Marketing campaigns must be targeted, relevant and most importantly of all, yield a high return on investment (ROI). In simple terms what you spend on a particular campaign, whether it be a magazine advert, email newsletter or SEO campaign, it must return a greater profit to your company than it actually cost you to execute.
Here we will look at 4 simple, yet effective steps that you should take to set your travel company ahead of your competitors;
Local Marketing
It used to be called Google Local and is now called Google Maps and this is possibly the single most important thing you can do to promote your company, and best of all, it’s free. A staggering 97% of people look for a business online, so it’s imperative that your company can be seen. Try it now, tap into Google your type of company and home city (ie estate agent London) – where is your listing? To get listed today simply go to google.com/placesforbusiness and register your company. There’s a lot of fields to go through, ie opening hours, services etc. and its worth doing it properly.
Website
Unless you have a physical shopfront, your website will be the first port of call for your customers so it’s important to get it right. Before your site goes live (or before your release any new updates) test, test and test again. Make sure all your internal links work. Test your enquiry pages to make sure the enquiries arrive correctly. And if you have an e-commerce site, test the whole process to death. Remember that your web designer and development team work for you, the client. Make sure the hosting and backup routines are in place and well managed. It’s also worth diarising a systems check, say once a month, just to test your key pages and contact forms again. And if you site has been up a while its worthwhile reading through the text (or copy and paste into word) to check for any spelling or grammar mistakes.
Blogging
All the search engines love fresh relevant content on a regular basis so aim to add fresh text blogs, photos and videos on a regular basis. Write your own blogs if time allows, as your visitors will want to see an extension of you; your humour, your views and your adventures. If you work in a large company task all employees with writing at least one post a month. And whenever anybody in your company travels make sure they take plenty of video and photos to add to your blog. You might even consider investing a company camera! Small companies and even single traders can blog effectively as well; your posts don’t have to be of epic proportions, just aim to post once or twice a week. There are free blogging options out there, such as WordPress which is simple to install on your site (ask your techie if you need assistance) and its incredible easy to use.
Social Networking
And this brings us on to social networking quite nicely. Once you’ve posted your blog make sure you shout about it via the social networks, ie Twitter, Facebook and any local travel networks that may operate near you. It’s worth signing up to all the popular social networks to ensure you reserve your company name. Post links to your blog entries on Twitter and Facebook, post your video content on to YouTube and add your photos on to Flickr. This all increases your visibility to your clients. Make sure all of your marketing activity is symbiotic, whether you work in a small or large organisation; add your twitter, Facebook and Google +1 details to your website and in any emails you send out. And as a last note, keep tight control over your social network logins and task one person to be responsible for them all.