Today everybody wants to have a successful brand. Starting from personal one to branding for tours and activities. During the branding process, you might feel like you’re in an enormous labyrinth. You wonder if your next step will lead to results.
As soon as you realize that your business processes are aligned, including all your marketing and PR, i.e., communication activities, you will be on the right way to so wished success. After you have started new tours and activities and you do not have any doubt that your target customers will like it, still you have to make first steps and start positioning them in order to start making sales.
In our experience, for quality positioning of a tourism product or service in the new market, using B2C and B2B communication channels, it’s important to invest at least 6 months to 1 year of continuous everyday activities.This time frame implies that we have already developed a marketing and communication plan. Also, that we know and understand the market we were targeting. Remember, success is possible for everyone, but there is no shortcut and an overnight success.
The content brands are creating today is very diverse. It needs to fit the world of social, online and offline communication. So, finding new ways to strengthen your market presence, and to position your tour company through a unified story, is challenging. This is also crucial if you want to reach a new audience and get a third party credibility.
I’m sure that you, as we all do, have special feelings about attracting quality leads and the revenue. But are you aware that those activities belong to the later phase of a buying cycle, and usually are assigned to a marketing and sales persons or departments? In the sales cycle of a tourist product, people often forget about the so-called “the stage of dreaming” where we all think and explore on a destination for a few years, so the stage of dreaming can long last.
Do you really know what is happening in the early stages when a customer becomes aware of your product and your brand becomes visible? How aware are you of the moment your potential customer contacts you or books your tour and the fact that they made their decision about it earlier? In other words, they bypassed your competition and choose you.
Whether your brand will end up as a “winner” or not, depends on how easily accessible information about your tours and activities is.
At least once in a lifetime, we all heard: „Failing to plan is planning to fail“. Take some time and think about what exactly you would like to communicate, as well as about your ways of communication. Don’t wait that news „happens“ to you to start the branding for tours and activities. Creating and distributing relevant content weeks or months before the high season, will highlight your professionalism and give you the competitive advantage.
Making a research where and what type of content your customers consume is of the great importance for your communication plan. All the information your PR team does not perceive as important enough to be sent to top media is still of a great importance to your target customers. „Small“ media are in constant search for the quality and relevant content as well as so called „big players“. Creating a relationship where you will target your niche segment, will be one of your advantages. If you also use the ability to adapt your content to a communication style your target media has, you will get better chances for even more visibility.
I’m sure you have noticed that we all become fed up with the so called mainstream news. We’d rather hear, see or read someone’s recommendation for a specific product or service. Developing quality relationships with those who have large audiences, i.e., the influencers, you can find your way to a wider market. The obvious reason for that is – messages we get by a recommendation, always make a bigger impact.
When making an analysis, it is important to know which segments do you want to follow. Also, what do you want to do with the results. Three things you should consider when analyzing:
To sum up, the conclusions you get after analyzing, it’s important to put in a certain context. With that in mind, you should adjust your future strategy to get better results.
At the end, we can say that one of the crucial things in positioning your tours and activities is the quality of your message and the plan of online placement.
Search engines are places where your potential customers or guests go and search for the solution of their problem. This is a possibility for you to reach a new audience and become more recognizable.
This audience will be happy if they find a solution. They will share it within their own social network. As it is in human nature that people like to talk about beautiful things. Tourism product or service is a beautiful thing. In that way, they will unconsciously have an influence on positioning your tour company within search results. This will lead you to a higher rank on search engines, and your brand will earn a more credibility.
If your target market does not perceive the image you are trying to create, the image does not exist. If your target market does not believe in your tour company benefit, this is not a benefit. If they do not believe that the benefit can be delivered, your promises are useless. If your benefits are not perceived as different, as the ones that fully satisfy customer’s needs, you didn’t manage to distinguish it compared to others. But remember, while positioning your branding for tours and activities you want to dominate, not to compete with others. If you compete, you are not able to be creative.
You should become aware and learn how to dominate within your niche as soon as possible. The situation on the market will not change if you do not change your way of thinking.
Look at a success within positioning as on a garden. In a garden you always have to do something: trim, mow, weed out, groom, dig, plant…. If you do not do all of that, weeds will take over the garden. All plants and grass will fade away.
Martina Lucić Čanak is a Tourism Communicologist by profession. Her interest and curiosity led her to work in tourism for 15 years now. Her love for travel helped her to understand intercultural differences and its importance in life. Today Martina is a Co-Owner and the Managing Director of Travel PR & Travel Branding Agency magic4.club. They take care of Tourism & Travel brand image as a long-lived project and challenge by using innovative promotion and marketing communication sets and following all the features of the client’s business story.
Each client has their own story. It is magic4.club mission to recognize all its features and to tell the story that will leave a strong and long-lasting impression.
ORIOLY
on August 9, 2017
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