First, let me lay the foundation for these
predictions.
What Is Marketing?
When I say marketing, I’m not talking just about
sales or advertising or promotion. Those are a
part of marketing but not all of it.
Without getting into fancy definitions, marketing
is simply what you do to get and keep customers.
In addition to attracting the most desirable
prospects and converting them into customers
worth keeping, the most effective marketing
today places a strong emphasis on managing
customer relationships. That’s especially true in
travel where relationship marketing is more and
more becoming a critical success factor.
Why Should You Care About Marketing?
Marketing is critical to the success of any
business – one could argue, the most critical.
You can have all the great travel products and
product knowledge there is to have. You can
have the best deals/prices on the market. You can
have all the experience of having gone on fam
trips or be the greatest sales person in the world.
BUT, if you don’t have people to sell to, you
won’t be in business very long.
That’s what marketing is all about – attracting
and keeping enough of the right kind of
prospects and clients to sell to. To put it
another way, marketing creates opportunities to
make sales. If you’re in business, marketing
should be your top priority. Here’s why:
Marketing is a critical success factor in all
business growth. That's just a fact. If you want
your business to grow, good marketing needs to
play a key role.
Marketing is the way you get more people to
sell to. Travel is one of the most interesting
and exciting products to sell but it’s not much
fun if you don’t have enough people to sell to.
Marketing determines how people think of
you and whether or not they do business
with you. If consumers know about you at all,
they will have some concept of who you are
and what you can do for them. You can either
be deliberate about influencing those
perceptions or you can leave it to chance.
Marketing affects your profitability. A lot!
You already know that it isn't just about
getting more clients and making more sales. It's
also about how much you take home when it’s
all said and done.
Marketing determines whether or not you
beat your competition. There are only so
many clients to go around and only so much
potential revenue to divide up. The best
marketer usually wins. Period.
Marketing affects your personal life too.
Good marketing frees up your time to do other
things that are important to you. That's because
good marketing strategies and systems actually
do a lot of the work for you. Instead of always
scrambling to get more clients, you can spend
your time on some of the other things you've
always wanted to do.
If
Marketing is the key to a successful business, then a Marketing Plan is
the key to successful Marketing!
What is a Marketing Plan?
There are a lot of analogies used to explain what
a marketing plan is. You’ll see it variously
referred to as a blueprint, a guidebook, a game
plan, and so forth.
Regardless of what you call it, a marketing plan
is simply the specific set of strategies and
action steps for getting from where you are
today to where you want to be in the future in
terms of prospects, clients, revenue, profits, etc.
I personally like to refer to a marketing plan as a
Road Map to emphasize the importance of
focusing on a destination, having a direction, and
having a specific route laid out to get where I
want to go.
I’ve been a marketing professional for over 20
years and still one of the most astonishing things
I hear from some businesspeople is that they
don’t have or don’t need a marketing plan. This
is quite common in the travel agency business.
Those who wouldn’t think of sending their
clients on a trip without an itinerary, are quite
ready to “wing it” in their own business.
However, as the travel industry continues to
change, marketing continues to become more
important – especially relationship marketing.
And, as marketing is becoming more important,
having a marketing plan is more critical than
ever.
Now, with that as background, here are my
Predictions for your travel agency business if you do not have a marketing plan.
Without a Marketing Plan:
1. You will not sell as much as you could if
you had one. Research has shown that
companies that have a marketing plan have
24-30% higher sales compared to those without
one. That’s only logical when you consider
some of the other things below.
2. You will lose prospects and clients to
more forward-planning competitors. While
this Newsletter is read worldwide, by far the
majority operate their business in a competitive
environment. In other words, other travel
agents are vying for the same prospects and
clients you are.
Those that do the best job of marketing win.
And, those who do the best job of marketing,
operate with a marketing plan. Simple as that.
3. Your profits will be lower than they could
be because some of the money that you spend
trying to grow your business will be wasted.
Typically, I find that most travel agents and
agencies that operate without a marketing plan
waste a lot of money. Now, if this is just a
hobby for you, then have at it. But, if you are
running a business and want to take home more
at the end of the day, then be smart about how
you generate more sales.
4. Your profits will also be lower because
you will waste time and money on websites,
advertising, and other marketing materials that
are ineffective or unnecessary.
Small business people are magnets for those
trying to sell everything from computer
systems to databases to yellow pages ads. In
fact, one of the most frequent requests for
advice that I get is for an opinion on some
“website development deal” or an “advertising
opportunity”. My first question is always the
same. “What is the purpose?” I believe in purpose-driven marketing and, without a good
marketing plan, it is very difficult to evaluate
“opportunities” to spend money on things that
seem to make sense but really don’t.
5. At this time next year, you may not be
where you want to be. You can certainly take a
trip without an itinerary and you can operate
your business without a marketing plan/roadmap
as well. If you do, you will end up somewhere.
It’s just that “somewhere” may not be where you
want to be. There is comfort in knowing where
you are going and how you are going to get
there.
6. You will not be prepared for things that
might go wrong. We live and operate our
businesses in a changing world. Commissions
will continue to be on the block, world events
and certain kinds of publicity affect travel
buying, etc. Many travel agents weren’t prepared
for September 11 and many today aren’t
prepared for what will come next either. We all
hope and pray that nothing with that kind of
impact happens again. But, what position will
you be in if it does? This is where relationship
marketing will really pay off. But, you can’t do
relationship marketing very well without a
marketing plan.
7. Your business will be unbalanced.
Businesses that operate without a good
marketing plan usually spend time and money
on one or two marketing strategies but neglect
others that might even be more important and
less costly. In the travel agency business, it
usually means that too much is devoted to
promotions and too little is allocated to
positioning and relational strategies. Being
unbalanced will dramatically affect almost every
measure of success.
8. You’ll probably be working harder than
you need to. A good marketing plan enables you
to put some of your strategies and systems on
“autopilot”, ensures that everything isn’t a “new
decision”, enables more efficient screening of
ideas and opportunities as they arise, and makes
it easier to adjust to changes in the marketplace.
In short, operating
your business with a plan is easier and more
enjoyable than operating without one.
9. You won’t be cultivating a consistent
brand image in your marketplace. Its important for people to know what you
stand for and what value you deliver. If you
don’t have a marketing plan, then you probably
have never worked through the process of
creating a consistent identity in the
marketplace and communicating that
effectively to those you want to reach.
As the saying goes, “when you fail to plan, you
plan to fail”.
Do Yourself and Your Business a Favor
Create or improve your Marketing Plan.
It’s easy to get started. There are lots of books,
outlines, and other information on the internet
–some of it quite cheap or even free. There are
also seminars offered from time-to-time that
can be helpful.
However, I don’t think that any of those
options are as good as my
Travel Agent’s
Relational Marketing RoadMap program.
Of course, I’m biased. If I thought all the
stuff that’s out there did the trick, I wouldn’t have created this product.
This package comes as ...
