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In my last blog I asked for your comments on…  “Let’s say that tour-suppliers decided to provide no commissions, just nets fares. How would you market yourself?” 

As you may have noticed by my stats, my blog is fairly well read so, was it apathy or was it lack of strategy that generated no comments.? A bit of both I suspect, the apathy part I’m used to from our industry but the lack of strategy, I may be able to help with. 

While it is easy to come to the conclusion that in a no commission environment (net fares) the battle for the customer will be decided by price, I would argue that if you are still in business you have already found the way to battle the large discounters in the tour field by developing your USP (unique selling proposition). But are you sure that your customers are aware of it? 

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I subscribe to the belief that keeping in touch with your customer is the best way to remind them that you exist and the surest way to have them refer to you as ‘My Travel Agent’ the same way they say ‘my accountant’ or my doctor’ (see Bob is my Travel Agent).  I’m running into many of you that agree with me but are so busy with everyday issues and don’t know where to start, that you just let it slide to another day. 

Recently, Travelwatch was chosen to provide database and email services for a new customer. The supplier chose Travelwatch because of our ability to communicate with consumers ‘through’ a partner travel agent. I call this process B through B to C. (BtrB2C?). Fundamentally, this supplier can offer specific travel deals to consumers delivered under the individual agency’s name thereby successfully driving business to the agent’s door with very little effort on the agents part.  

All the agents had to do was provide an up-to-date and relevant client list for the process to work. These are large travel agencies with a considerable number of years of experience behind them so I was surprised by the huge effort and time it took them to assemble their client lists.   I compared this to people in the real estate and financial institutions who when asked to supply their client lists, can provide them in seconds!

Frankly, I’m not sure whether I’m more disappointed with our industry’s indifference towards this issue than I am with their inability to execute. I put together a few steps to help you get started with your customer list and a few hints on how to grow it that I’ll be happy to share with you, just drop me a line and I’ll send them to you… no charge. 

Behave, Frank

What Does and Does Not Work Online

Here are some interesting results regarding what does and does not work online.

I’m referring to a anual report created by Ad:Tech & MarketingSherpa that asks  online marketers what marketing tactics worked for them in 2006 and what they expected to concentrate their time and spending on, in the months ahead.

It’s important to keep in mind that the sample consisted of the early-adopters that form part of the audience that the publishers of the report cater to. As a result, responses were skewed accordingly and (to me at least) reveal results from very savvy and experienced online marketers. The bottom line is that marketers expect overall online spending to rise slightly from 47% of the budget in 2006 to 49% in 2007.

Large online travel retailers and travel suppliers I’m sure represent themselves well within this group but when the marketers were asked what worked best — and worst — the results got interesting for the more traditional travel suppliers and retailers entering the online marketing realm.

Let’s have a quick look at the top 4 best performing and put them into perspective:

Paid search ads: Under the Google AdWords pricing system initiated last year, travel is arguably the most competitive and expensive market to advertise to. AdWords that used to cost a maximum of $10 are now upwards of $70 to $100. I haven’t had a look at Yahoo but I expect the same.

Let’s skip to number 3 for a moment. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): It comes in two forms. Paid, using the tools above and Organic. Organic, means embedding the right (best?)keywords in your site or Blog, and waiting for the search engines to pick you up through their normal processes. SEO  showed the biggest jump in 2006 but to put this in perspective, we just completed our new site (Travelwatch) and we put over 400 hours of SEO and text editing towards an organic solution. The next 6 months will tell.

SEO professionals can charge up to $300 per hour however most won’t touch retail travel because it’s too competitive. I decided to go with it only because I deal in the B2B market. Business to Business is a much smaller world and decent positioning is easier to get.

However, if you are stuck on going down this road, I have seen good results in the $75 to $100 per hour range. Still, a very big nut if youre in the retail world.

Number 4, Behavioural Targeting: if you know me, are a Touch customer or a reader of my Blog, you know my thoughts on segmenting. Check the right banner for September and  see: Segment Shmegment!. Additionally, notice the difference from 05 to 06 within the chart, it drops two points.

Finally number 2: It should be pretty obvious by now that your Email House List is by far your best value, it produces sales and costs next to nothing! The downside? Well… unfortunately, you have to make a plan, discipline yourself and do it!

You wouldn’t believe the conversations I have every day. “Well…I really should look at it”. “I don’t really have time and  my customers know me anyway…” and of course my favourite “I don’t really have any emails just customer addresses” (send them a letter and ask them for it or hire a student to call them all, for ….sakes!)

So “Where’s the money going in 2007?” Search marketing and e-mail marketing to house lists are in the lead for this year, while e-mailing to third-party lists is only going to be used by 13% of the respondents.

I hate to finish on a sour note but here’s a final horrible thought for you. Let’s say that Canadian tour-operators decided to go the way of the UK and provide no commissions, just nets. How would you market yourself?
I’d love to hear from you on this…

Behave
Frank