When is the right time to invest in advertising your travel business, and what should you even advertise?
Don’t stress if you haven’t hit 100K in travel bookings this year — it’s okay. We’re still recovering from the pandemic! Many travel business owners feel pressure to start advertising their business on search engines and other travel sites to get leads, but before you step into marketing your travel agency via paid ads, let’s first make sure that you are ready.
When to Invest in Advertising Your Travel Business
Here are four things you’ll need to have in place before considering doing ads:
- A quality lead magnet/free offer that is generating leads organically.
- An automated email sequence that nurtures the lead.
- A process to get the lead to take the next step with you, for example, schedule a complimentary consultation.
- An onboarding process for when that lead becomes a client.
Many travel professionals launch out to advertise their business without a plan. They will try to promote a post on Facebook or Instagram, or maybe even do a Google ad.
Without direction or clarity on the goal of your ad, spending money on ads for your travel business is not advised.
Always begin with the end in mind. What is the result you want? Do you want a lead that you can nurture and eventually turn into a client, or an instant sale?
Two quick tips: Facebook and Instagram are interruption marketing. The best travel ads to run on these platforms are to your lead magnet or an event you are hosting.
Google is an advertising platform where people are looking for something specific and are ready to buy. The types of ads that work best for this are promoting a vacation package special. In this instance, it is best to have an online booking platform.
Even with an online booking platform, you must have the bandwidth to handle the inquiries and the ability to close the sale on the call.
Tips for Advertising
Regardless of the type of ad you run for your travel agency, to create an ad that converts, here are a few tips:
- The graphic needs to be professional and get their attention
- The message needs to be compelling and speak to how your offer will benefit them.
- The call to action needs to be clear.
- The landing page needs to be stellar and quickly reinforce your professionalism as well as have powerful words that get your lead to convert.
If you want to reach new people who don’t know your brand, advertising is a great way to do it. But as you can see, there are a few things you will need to have in place to promote your travel agency online.
Wrap Up
If you don’t have the first step (a quality lead magnet that is generating leads organically), then let’s start there. Here is a great resource I created that will save you a ton of time and make you look like the rockstar travel professional I know you are!
