Marketing is the art of making people choose you, talk about you, think about you. And in tourism, where customers trust you before they've “tried” your product, there's nothing better than that. However, with the ever increasing competition, the demands on travel agencies in Bulgaria in terms of marketing performance are getting bigger and bigger. They must always be engaged with their clients, fighting for their attention and trust.
This is where the Travel Mind team comes in. Today, we have prepared a comprehensive publication with our top tips for online marketing for travel agencies. And although every business must adhere to its own strategy and brand management, we will try to outline some basic guidelines for action.
Here are our selected 10 online marketing tips for travel agencies:
1. Create an initial marketing plan and follow it
If you want to successfully grow your marketing program, the first thing you need to do is create an effective marketing plan. In it, you should describe the basic guidelines your travel agency will follow online - what ads you will use, what message you will convey, how much money you will invest. The marketing plan will serve as a basis for your next more specific marketing actions. Pre-planning is one of the steps to success.
Where to Start: 10 key elements of a tourism marketing plan
2. Focus on mobile marketing
In our practice, we still notice travel agencies that do not pay attention to mobile users, who are an increasing part of our customers. What does this mean? If a person, while browsing the internet, comes across your travel program and decides to check it out on their smartphone, they may give up before they've even started reading the itinerary.
The reasons are many - slow loading of the site through a mobile phone, incorrect display of content, inability to fully examine the program and many other problems. Optimizing your travel agency's website is an important step towards better online marketing, if only a small part of a mobile marketing effort worth implementing.
Where to Start: 7 amazing ideas for mobile marketing in tourism
3. Tap into the unsuspected power of Instagram
Hundreds of young people in Bulgaria use Instagram every day. Yet very few travel agencies take advantage of this fact to attract them as their clients. That is why now is the time when you should definitely take advantage of Instagram and start advertising on the social network. Despite being a part of Facebook, Instagram has its own peculiarities and subtleties. However, marketing there can be very, very effective for your travel agency in particular. Why not give it a try today?
Where to Start: How to create the perfect Instagram marketing strategy
4. Work to increase your fans in Facebook
Facebook is the social network that (almost) all your customers use. The social network allows you to communicate with them every day, at any time, to inform them about new travel programs, to present them new offers. It's a shame if you miss out on Facebook's potential as one of the main online marketing tools for your travel agency.
One of the important things to aim for in social media is to grow your fan base so that you can eventually attract them as actual customers. Apart from paid advertising, this can be done in many natural ways. A larger fan base will bring you more sales opportunities. And what's better than that?
Where to Start: 10 ways to increase your Facebook fans
5. Implement workable marketing strategies in Facebook
A successful Facebook presence is what gets you real customers and sales. Of course, there is no golden rule that tells us exactly what to do that will sell more through the social network. However, we can show you a few successful examples from our practice and action guidelines that will help you better understand how and what works on Facebook.
Where to Start: Successful Facebook marketing strategies for travel agencies
6. Keep an eye on trends in Facebook and adapt
It's no coincidence that we pay a lot of attention to Facebook - the potential of the social network as a marketing channel is huge! Often, however, Facebook makes changes, introduces new features, removes old ones. These things shouldn't put you off. Rather, take them as a challenge and learn how to take advantage of each new trend. That's the key to success on Facebook.
Where to Start: How Facebook marketing is changing with the 5 new reactions
7. Manage your campaigns properly in Google Adwords
A must for all travel agencies is the use of Google Adwords advertising campaigns. They bring the fastest and most measurable results, making them one of the most effective sales tools. Huge competition, market specifics and a host of other conditions place a number of requirements on travel agencies that want to advertise on Google. The tricks to successful advertising lie in small details that untrained staff have no way of knowing. That's why it's important to focus on properly managing your Google Adwords campaigns, so that you're not throwing money to the wind, but rather investing your advertising funds for better results.
Where to Start: Trust an Experienced Google Adwords Expert
8. Be useful to customers - start your own blog
The travel blog is for agencies that want to create a unique and recognizable brand identity, be truly useful to clients and create a long-term relationship with them. The effort involved in maintaining your own company blog is considerable, but the results are impressive. Blogging is for companies that want to grow not just a business, but a brand. A brand that people will know, appreciate and trust.
Where to Start: 10 tips for effective content marketing in tourism
9. Invest in online tourism marketing training
No one expects you to know the answer to all questions. You may be the greatest manager and businessman in the world, but if your Internet marketing skills are lame, your business could suffer. The best solution is to invest in specialist online tourism marketing training for you or your staff, led by experts who do it all the time and have something to teach you. This will give you fresh ideas, new knowledge and concrete steps to better online marketing.
Where to Start: Keep up to date with the latest training of Travel Mind on our website and Facebook
10. Trust an external marketing agency
The reasons for this are many - you trust experts who deal specifically with such activities, you get real results, you manage your investment wisely, you pay for professionalism... If you decide to trust Travel Mind, we guarantee you'll get exactly those benefits and more.
Where to Start: Package services for travel agencies
Every business needs successful online marketing and the earlier you start investing your resources wisely in this direction, the better results you will get. The new travel market, the huge competition and the vast possibilities of the internet pose a number of challenges for travel agencies, but with focused vision and professionalism you can go far.
