As a Travel Business Owner, Marketing is Your Most Important Job

When you started your business, you knew you would be wearing many hats… Not only are you planning travel, you are the CEO, the accountant, and your own admin assistant, but you are also a visionary, a manager, a blogger, a video editor and the face of your company. What you may not have realized is that you are also a Marketer.

• In order for people to know about your company, you must market your company.
• In order for people to talk about your company, you must market your company.
• In order for your business to thrive, you must market your company.

Are you catching what I’m throwing? You must market your company! 

Make the Decision

The truth is, it doesn’t matter if you are comfortable with it or not, you must make the conscious decision to be a Marketer.

Notice I didn’t say you should make the conscious decision to become a marketer. You must BE one… right now.

You may be at the point of this blog where you are thinking, “Is this really the thing I want to do?” I thought I was going to plan vacations for my clients and travel myself. That’s what I’m really passionate about.

That’s fantastic! Plan vacations and travel. That’s a worthwhile pursuit. But if what you want is a travel business, you’re going to have to be a marketer. As much as you love planning travel for yourself and others, you will not be able to do it long-term and get paid unless you market your business.

Whew…. That’s a whole lot of truth right there. Let’s let that settle in for a moment…

If you’re starting to second guess your decision to start your own company, don’t quit just yet. Let’s process through this.

It’s ok if you’re not comfortable with marketing yet. Once you have made the decision to be a marketer, you can grow into it. You can learn how to do it. There will be a day when you wake up and the idea of planning a full quarter of social media posts, emails, and blogs won’t scare you. 

It’s kind of like going to the gym. The first time you try to do a push-up, it’s hard, it hurts, and you may not be very good at it. You may even need to modify the push-up and put your knees on the ground when you do it. But in a few months, you can do five push-up in a row. At the end of the year, you can do twenty in a row. Victory! Your journey to be a marketer will be a similar journey, challenging, but worthwhile.

So, You Want to be a Marketer?

If you’ve decided to be a marketer, keep reading because we’re about to share some baby steps to market your business.

1. Start small. Choose one or two social media platforms. Once you understand and know how to use them, you can add more. To coin a phrase, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
2. Be consistent. Pick the number of times you can post in a week and stick to it. Once a week? Great. Three times a week? Perfect. There is no right or wrong answer here. Choose a number that works for you and do it every week, every month, every year. Consistency is key!
3. Give a CTA, Call To Action, in your marketing. Tell your clients what you want them to do. And no, it shouldn’t always be “call me to plan your vacation.” Your CTA can be anything from drop an emoji, to tag a friend, to anything else you can think of. The whole point of a CTA is to get engagement… get potential clients engaged with you and your company to build the “Know, Like, Trust” factor.
4. Give engagement. I know your right eyebrow just went up and you asked, “What ‘chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” Give what you want to get. Respond to every piece of engagement you receive. Every comment, every like, every share. Use this as an opportunity to build relationships with your potential clients. You might even go a step further by identifying your ideal clients and engaging with their social media.
5. Make sure each marketing piece is doing one of three things: entertain, inform, or empower your potential client. Marketing which is “entertaining” is a great way to bring in new people. Informing and empowering them is what will keep them coming back to you as an expert. Become a “value add” in their lives.

How do you go about finding marketing for your travel business that is entertaining, educational, and/or empowering?

Google or the University of YouTube are fantastic resources. They can also be a great source of inspiration. Their biggest downside is the amount of time it will take to find the information you need or want.

However, if you want to streamline the process, then Wanderlust Social may be the perfect answer. We’ve taken all of our own advice and created bundles which are “turnkey” ready. They provide everything you need to entertain, inform, and empower your potential client.

Looking for ways to make your marketing content stretch even further? Check out our post about this exact topic!

If you haven’t already, it’s time to make the decision. Are you going to be a marketer? If so, we have just the group for you. Join us on Facebook where we share pro tips for marketing, our victories and challenges, and cheer each other on. See you there soon!