Creating and implementing a marketing strategy is critical to success in today's changing retail travel environment. Gone are the days where an agency can passively rely on the business that just happens to walk in the door. If you are, you may find yourself busy, but are you as profitable as you would like? Are you enjoying your business as much as you would like? The truly successful agencies today are actively driving in the type of business they want to sell, with the Vendors they want to sell, to the customers they want to sell to. Accomplishing this is not as difficult as it may sound. It simply takes a basic strategy and a commitment to investing some time each week working “on” your business not just “in” the business.

To create a well balanced marketing strategy, we recommend you consider the 3 core entities involved and develop a plan around each.

• Develop a Vendor-Driven Marketing Strategy – Preferred Supplier Marketing (Identify the right products then match them to the right customers.)

Identify and focus on your key preferred vendors. Start with a handful of select vendors and work with them, your consortia and other marketing partners (such as TMA and Passport On-line) to obtain a continuous flow of marketing materials that can be used for driving in more of that business. Don’t water down the impact of these marketing efforts by mass marketing. For each and every promotional piece, identify the target audience and filter your database accordingly. With ClientBase, it’s easy to filter your list based on future travel preferences (Marketing Info) and past purchases (Travel History). Use these filters to put just the right products in front of just the right clients.

• Develop a Client-Driven Marketing Strategy – Sweet Spot Marketing (Identify the right customers then match them to the right products.)

With every new trip inquiry and every welcome home call, your agents should be capturing what they learn about their clients’ likes and dislikes within the Marketing Information tab. This will not only help them with future trip inquiries, but will help you drive those clients in the door time and time again by stimulating their travel interest based on your unique understanding of them. Use the Marketing Code Statistics report (Reports|Profile|Statistics|Marketing Code Stats) to easily identify niches within your customer base. Now, anticipate your clients’ travel needs. Use their preferences and past purchasing behavior to create personalized offers that stimulate travel purchases. Create some generic HTML templates (or hire someone to create a few for you) that can be easily customized with different promotional content. Then go have some fun and send some ski promotions to the skiers in your database, send some spring break deals to your families with school age children, send some romantic getaways to the newlyweds you recently sent on a honeymoon.

• Develop an Agency-Driven Marketing Strategy – Agency/Brand Marketing (Heighten your presence and develop a high touch client strategy.)

Repeat customers are created by developing trust and a relationship. In today’s world customers can get virtually anything, from anyone for any price. Your only real advantage is the quality of the relationship you have with your customers. Don’t expect your customers to do all the work. Any relationship involves an investment by both parties. Your investment is a commitment to communicate regularly with your customers and actively remind them how important they are to you. It’s easy to do with ClientBase and the Document Templates that can be printed or e-mailed. Use some of the ideas below to mine your database for relationship building opportunities. The objective with this type of marketing is not to promote specific travel opportunities but to bond with your customers.

• Send Welcome to the Agency letters to new customers
• Send Thank You for Your Booking letters to those who just booked travel
• Send Welcome Home letters
• Send Trip Anniversary letters
• Send Referral Thank You letters to those who refer business to you
• Celebrate Birthdays, Anniversaries and other Special Dates

If you are interested in learning more about developing an effective marketing strategy, come join me on November 3, 2006 in Los Angeles, and spend the day exploring these topics further. For more information click here.