Become a Home Based Travel Agent

How to Stay True to Your Niche
in a Down-Turn Economy
By: Cory Andrichuk

Many home-based travel entrepreneurs have taken the advice of cruise lines, resort, and packaged suppliers to invest in a new direction of specializing.  “Specialize and develop a niche and your business will grow”, they sang.   “Take our online education, become accredited / specialized, take our FAM and become an expert,” they said...  And they did

They even took the classes and courses at trade shows.  They then got real serious and networked with fellow colleagues online in a highly-specialized niched-forum group(s) to discuss their niche expertise.  Sound familiar?  Then where are your customers?  Why is there that deathly sound of silence in your office these days?  No phone calls... No emails to take you up on your professional niched-knowledge.  And now it’s gone from bad to worse... You’re back selling Las Vegas and 3 day $1.49 Blue-Light special cruises to the Bahamas (a small exaggeration but you get my point.)

As you can tell, I am an avid proponent of specializing in niche travel, but with the down-turn in the economy, many travel entrepreneurs ask me, “How do I stay true to my niche plan when people are cutting back on travel spending and my bottom line is getting smaller?”  There is hope!   Your hope is called marketing.  By consistently positioning yourself as a “value-provider” to your target-market, you create a reputation that says I am here to help you make the best buying decision.  Your value is not a cheap price, but specific product knowledge gained by years of professional experience, accreditation, and a passion for specializing in a unique product or destination.  Get your existing customers to recommend you, support you, and stay loyal to you and you will have a nice little business that is growing and always creating added value, especially in a down-turn economy. 

It all starts with a plan.  A sad truth is that eighty percent of home-based travel entrepreneurs I speak with do not have a marketing plan.  A marketing plan is your road-map to success.   Marketing is an investment in your future business.  No matter how successful you are, how experienced you are, and how many clients you currently have, you always have to be marketing! 

I recommend you ask yourself five questions when beginning to write your marketing plan:

1. Who are you marketing to?  More specifically, who is your target market?   Niche marketing is all about target marketing and is a simple concept. Niche marketing is targeting a product or service to a small portion of a market that is not being readily served by the mainstream product or service marketers. 

2. What are you marketing?  What kind of business are you in?  Take the time to think about you and your value – your brand.  Remember, you (your brand) is the product the customer is buying.  Your product knowledge, accreditation and specialization are worth more than you think!  Your valued experience and passion should be sought-out and appreciated by those wanting to learn more about what you have to offer.  Your personality needs to be sellable in the right way... but are you for sale? 

3. Where are you marketing?  I recommend that you create several marketing drivers to help you communicate your niche to your target market.  You cannot just rely on email marketing any longer.  I recommend that you invest in a professional email software marketing program, such as like Constant Contact, that helps you measure and record your email open-rates.   Join specific associations, charities, chambers, and boards that get you involved and connected to your community. Classic advice from the old-school is “It’s not who you know – it’s who knows you”. 

4. When are you marketing?  Short answer = always!  Long answer = Never stop marketing, especially in a down-turn economy.  Your competition does not stop – why would you? 

5. Why are you marketing?  To survive.  It is your responsibility to educate and promote your speciality to your target market.  Look around your community and see who is still advertising and marketing in this down-turn economy and who is not... are they your competition?  You bet they are!  Everyone is competing for the same thing - limited disposal income.  Your clients are still spending their disposable income – you need to market to get a piece of it. 

As we all know, there is no silver-bullet to success in the travel market.  Never was – never will be.  If you have a sales problem today (slumping sales and little profit in a down-turn economy) you have a marketing problem.  If you are losing market share, you have a marketing problem.  If you want to increase your sales, profits, and market share, increase and improve your marketing efforts.