Travel to Promote a Travel Agency

[HairyHun]

Hi guys,

This uncle of mine has a travel agency, so I was wondering. He made some favors for me in the past, so I'd like to repay him by helping his business.
How would you promote a brick and morter travel agency this day and age?

A few info on them:

- Been around for a while, so most people are last generation
- Lot of experience in central europe, spa, etc
- They have the capacity to handle high load if I can trow it at them (8-10 agents they got )
- Limited budget, but there is a budget nonetheless


How would you go about it?


HH


EDIT: Fuck, I can't edit the title. I meant IDEAs to promote a travel agency

 

[Grafix]

First thing I'd do is get a website, then promote the website. You could do some contests, sweepstakes or giveaways. Things of that nature.

 

[its_trish]

Hi HH,

How about this... your uncle give's a free week in Maui, to someone who can do some social networking marketing for him?

Trish : - )

 

[1timedeal]

For travel agencies you really have to network|advertise|partner|affiliate program those that are related to you. Travel blogs and websites and forums like that.

If it's a blog obviously the owner can write posts, or banner ads or text lins.
For websites, I'd go against hiring forum posters, but instead place prominent banners where they allow you for maximum exposures.

All of the above are going to cost money, but it's money well spent. Initially you might only be able to afford 1 or 2 forum advertisings, but revenue should go in.

The best bet is to set up leads generation program, where you reward affiliate members % profits. Travel packages goes up to the $X,XXX.00, so a few percentage there can amount to over a hundred per leads for them, which is a very tempting program.

Affiliate mangers are abound, so you can find someone that can help you for a few thousands a month. Again, that thousand a month is also money worth well spent. Afiliate programs are IMO the most effective medium on spreading your profit net, because you're like hiring a ghost sales team to do the work for you, on a COMISSION BASIS!

I hope that helps, none of these are new ideas, but IMO it's great for the travel industry.

1timedeal

 

[1timedeal]

To expand on Trish's idea,

Offer a package thing. Hotel|dinner|event ticket package to XXXX destination. How they get to XXXX is their own business, because you have no way to tell if the winner's gonna be from LA, or from Brazil, or Africa.

This is blog bait. Just ping everyone and say "Write about our contest, and if someone coming from your blog wins this, we'll give you conert ticket to 'WHAM reunion'!!", and you can slip in a note in your contest area saying "Looking for cheap flights? We offer them at [your uncle's website or business phone]"!

Hi HH,

How about this... your uncle give's a free week in Maui, to someone who can do some social networking marketing for him?

Trish : - )

1timedeal

 

[HairyHun]

Thanks for the contributions.

What I had in mind was lead generation or affiliate marketing related because i think it would yield results faster.

Redo the whole website, then invest in seo, when it's already a competitive niche would be hard and long.

These are people from a previous generation and they are not so good with the happy go lucky, enthusiastic phone customer service.

So I was thinking actually focusing on a few landing pages for specific products and either do lead generation for those or straight out CPA. I wonder tho if people would be willing to buy online such packages worth over a G without talking with someone on the phone.

HH

 

[wickedsmartie]

It was suggested to me that the typical order of "re-do (or build) website, then invest in SEO" is incomplete.

Possibly a much more effective order: "select SEO partner/consultant/advisor; re-do (or build) site in consultation with them; invest in SEO."

That's what I'm planning to do, anyway.