For entrepreneurs in the travel industry, creating and building a memorable and trustworthy brand is extremely vital to your success. In the past, we discussed how you can grow a travel blog into a business. In this post, we’ll discuss how to transform your travel brand into a household name.
With countless options available to consumers, a strong brand can set your travel business apart from the rest; when people recognize, value, and trust your business, they’ll be much more likely to support it.
The question is, how do you establish your travel brand as a household name? And how can you get there from scratch?
Select and Research a Specific Audience
Your branding and marketing strategies aren’t going to be effective if they’re universal and generic. If you try to reach everyone, your messaging won’t be perceived as relevant, and on top of that, you’ll face more competition from major travel brands. Instead, it’s better to focus on a specific target audience; this way, you can craft much more persuasive messaging and minimize the number of competitors you have to deal with. Do your market research in advance so you understand how people within this target audience think, make decisions, and perceive the world.
Define Your Critical Brand Elements
Next, define the critical elements that constitute your brand. What are the ideas and philosophies that best describe your brand? If your brand had a personality, what would it be like? What makes your brand different from other travel brands? Once you nail down these conceptual pillars, they can serve as the foundation for the rest of your marketing and advertising.
Pursue Omnichannel Marketing
In the modern world, the best way to reach customers is through omnichannel marketing; in other words, you want your brand to be visible and promoted across a large number of different channels. This way, you’ll be able to reach more people, keep your brand top of mind, and enjoy a diversity of different advantages all at once.
- Magazines. Printing your own travel magazine could be a great way to reach people who don’t spend much time-consuming online content. With the right blend of quality photography, professional materials, and attentive copywriting, you can showcase the greatest advantages of your products and services.
- Content marketing. Online content marketing remains one of the best marketing strategies in terms of cost efficiency and ROI. If you consistently develop content that demonstrates your brand as a thought leader, you’ll naturally attract more people to your website.
- Search engine optimization (SEO). Focusing on strategically relevant keywords and optimizing for search engines can help you climb the rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’re already producing a steady stream of onsite content, you’ll be ahead of the game here.
- Digital advertising. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows you to target very specific audiences while paying only for the measurable clicks you generate. While some strategies take time to develop, you can begin advertising with PPC ads immediately.
- Traditional advertising. Though digital marketing often takes the spotlight, traditional advertising is still very relevant and potentially very powerful, depending on your target demographics.
- Email marketing. Email marketing is cheap and easy to plan, and if you’re willing to automate your campaigns, it’s incredibly scalable.
- Social media. Don’t forget about social media – posting and engaging with your fans is totally free, while advertising is inexpensive relative to the value you get from it.
Pay Attention to Customer Satisfaction
Your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores are excellent indicators of your brand’s momentum, dictating customer loyalty, word-of-mouth marketing, and more, so try to keep improving them.
These are some of the strategies you can use to do it:
- Provide more value. Give your customers more bottom-line value for every dollar they spend with you.
- Offer better customer service. Be personal, be available, and help your customers feel heard.
- Surprise your customers. Pleasant surprises are both memorable and shareable.
- Make up for bad experiences. When things do inevitably go wrong, try to set things right.
Analyze Your Efforts (and Cull What Isn’t Working)
Marketing and advertising key performance indicators (KPIs) can easily tell you which of your strategies are working and which are underperforming. With enough historical data, you’ll be able to confidently cull any strategies or tactics that aren’t worth the investment and invest your extra money in tactics that you know are going to be successful.
Scale
At this point, you’ll be ready to scale. Investing more time and money into your marketing strategy should allow you to reach more people, make a bigger impact, and eventually turn your brand into a true household name.
Building a brand from scratch isn’t easy, especially in an industry as competitive as the travel industry. But if you’re willing to do the research and put in the work, you can analyze and practice the strategies necessary to help your business reach the upper echelons.
Want to read more of our latest posts? Check out our post about Walking Tours in Paris and why they’re the better choice to make.
