If you’re a travel agent, you know how important it is to market your business. Yes, while word of mouth can be one of the biggest ways you’ll get people through your door, in the world of constantly being online, you need to market your biz on social media too. The more effective your travel agency marketing, the more people you are going to get through your door, and the more bookings you’ll get. And that’s what we all want, right? Right.
If you’re struggling with trying to figure out how to market your travel agency, we’re here to help. Learn why it’s important to market your travel company on social media, learn different techniques to market effectively and learn about our favorite tools to market on social media.
Why is it important to market your travel company?
Marketing for any business is key to getting new leads and customers through the door. By marketing your business effectively, you can reach a new audience, grow your business, and book left, right, and center trips for clients! Still not convinced that marketing your travel company on social media is the best move for you? Here are some reasons why you should change your mind about that:
Wider reach and targeted audience
Social media platforms have millions and millions of users, so why not tap into those users to promote your business? When you start strategically putting together a social media plan, you can start reaching a much wider audience than the “word of mouth” audience you currently have. Once you start promoting your business on social media, you’ll be able to directly advertise to your target audience and pique the interest of potential travelers who are likely to want to work with you in the future.
Increased brand awareness
No one is going to book with you if they don’t know who the heck you are! Being on social media and being consistent with your social media means that you will get more people recognizing your brand, thus increasing your brand awareness overall.
Start sharing more posts about traveling, features of your travel app if you have one, giving travel tips, destination inspiration, and more so users on social media become more familiar with your brand and business name. The more and more your brand is recognized, the more likely travelers will have you front of mind the next time they decide to book their next trip. Building trust
As we mentioned above, the more familiar people are with your brand, the more they inherently start feeling the brand is trustworthy. Once you start regularly posting content that is engaging and informative (like travel tips or destination guides), your audience will start realizing how much of an authority you are in the travel industry.
Testimonials from clients
Everyone loves sharing a trip they have been on—especially on social media to make their friends a teeny bit jealous. And having your travel company on social media is the perfect way for you to share the photos or testimonials your clients have shared. Potential customers are more likely to trust the opinions and recommendations of others, so ask your clients if you can share their testimonials and photos on your social pages to increase your credibility.
Enhanced customer engagement and communication
One of the best ways for you to communicate with new leads (or old leads!) is through social media. By commenting, DMing or even doing some live video chats with potential customers, you can engage with your audience, answer any questions they might have, address any of their concerns, and more in real-time. Plus, this makes them trust you more as a brand as you’re there directly communicating with them.
Advertising your business on social media can be one of the best and most effective ways for you to promote your travel business. Obviously, creating social media accounts and posting is free. Start monitoring your analytics and figure out what type of content people want from you and create more content that is similar. Giving people what they want from you and setting up the expectation that you’re going to provide that to them is a guaranteed way to get new followers to your social accounts.
If you have some money for advertising, you can even put some money behind various social media posts or create an ad on your social media pages. This can help you amplify your reach and get more of the targeted audience you want through your door.
What are some ways a travel agent can market their business?
Now to the good stuff. As a travel agent, how should you go about marketing your business on social? There are so many different ways to creatively highlight your business and here are some of our favorite ideas:
News and events
When it comes to traveling, people want to know more details about a destination they are traveling to. Going to London next month? You’re going to read every online post about the 10 best places to eat. Sailing around the Mediterranean? You’re going to look up the top beaches along your route.
Start sharing information about destinations your travel company is expert in. Talk about the destination and why people should go. Share why you want to go back and what makes the place so unique. Sharing timely events that are happening in the destination is a great way to get people enticed into the city and think about going themselves.
Email marketing
We will scream this until we’re blue in the face: You need a cold email list! 👏 Social media is absolutely amazing at helping you connect with new followers and leads, but something even better is getting the verified emails of those new leads. When you can directly email your customers about new promotions, trips launched, and more, you have a higher chance of converting those leads into sales. When you can directly email your customers about new promotions, trips launched, and more, an EasyDMARC alternative can increase your chances of safely converting those leads into sales. But how can you get emails from your social media followers? Entice them to subscribe! Perhaps you’ll give them a freebie if they sign up for your newsletter. Perhaps you’ll give them top travel tips each month if they subscribe. Offer them something that will make them want to give you their email.
UGC content
UGC content (AKA user-generated content) is when your followers or customers take photos or videos that you can then share and distribute on your own channels. People love to talk about where they have traveled and show off on their platforms, so a great way for you to generate UGC content is by running a contest and encouraging your audience to share their favorite places to travel. Create your own hashtag and have people use it when sharing content.
This will help you figure out who is sharing content and what images and videos you can use, while also helping you reach new followers with the hashtag that might not have known about you before.
Take a real-world example of Cruise America, a leading provider of
RV rentals in California. They regularly share the UGC content on their channels and even sometimes collaborate with their customers to post first-hand experiences of their services.
Travel tips
Pick a day of the week when you share your favorite or top travel tips. You can make this into a series that your audience can follow—and also give people a reason to follow you as they want to know what you have to say.