Finding Clients in the Travel Industry

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Comment:	your answer was very helpful thank you

Questioner:	ishmell
Category:	Internet Media
Private:	No
Subject:	internet marketing Question:
	Hello, im a travel organzier and im currently in the process looking for clients for my travel organizer business. Right now im in the process of constructing a website. I have explored many options on marketing, Im looking for clients locally, across america and abroad,I was wondering if you had any different ideas on how to reach travelers via internet and ideas on creative marketing techniques. What about blogging? How can BLOGGING be as a benefit to my website and or profit? Can email marketing be effective at seeing results? Do you have any ideas for advertising/marketing that could be effective?
Answer:	Hello Ishmell On the topic of Blogging. I am a strong advocate of blogging for business websites. It allows you to reach a larger targeted audience at a considerably lower cost per customer. Conversion rates are arguably higher, since you are reaching very targeted viewers that are more likely to be interested in your offering. On the downside, blogging is very labor intensive and even with professional help has a development cycle of at least 6 months. With a static website, your aim is to make a direct sale. In contrast to that blogging is interactive where you aim to develop an ongoing relationship with your readership. First a community of readers has to be built through valuable content. Only than can you attempt to tie it to your product in hopes of making a sale. In a nutshell for a travel organizer such as yourself, your home page may offer travel deals and your blog may cover topics like: Top 10 Budget Trips, Top 10 Places to Visit Before You Die, Trip Diaries of John Doe ect. Use applications like Flicker to enhance visuals on your site. "How can BLOGGING be as a benefit to my website and or profit?" Topics you write about in your blog should reflect what you sell. If you sell packages to Cancun, Mexico....you blog about, once again...Top 10 Places in Cancun. Reason: Search Engines index by keywords, which simply means: the more often Cancun, Mexico appears on your blog, the higher it is in google search hence the more visits you get to your blog. Where it becomes profitable is when your visitors click through to your website and purchase your travel package. On the Topic of E-mail Marketing: It is beyond the scope of a page to answer you on that. One thing worth considering is that the open rate of bulk e-mail is about 2 percent at best. Unless you use your own contacts, rented e-mail lists are available but have a lower open rate of 0.7 percent. E-mail marketing is more effective if you have time and money to invest. On the subject of effective marketing ideas: What marketing tool you use depends on what suits your business strategy and goals. For the first phase of a website or blog I would suggest concentrating on online and offline marketing. Online examples are, Adsense, AdWord, Craigslist.org, Kijiji.com, paid ads on other sites, free directories, manually submitting your URL to search engines. Offline may be local paper, sponsoring community events, contests to win a trip (great for building e-mail lists). I trust this gives you some useful ideas. Edina