This week, TRO SMITH is paying homage to Jay Conrad Levinson’s “Guerrilla Marketing“, a manual for street-level marketing focused on achieving the maximum impact for the least capital expenditure. With the slim margins of travel consulting, guerilla marketing is particularly well suited for many travel agents. With that said, however, here is a warning about letting your marketing become a “shoestring noose.”
But how does a guerilla travel agent advertise? With a small advertising budget, it is difficult to compete in mainstream media. But why “shotgun” your advertising in the first place? With some selective advertising, you can stretch your visible marketing further than you might think:
Today’s suggested guerrilla tactics for $150:
- Search for ways to advertise to the clients of other local businesses. For example, the chances are very good that the local yoga studio has an email newsletter. $25 may just buy you an article and an ad circulated to a few hundred yoga practitioners in town. What about the local health food store? Do they have a newsletter in which you can buy an ad? Advertising with small service businesses that have a loyal following carries with it an implied endorsement by the owner. Advertising to the clientele of another business allows you to leverage their goodwill as your own. $150 in $25 ads can go a long way!
- Print up some high-quality tri-fold capabilities brochures, attach your business card, and circulate them. How? Make a list of all of the service businesses you patronize: your hairdresser, your dentist, your child’s pediatrician, the kid’s dance studio, the tanning salon, the day spa…any company with which you spend money. Ask for permission to put your brochures where their clients can pick them up while waiting for service. Again, you have the advantage of piggy-backing with the foot traffic of another business and receiving their implicit endorsement to an entire set of new potential clients.
- Purchase some small promotional items such as pens or scratchpads with your name and telephone on them. Keep them in your purse or briefcase and provide one to any potential client that you so much as speak to during the day. You never know who might be a potential client, so don’t be stingy with them. Hand a pen and a business card to everyone with whom you have a casual conversation. Travel is the easiest thing in the world to talk about, so let the people you run into every day know what you do and talk to you about their dream trip. Then hand them a pen or a scratch pad and ask for permission to send them some ideas that could turn their dreams into reality.
No one marketing idea is going to be all you need to do to win business. But it is possible to combine many smaller efforts into one larger, coherent, and smart marketing plan. Got some of your own ideas? Let me know!
Tomorrow: Another 3 Ways to Spend $150
