Marketing tips for travel industry?

[plonk]

I got a very interesting offer to sell software to travel niche businesses and would love to get some tips from people with experience of selling software to offline clients.

I was offered to represent the business and be the salesman in Northern Europe.

Would love to get some tips and ideas on what would be the best way to market the software to businesses. I need to get their attention with offline methods because I have worked in the niche for 7 years (the type of businesses I would need to sell to now) and I see daily tens of emails offering me all types of services that would "benefit" the business. I don't want to waste my time sending out emails if I know they won't even be read are taken seriously.

The software really does benefit businesses and save them money and earn them even more. It's just a hard sale here because people don't see the benefits before they start using it.

I have thought so far about sending letters as other members have done for ORM, but maybe some of you could give me some good ideas and tips.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ambitious12]

IMO travel forums and travel media and news websites are good means for marketing and then the ultimate Facebook marketing.

 

[plonk]

IMO travel forums and travel media and news websites are good means for marketing and then the ultimate Facebook marketing.

I have noticed that most of those businesses especially where I want to start my marketing efforts believe in brick and mortar type of businesses. They have outdated websites, crappy softwares or even no softwares to manage their business. I haven't seen any local forums or groups where these businesses collaborate to help each other out. I will try to find some local fourms where these owners/managers hang around but that is quite unlikely.

Cheers for the tip mate!

 

[Mart668]

I would also look round internet and, as stated above, social networks offer a huge potential!

 

[plonk]

I would also look round internet and, as stated above, social networks offer a huge potential!

Well, I did read more about all of that, seems that the main problem would be because I don't speak the local languages in northen Europe I can't work to market to their forums with quality..

I'm prepering my material and gonna give it a shot. Gonna send out about 50 letters see what happens.

 

[rockert]

Offline or online travel agencies?

 

[RTSteam]

Well, I did read more about all of that, seems that the main problem would be because I don't speak the local languages in northen Europe I can't work to market to their forums with quality..

Well, you should try to learn their language then. This would be an additional bonus since it would make you more sincere and any person would love to do business with a sincere person.

 

[HoNeYBiRD]

i co-owned a travel agency in Central EU not too long ago, it was a small firm, but even we had a software, because that's how you can give a contract to your clients, that's how you can keep yourself organized, that's how your accountant has an easier job to handle your shit, so you won't get buttfucked by the tax man and i'm pretty sure in Northern EU this is the same, i can't really imagine that they work without softwares in one of the most developed part of the planet

I have noticed that most of those businesses especially where I want to start my marketing efforts believe in brick and mortar type of businesses.

this is true, for some of the agencies the physical relationship between the agency and the clients is still important, especially older clients like to visit an office and make their booking there instead of the internet, but there are online only agencies since a long time, accommodation aggregators, which never had a brick and mortar business and making a lot bigger profit than brick and mortar businesses now, it was a slower process until it got there, but i'd say it came to a point where there's no actual need for brick and mortar businesses anymore, because people can book everything online and make their own packages, partly that's why we closed shop after 20 years, because our offline traffic went down drastically, the most people who came to us in the last times came for only to ask us to make a package then when they got it, they didn't book it with us, but they booked it online, rendering our existence pretty much useless, we started to operate as a non-profit tour inform agency lol
we made a great profit in the beginning, we organized holidays to Croatia after the civil war was over in the middle of the 90's (i didn't work there at that time) and it was dirt cheap, then came the internet, at first it was good, because we were the first or 2nd agency who got a website in the area, so it worked pretty well, but soon everybody had a website and not just the agencies, but accommodations, transportation, everybody and that's when it started to become a downhill for brick and mortar businesses

They have outdated websites, crappy softwares or even no softwares to manage their business

the outdated websites can also be true, not for every company though, especially not for bigger agencies who work in franchise system (TUI, Neckermann etc.), they have nice websites for the most part, but i'm not sure where do you get the idea about crappy softwares or no softwares at all

there must be softwares for travel agencies pretty much everywhere you go and you'll have a hard time to convince the owners to switch to your platform (it costs money, it has a learning curve etc.), that's a sure thing, emailing doesn't make too much sense, they get trillions of emails every day, yours won't stand out, unless you can get the address of somebody who's in a position to make decisions, cold calling may work better, but meeting in person would be the best imho, because a fundamental sofware which runs the whole business is not something you change every day and you might not willing to do it over the internet
i think the best approach would look like this: call the agencies asking an email address of a decision maker, then send your offer via email, if they're interested at all, let them stomach it for a while, if they don't reply, make a follow up call and if you see they're into it, close the deal in person
do this with a lot of agencies in the same area to make it worthwhile to go there in person

the pricing of the product is also a crucial point i think, small businesses don't really like to pay upfront a lot of money without seeing the results at first, so maybe offer free trial (with a small set up fee) or a monthly plan
another thing that you may need to translate the software to the native languages, English may not cut it

good luck

 

[iamsuen]

Hey,


ChineseAN focuses on the travel verticals so I'll definitely be able to show you some solid offers. In addition, I've got some ads/presales that may assist you when starting out. Do you want to chat on Skype? Add me at ( skype.rsuen ).


Cheers,
Ryan

 

[plonk]

i co-owned a travel agency in Central EU not too long ago, it was a small firm, but even we had a software, because that's how you can give a contract to your clients, that's how you can keep yourself organized, that's how your accountant has an easier job to handle your shit, so you won't get buttfucked by the tax man and i'm pretty sure in Northern EU this is the same, i can't really imagine that they work without softwares in one of the most developed part of the planet

this is true, for some of the agencies the physical relationship between the agency and the clients is still important, especially older clients like to visit an office and make their booking there instead of the internet, but there are online only agencies since a long time, accommodation aggregators, which never had a brick and mortar business and making a lot bigger profit than brick and mortar businesses now, it was a slower process until it got there, but i'd say it came to a point where there's no actual need for brick and mortar businesses anymore, because people can book everything online and make their own packages, partly that's why we closed shop after 20 years, because our offline traffic went down drastically, the most people who came to us in the last times came for only to ask us to make a package then when they got it, they didn't book it with us, but they booked it online, rendering our existence pretty much useless, we started to operate as a non-profit tour inform agency lol
we made a great profit in the beginning, we organized holidays to Croatia after the civil war was over in the middle of the 90's (i didn't work there at that time) and it was dirt cheap, then came the internet, at first it was good, because we were the first or 2nd agency who got a website in the area, so it worked pretty well, but soon everybody had a website and not just the agencies, but accommodations, transportation, everybody and that's when it started to become a downhill for brick and mortar businesses

the outdated websites can also be true, not for every company though, especially not for bigger agencies who work in franchise system (TUI, Neckermann etc.), they have nice websites for the most part, but i'm not sure where do you get the idea about crappy softwares or no softwares at all

there must be softwares for travel agencies pretty much everywhere you go and you'll have a hard time to convince the owners to switch to your platform (it costs money, it has a learning curve etc.), that's a sure thing, emailing doesn't make too much sense, they get trillions of emails every day, yours won't stand out, unless you can get the address of somebody who's in a position to make decisions, cold calling may work better, but meeting in person would be the best imho, because a fundamental sofware which runs the whole business is not something you change every day and you might not willing to do it over the internet
i think the best approach would look like this: call the agencies asking an email address of a decision maker, then send your offer via email, if they're interested at all, let them stomach it for a while, if they don't reply, make a follow up call and if you see they're into it, close the deal in person
do this with a lot of agencies in the same area to make it worthwhile to go there in person

the pricing of the product is also a crucial point i think, small businesses don't really like to pay upfront a lot of money without seeing the results at first, so maybe offer free trial (with a small set up fee) or a monthly plan
another thing that you may need to translate the software to the native languages, English may not cut it

good luck

Cheers for the detailed answer mate!
The software is not for travel agancies its for accommodation businesses the whole point of this software is to avoid booking fees. It is integrated in their own website and we also provide free basic SEO so they stand out. The people I work with have that sorted out and will provide SEO services for them so they get on first page on google for the related keywords (I know that form experience as they have have done that for our offilne businesses quite well and we are nr1 on good keywords)

I agree switching softwares is quite a hustle and I will collect at lest a few businesses in a area before I wisit them.

Regarding no software, I'm more thinking as their own software as most of these businesses would use the software that is provided by major booking engines and if one place is booked, lets say a booking is made via x site you have to block the spaces in other booking sites (W Y Z) engines so there is no double booking.