Technology has dramatically changed and improved the marketing that agencies can now do for their clients.

In the old days, agents would get boxes of postcards or brochures and send them out to clients. Agents would not know which client got what when, and reporting was basically responding to inquiries. Suppliers tracked productivity or volume by the specific agencies that participated in various promotions.

The next step in agency marketing was – and is for some agencies – the consolidation of data to ease the preparation for sending, but the reporting has remained the same. Agents still do not know who got what when, and reporting is exclusively gathered by suppliers providing summary production per agency over various periods of time.

Travel Agency Marketing Today

Nowadays travel agency marketing programs are accomplished on a completely different and new system. Technology has made marketing for travel agencies dramatically better.

First a copy of each agency’s marketing database is uploaded to a central location – called “Databases Central.” And with today’s technology each of those databases is synchronized or updated daily – if not more frequently. All this, with only a one time, easy agency setup.

With this two way synchronization or updating, two levels of reporting are available that were only dreamed of before:

First, the agencies records of who got what promotion when are updated regularly so agents can actually see what promotions were sent to whom. These same agents while talking to a client, not only see what a client received, but use the data to reach out to clients to help close more sales.

Secondly, because data on follow through, reservations, and actual invoices is updated regularly, the central marketing has the ability to actually see results at a per client basis. Is a promotion working? What campaign close ratios are we seeing (and we see them regularly in the 60% plus over a year’s period)? In other words, complete reporting on what clients actual did, based upon what promotions they received are available for the first time.

Your Data is Protected

Of course, the actual detail data is completely and exclusively yours – the agency’s – using the now available reporting data the best marketing can be created managed and analyzed, thus providing the suppliers the best option for marketing and earning revenues for participating agencies.

Consortia Programs

TMA manages several leading supplier marketing programs. Also, the leading consortia are implementing their version of Databases Central and bringing this new level of marketing to their members. Let us know if you would like specific details on your consortium.

Thanks for reading. It is fun being a part of cutting edge technology helping agencies do the best possible marketing. The results are very gratifying.

-Lee