How to Market Your Expertise

To the Right Audience

By Joanie Ogg, CTC, MCC
President, NACTA

Why is it that we instinctively think we can do it all and we can be all things to all people? This is especially true when just starting out in the business of selling travel. We could not possibly expect to know the entire world as a destination, can we? We sure would like to, however, because it is exciting, interesting and mentally stimulating to learn about new destinations and the many offerings available to our clients.
However, it is unrealistic to focus on everything. How do we break it down and make sure that we are marketing our expertise to the right audience?
Yes, there is an audience for our expertise. We need to take the time and energy to find and market to them to obtain the results we are looking for in growing our travel businesses. We need to identify who our customers are going to be and what they will really want. There are some key questions we can ask ourselves to help us capture and keep clients.
First and foremost, we need to decide who our primary customers will be. This can be as simple as making a list of the types of people who are most likely to buy travel from your agency. This is an important first step because eventually your marketing plan will help you focus on reaching this type client.
Suppose you decide that you wish to focus on family travel such as family reunions and multi-generational travel. You could look to a number of key customer bases, such as seniors who wish to travel with their extended family; young couples with small children wanting to bring the parents and grandparents along; busy professionals who have limited time to spend with extended family, etc.
There are several important factors to look at in identifying potential customers, such as demographics as well as lifestyle factors. When we look at demographics, we are identifying our target audience by age, gender, income level, occupation, education and family situations.

What Do Clients Want?
Second, put yourself in your target customer’s shoes and ask yourself what is important to them. Simply write down what each audience you are focusing upon would want from your travel consulting. You need to do this for each type customer you wish to focus upon.
What if you don’t have the answers to these questions? Start asking your friends and family what they would be looking for if they could have the perfect travel consultant. How about putting a survey on your Web site to gain the information you need? Entice viewers to complete the survey by offering a free online newsletter or some other carrot to encourage participation in your survey.
Okay, you have identified your customer targets and what they are looking for from your service. Now you can look at your vendors and suppliers and match those vacation options to your customer’s needs and desires in their travel choices.
Your message to your audience is one of the most important elements of your plan. By taking those steps mentioned above you can now frame your message quite simply. Here is an example of a simple fill-in-the-blanks message to your audience:
For (your target customer type), we (your agency name) can provide you with (the benefits and services you have determined they are looking for), because (why you do it best).

Develop Your Plan
Now that you have completed the above steps, you are ready to rock and roll and develop your plan. The steps in your work plan will enable you to reach the audience you wish to focus upon. You cannot, however, skip the previous steps and jump right to the plan. You need those key elements to focus on the direction to accomplish your ultimate goal of building your business.
You need to organize a list of tasks and a timeline to complete those tasks to be completed. If you have more than one target audience, you should make a separate work plan for each customer type you identified in the first step.
The plan will enumerate your options for marketing choices and help you schedule what will work best within your budget. If you know that something is going to be far too expensive for you to try, put it on the back burner to try at another time when the dollars are flowing faster. It is important to take some financial risks — but not uncalculated ones. Unless you have unlimited funds, a budget for marketing is essential to the health of your travel business. Should you alter the plan along the way? Always check and re-check your plan so that if alterations need to be made you can stay on target.
The important thing is to be tuned in to your business and to be flexible yet focused so that you achieve your business goals and maximize your target market...and hit a bull’s eye.