

Your brand is a promise of quality. Wrapped up in a brand is the perception of your company held by everyone who has come into contact with your travel practice. What this means is that your brand is not entirely under your control. In fact, the center of gravity of your brand is somewhere between your intentions and the experience of your brand by consumers. Some of those consumers are clients, others are people who are aware of you through your marketing efforts and reputation. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Marketing drives sales. Marketing sets the expectations of the consumer and thereby preconditions the attitude with which the potential client approaches the travel professional. As marketing raises the profile of the travel agency in a target community, it serves the dual function of both acquiring new clients and retaining former ones. Marketing creates a relationship in the mind of the public between the concept of “travel” and the travel consultant. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Reason # 4: To be really effective, marketing needs to have two important qualities, consistency and constancy. In short, you must always deliver the same message to your clients in every encounter they have with you and you must deliver that message with enough frequency to remain top-of-mind. Without the quality of consistency, your clients will be confused with regard to your identity and ethic. Without constancy, they won’t hear your message often enough to develop an association with your brand each time they think of traveling.

Clients want to know what you and your travel practice stands for as a matter of company ethic and values. We tell ourselves we are consistent, that we always deliver the same message to the market. But do we really? For example, if your website indicates that your travel practice is all about the quality of each individual travel experience and the premium you place on value, but each of your tweets on Twitter is about travel specials, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Choosing the Elements of Visual Merchandising

Merchandising is the technique of adding elements to any marketing effort to enhance the visual appeal. This week we are going to look at some of the most important elements to consider when adding graphical cues to your proposals, presentations and advertising.

Some have a gift for visual display and some do not. If you do, congratulations! If not, join the ranks! I depend on more visually creative types to source photographs, recognize good color combinations and to construct advertising. If you need this type of assistance, you are well advised to find and use it. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

The Tools With Which You Work

Whether you are an agent in a storefront agency with a large group of travel agents and business development specialists, or whether you are a sole proprietor, you have a team to assemble. You require a full family of sales collateral that carries a consistent look and message. Your logo, your company name, your business cards, your company brochure, your email address, web site, Powerpoint presentations, invoices, print and email advertising, sales letters and stationery are all team members that carry your company’s mission out into the world. Spend some time making sure they are properly suited up to do their job. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Goals are a good thing. Without a goal in front of us, we tend to be far less directed in our actions. Without goals, it would be more difficult to measure our progress or the efficacy of our plans. Without goals, we would lack the strong motivation to succeed that is so important to our personal and business lives. Let’s take a look at how we might set goals  into the next business plan we draft.

In the context of a marketing plan, the term “goal” refers to an achievable, positive action consistent with the company’s mission statement. The goal describes a desired outcome. Thus, a goal for ABC Travel might be to “increase the number of clients with which the company works.” Another goal may be to “achieve the highest level of client satisfaction.” Typically, the company will have no more than a few high-level goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Writing press releases and stories about travel is a proven way to promote your travel agency with little or no capital outlay. However, many travel agents fail to do the preliminary groundwork necessary to ensure that their press release or article will be noticed by local or national media. Good marketers are continually seeking out and developing relationships with the media gatekeepers – reporters and editors. Within almost every community you will find newspaper reporters, researchers for television and radio stations, bloggers and specialty magazine journalists. These are the individuals who decide what stories make the cut. Typically, these writers and reporters work under terrific deadline pressures and welcome good ideas for stories. Your efforts at public relations will be greatly enhanced if you are on a first-name basis with the writers and news room and media staff. Making yourself known as a credible and reliable “go-to” resource with a well-defined set of opinions and positions can make it easier to be picked from the crowd when a reporter needs a local voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.”
~ Thomas Paine

You know what your company stands for, what ethic you live by and the manner in which you deal with your clients. You have spent time building a business persona, crafting the image you want your company to project. You have invested vast, precious resources developing your logo, your sales collateral and training your business associates on client relationships. You are all dressed up with somewhere to go.

Then, someone posts a negative review of your business online. Suddenly, online searches of your company name generate the negative review as a top result. What are your options and how can you counter the adverse publicity? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: Supplier Profile

Customer Service and Fast Delivery with SkyLink

SkyLink Travel is a Mondee company in operation since 1979 and has created strong alliances and relationships with airlines worldwide. As a distributor and marketer, SkyLink, North America’s largest consolidator, offers a fast and reliable distribution channel for its airline partners. Travel agents benefit from SkyLink’s buying power by getting comparative pricing, excellent customer service and fast delivery. SkyLink continually upgrades its technology to stay on the leading edge of the industry. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Consumers look for authentic products and services that deliver on promises. It really is that simple. Except travel professionals  sometimes promise the wrong things. They promise the lowest prices. They promise hassle-free travel. They promise across the board expertise. Sometimes the promises are implicit rather than explicit, but the travel agency either intentionally or by omission sets the expectations of the client. To the extent that those promises are met, the client is happy and the agency’s brand is secure. When the travel agency makes the wrong promises, however, reality falls short of expectations and problems ensue. The client does not perceive the travel agent as authentically representing  their services. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Why are you a travel counselor? Can you provide a short, succinct answer to that question? It is almost a trick question, because if the answer is about your love of travel, your passion for travel, the many places you have been, then we are probably on the wrong track. Your love and passion for travel are certainly important reasons for being in the travel industry, but those qualities don’t speak to why you chose to assist others in their travel ambitions. The more clearly that you can define your core mission, the values you represent as they relate to your clients, the easier the task of representing your travel practice authentically. Your mission is the touchstone for all of your client communications and corporatedecision making – its value cannot be overstated. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Authentic Marketing for Travel Agents – A reminder

Do your clients know why they do business with your travel agency? Do they have a clear picture in their minds of what your travel practice represents? How about you as a travel agent conducting your own travel practice either as an employee in an organization or as an owner of your travel agency? Can you list your top two or three unique selling points? What type of relationship do you have with your clients? How is that relationship reflected in the conversations you have with clients, your advertisements, your website and your other marketing efforts? The answers to each of these questions goes to the heart of your company’s reason for being. To the extent you can easily answer these questions you are farther down the path to authentic marketing – business conducted from a principled set of core values and client relationships built on trust. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Get Your Clients Talking About You

This week’s columns were devoted to the topic of Word of Mouth marketing. There are a number of “distribution channels” through which you can intentionally direct, monitor and amplify word of mouth (“WOM”) marketing. The most important distribution channel, by far, is your existing customers. The clients who know you best and who make up your core business are also your best prospects for spreading the word to others on a third-party basis. It makes good sense to ensure that they have all of the tools necessary to do so effectively. In a very straightforward and open manner, it is possible to not only encourage, but to actively recruit your existing clients as evangelists for your travel planning practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: Supplier Profile

Customer Service and Fast Delivery by SkyLink

SkyLink Travel is a Mondee company in operation since 1979 and has created strong alliances and relationships with airlines worldwide. As a distributor and marketer, SkyLink, North America’s largest consolidator, offers a fast and reliable distribution channel for its airline partners. Travel agents benefit from SkyLink’s buying power by getting comparative pricing, excellent customer service and fast delivery. SkyLink continually upgrades its technology to stay on the leading edge of the industry. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Examine Your Lead Generation

Marketing has two functions – the retention of existing clients and the generation of new clients. Our mission is to discover where in the sales process we can fine-tune our one-on-one skills with consumers to turn them into repeat clients. But almost before we get to sales we have to step back and ask a very important question: Is your marketing attracting qualified leads?

Good marketing will not simply generate leads. Good marketing will generate qualified leads by setting the expectations of the consumers who contact you for travel services. Marketing conditions the sales process. If a majority of the leads coming to you are not qualified, your marketing is not working well for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Your travel practice has an image and at the heart of that image is your own personality. To the extent you allow the YOU to come through in all of your points of contact, the more approachable and authentic your marketing efforts appear to the public. Without an intentionally developed brand, however, too much is left to chance. You certainly can, and should, endeavor to influence and shape your brand. Brand maintenance is an on-going endeavor. You must continually work to project the image you intend.

In fact, however, most travel agents do not intentionally develop their brands. Most travel consultants simply go about their work and when they do it well they are fortunate enough to develop a good reputation. Their natural abilities and skill at working with people carry them along nicely. But that approach leaves much to chance. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Loosely defined, your points of contact are those points at which a client can form an impression of your travel practice. Points of contact range from logos and business cards, to your presentation formats, your manner of dress and even the places where you meet with clients. The sum total of our points of contact add up to form our brand image. The more professional our image, the more confidence clients have when it comes time to turn thousands of hard earned dollars over to us for their vacation. Needless to say, therefore, our points of contact must be kept in top condition. The reality, however, is we often create our points of contact independently of our mission statement and any guiding touch point and each becomes a separate marketing tool unrelated to the others or neglected after months of use. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Communication Skills for Travel Agents – Clarity

We started the week out discussing the importance of setting expectations. We have covered how to be assertive, to make good first impressions and how to be heard.  But all of the above is of little benefit without a simple ingredient: clarity on what you want to convey to the world around you. Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not all about you. Your conversations with clients are going to be predominantly about what THEY want.  However, as a professional, the course of the conversation should be directed by you.  Without clear direction, you and your clients will talk to each other rather than with each other.

We tend to have an unrealistic assessment of the degree of clarity we possess about even our most basic needs and wants. Let me give you an example.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted In: The 365 Guide

Here’s the good news – the theory behind good PR copy is easy to understand. Here’s the bad news – the theory behind good PR copy is easy to forget. The theory is simple: find a unique angle and then relate it to your readers. Many travel agencies, however, make the classic mistake of writing their PR copy by listing the features of their agency. 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.
Read the rest of this entry »