Are You Planning For Success?

Sherry Funk

By Sherry Kennedy

People who live in Florida occasionally forget what season it is, due to the fact that there is little variation in the climate. Sometimes when a client says to me that they want to take a cruise next spring, I have to stop and think, “Do they mean this year or next year?”
In case you haven’t noticed, this is still July 2007 and yet within the last two months the cruise lines have opened their books for cruises up to and through fall 2009! Talk about total confusion. My mind thinks that we are currently in the year 2008 because I am blocking group space for 2009!
Whoa! We’re only half way through 2007 and now I have to plan what I’m going to sell and to whom, in 2009. Do I have a strategy? Have I prepared a marketing plan that will take me into the next two years? No. I have not. And if I’m not being too presumptuous, I’ll venture a guess that many of you reading this article have not designed a 2008-2009 marketing plan, either.
It doesn’t matter if you are an independent agent with your own agency, work with a Host or are in a storefront location. Without a well thought-out marketing plan, you have no concrete direction to follow and no way to track and analyze the success or failure of your business. A carefully designed and well thought-out marketing plan is like a roadmap for success. Or I guess a GPS system is a better analogy nowadays. It can help you proceed in the right direction, stay on course and not get lost among the myriad of marketing opportunities that may lead you off the road to success. Just because you are moving forward doesn’t mean that you are moving forward in the right direction.

I’ve learned that there are three goals accomplished in creating a marketing plan:
1. Assist with identifying which clients are your best prospects.
2. Provide a way for you to evaluate your business against the marketplace.
3. Track the results so you can learn what works and what is a waste of time.
Within these three goals, there are five basic steps to create a well-planned and practical marketing plan. I’ve compiled and adapted this information from several courses I’ve taken, articles I’ve read and from my usual array of “Dummies” books.

Step One: Positioning Your Product
(cruise, tour, vacation rental etc.)
If you have taken any of the CLIA marketing courses, this might sound somewhat familiar. (I highly recommend the CLIA training.) There is a distinction between actually marketing your business and the actions you take for promotion, advertising and public relations. Those three actions are components of a marketing idea, not the marketing itself. Marketing itself is basically made up of the Four P’s: Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
Product: Have the right product for the market to which you plan to sell. Would you think it’s a good strategy to sell an active adventure cruise or tour to your local senior citizens center (but remember, there are some very active seniors) or a small luxury river cruise in Europe to an RV club? Think creatively but understand limitations and lifestyles and develop a strategy with the correct product for your own targeted market.
Price: No rebates, no discounts allowed. Across the board pricing is wonderful in a perfect world. To counteract the discounters, we must create a value-added mindset with the consumer in order to compete with the mega-online order-takers and volume-focused sellers. Know the prices of your competitors and be prepared to stand up for your worth, value and expertise.
Promotion: This is my favorite part. Promotion gives you the opportunity to create the appropriate message across various channels — printing mail pieces, flyers, brochures and postcards that carry your own call to action. You can order radio or TV spots, print ads in local or national newspapers and magazines, advertise online through your Web site, pay-per-click ads and any other creative approach you can concoct.
Place: This is the hardest one of the four P’s for me: Enabling your future targeted clients to be able to FIND what you have to sell — getting your message into their hands.
Now that you have identified the four P’s of your marketing plan, put it in writing and implement what you know. Decide if you would rather go for volume (many clients/commodity travel product) or profit (targeted demographic/selective travel product). It’s your call, but I should think that it’s easier to pay your bills if you focus more attention on a targeted clientele with a travel product that offers a higher return on investment.

Step Two: Ask for Opinions
Sometimes it pays to ask for opinions. Your friends, family, trusted colleagues or other professionals can be a great source for narrowing your marketing ideas. Ask them whom they think your target clients might be (based on what they know of you), do they think you can reach that target, what is it that makes you stand out from the crowd, your strengths and (oh no!) weaknesses and what marketing tactics do they think would make your business stand out and be noticed. Sometimes, it takes seeing your business from another perspective to truly understand your intent and ability to achieve your goals.

Step Three: Listen to Your Clients
No one can give you a better image of your business than your clients. Are you making the welcome home calls? If so, this is a perfect time to ask your clients if their needs were met and if there is anything that you could have done better. You might consider composing a brief survey to E-mail to your clients. Keep it short and simple. Nothing can be improved unless you are aware of it. Offer your clients an inexpensive thank you gift for completing your survey.

Step Four: Get Out the Pencil and Paper
Now that you have started to identify your clients and the marketing environment, it’s time to put your thoughts on paper. This doesn’t have to be a formal edict nor written in stone. A marketing plan helps you to clearly define your goals. It isn’t static, but rather malleable and apt to be modified. Things to include in your plan are:
• A summary of your market position (what/whom you intend to target) and goals.
• What you expect to accomplish in a given time period (this can be a dollar goal, a booking goal, a move to a new travel venue goal — it’s your plan). Just be sure to have a specific time limit in mind and stick to it.
• A list of several target markets and complementary product to go with them.
• Financials — expenses — and how they will be allocated.
• Marketing channels — the type of marketing materials (flyers, E-mail marketing, newsletters, etc.) and how you will distribute the message to attract target clients.
• Competition. What strategy will you use when confronted with lower priced competitors?

Step Five: Track Your Results
You need to know whether your money is being well-spent or wasted on marketing channels that don’t pay off. Develop your own tracking system. Ask your new clients where they heard of you or the offer to which they are responding. Are they referrals? Did they pick up a flyer at the bridal show? It’s important to know where they are coming from so that you can focus your strengths and dollars on ventures that have a high return on investment.
Plan a marketing calendar in conjunction with when customers tend to book travel. Don’t invest all your marketing dollars during the slow months in the travel industry. Plan ahead for Wave Season and use your resources wisely.
Remember, a successful marketing plan one year may not always work in the next year. Analyze the successes and not-so-successful attempts and re-evaluate and adapt a new marketing plan on a yearly basis.
Once you start to put all of this in writing and take the time to revisit your plan regularly and review your progress, you will find that you are not caught off guard when you should have been actively promoting and marketing. Your business will thank you for it!

Sherry Laskin Kennedy is the former owner of the Vacation Shoppe, Inc. and is now the Travel Manager for AAA Travel in Melbourne, FL. Sherry is on the CLIA Travel Agent Advisory Board, NCL Advisory Board and is a Regional Area Manager for NACTA.