Marketing your business can feel like a full-time job, and yet it's the most important job of owning a business. If a business doesn't have leads coming in, is it still a business? If a business doesn't have leads coming in, there should only be one focus: how to get leads.
I get it, there are so many distractions in business, and in the travel industry. Everyone is trying to tell you a gazillion different things, sell you their products and services, "gift" you a ready-made marketing engine that does all the posting on your behalf or hand you a marketing library you can pull from.
All of these "magic pills" sound so good, and yet nearly every single one of them adds to the confusion and the lack of sales.
Marketing isn't just about putting "stuff" out there. Okay yes, I know the cool name is "content creation," but in the world of travel, more of it is just "stuff." That's the problem. It's generic. It's all over the place. And it doesn't have a strategy behind it for YOU. It has a strategy behind it for whatever company is providing you with the content. That strategy is to turn you into their unpaid marketing channel.
That changes now. You are a business owner. You are the only one your channels should be marketing. Let's face it, there is very little, if anything, that a consumer can't book on their own. You are the fabulous packaging that they're buying. So why hide behind all the other brands in the industry that have significantly larger marketing budgets than you could ever conceive of?
Why Marketing Feels So Hard
First, people make money off keeping you confused. That way they can either sell you their ongoing services or sell platforms to suppliers and convince you it's a great idea to let them post on your behalf. While this has never been my personal choice (and I have legit been screaming this for years), I have to say AI has magnified why this is not the way to go, and at an even faster pace. AI has made people even more skeptical about what they're seeing, who they should trust and frankly, whether a company is even real.
In recent months I've seen business coaches in the travel space using AI to create their avatar videos, and we have yet to identify who the actual human is behind them. The same is true for travel advisors, and consumer skepticism has never been higher.
You're an individual (or a small team) who needs to show you're actually a human behind the brand. That takes work. It takes showing up and letting people know who you are, for real, not just the picture-perfect airbrushed version of yourself.
Second, we as humans tend to skip over the hard parts (yes, the Instagram clip of "skip to the good part" just played in my head), also known as the foundations.
I've worked with advisors who tell me they don't have anyone signing up for their email list, but they don't have email software. They tell me no one is following their social media, but they've either only posted twice in three months, or they're using their personal "locked down" profile that no one else can see, and they're definitely not talking about what they do and their growing expertise.
Start With What You Want To Represent
Effective marketing begins with a clear understanding of what you want your brand to represent. How do you want people to feel about you when they encounter you? What words would you use to describe that feeling? Is it relief? Excitement? Calm and authoritative? Fun and alive? Some combination of several? That first step helps you understand the energy you're bringing to your brand, and by extension, everything you put out.
When I did this exercise, it was a rude awakening for me. I was nailing it on stages like the podcast, in coaching calls and, to a degree, in my emails. And yet my social media showed none of it. It was stiff, not fun, and too preachy, all things that are NOT what I want to represent or consider myself to be. Even armed with that knowledge, it's been a constant struggle to release years and years of programming. Being willing to use "gonna" instead of "going to" may seem insignificant to you, but that shift represented a whole lot more for me and the way I communicate with my audience.
In one keynote I gave in Toronto in front of nearly one thousand travel advisors, a TA came up to me after and told me that listening to my presentation was like listening to a stand-up comedian who understood the industry (best compliment I've ever gotten). Yet, on my social media, I didn't know how to let that part of me fly. And somehow I still thought I was being "authentic." As time has gone on and I've let myself have more fun, it's brought in new and amazing clients. After all, who wouldn't want clients who are fun and understand the mission of the business?
Why This Matters More Than Ever and Making Marketing Work for You
AI has made people more skeptical about what they're seeing and who they can trust. Your email list is one of the few places left where a client gets you unfiltered and without an algorithm deciding whether they see you at all. That's not something you can outsource to a content library or hand off to a bot. It's the one channel where being an actual human is the entire point.
Marketing Is a Relationship, Not a Pitch
Marketing is an investment in the relationship you're building with someone. If all your marketing is sell, sell, sell, it's a one-sided relationship. Instead, create moments for them to connect with you, get to know you (while avoiding sharing TMI) and then create opportunities for them to convert when the time is right.
Your marketing needs to do three things:
- Create awareness that you exist
- Give people the ability to evaluate if you're the right person for them to work with
- Create space for them to convert to a client by letting them know the steps
Too many of the marketing pieces travel advisors put out skip straight to the assumption that someone is ready to buy, and it's all about the products they can sell. No one wants to be proposed to when all they did was look in your direction. Slow the process down. Understand what each element is for. Then create the right content for the right stage of the funnel.
Know What You Want To Be Known For
This is a big part of the puzzle. If no one knows how to refer you, they can't. Full stop. If they don't know how to describe what you do, they can't refer you.
Sometimes in business, and in particular in travel, we start because we're driven by the end goal. In too many cases that's "planning trips" as opposed to actually building a business and selling travel, which can lead to an identity crisis. If this is you, no worries, I've been there too, especially once I stepped out of selling travel and into what it means to be a business coach in the travel industry. I get it. You're not alone.
Know Your Platform
I had a business coach ask me what my main platform was, and I started listing off the numbers of where I had the biggest following. Then he followed it up with the most powerful line asking, “If someone is going to refer you, where are they sending strangers to check you out?”
I was fortunate enough to have just gotten off three days of stages, and the thing I'd heard over and over was, "You've got to check out Glenda’s podcast." Connecting those two dots made me realize that for me it wasn't social media, it was my podcast. Now before you race out and start a podcast, that's not what I'm saying. Maybe yours is social media. I recently told my community about an advisor slaying it on social media, and that's where I know her from, mostly for her content on why ultra luxury may not be what you think it is.
Knowing your main platform shows you where you need to double down. You do not need to be on all the platforms, but you do need to know which one you're going to consider your main platform.
Armed with the knowledge that my podcast is my primary platform, missing a week of publishing is no longer optional. We've plotted our upcoming workshop schedule with my VA, and we already recorded the episode coming out the week after our next workshop eight weeks in advance, because we know we're running on fumes after the workshops, and getting the episodes out means that much.
Your platform could be your website, a specific social channel, a podcast or even in-person or a storefront. You get to choose where you double down. Bonus points if you've got an audience willing to tell you where they send new people to find you.
Marketing isn't as hard as we make it seem. We're just skipping the foundations and trying to build Ikea furniture without the instructions or even knowing if we have all the pieces.
Ultimately, to simplify marketing, approach it this way:
- How can I get to know people better?
- How can I connect with them?
- What do they need to know?
- What are they too embarrassed to ask, because they feel like everyone should already know the answer?
Be the safe space for them to get answers, to feel seen, to feel heard.
In order for them to feel that way, you have to be willing to be seen and heard yourself.
Before you say, "I can't be seen on camera," remember that you being on camera may be the exact thing a potential client needs to see to believe they can be seen on a beach, or that they belong on a river cruise, or anywhere else they've always dreamed of but didn't feel they belonged.
No one can book with you if they don't know how to find you. Your marketing starts with your willingness to be seen and heard as the expert you are.
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