Become a Home Based Travel Agent

A Marketing article
Rewired vs. Retired…
Who is your target market these days?
By Cory Andrichuk

Before you begin selling exotic travel and popular cruise vacations, you NEED to know who you are selling to.  If you haven’t determined who your target market is, you are likely to be all things to all people and end up being nothing to nobody… and more specifically with a service nobody likes which doesn’t meet anyone’s needs. 

When developing a general profile of your potential customer, or for those of you, wanting to get even more specialized and develop a niche, you might want to define them by their demographic characteristics, such as:

• Age, usually described in a range like the mentioned baby-boomer in the title

• Sex

• Marital status

• Location

• Family description and size

• Income and disposable,

• Education

• Occupation

• Interest

• Ethnic background

The benefit of defining YOUR target customer is that you are focused on their needs and preferences as everyone buys travel for different reasons.  An older baby boomer is on a cruise for a different reason that a younger baby boomer, conversely with the Gen X, & Gen Y.  This is why it is SO difficult to try and sell travel to everybody!  Every… body… buys travel for different reasons!  

The specific demographic I want to highlight and bring to your attention speaks directly to the growing trend called the rewired baby boomer.  Have you heard of them, do you sell to them, and are you one of them?  Based on my market research you might not have heard of this new label before, but you do sell to them… and chances are you are one of them within the travel industry!

Online social networks are bringing everyone closer together, and when baby boomers arrive onto something, it usually mushroom clouds into something huge with a massive amount of attention.    Check out for yourself these social media statistics from a great resource showing the number of baby boomers adopting Facebook!   Other social media trends, such as Twitter, seem to be equally appealing to boomers. And it seems that when boomers are on board with a trend en mass, their large numbers have the potential to shift the nature of the platform.  When a social media site becomes popular with boomers, the potential to attract advertisers and make a greater profit is likely to increase, according to PCWorld.com.

Many of you fall nicely into the statistics mentioned above called the baby boomers, who are embracing new social media tools more and more every day.  You are on Facebook because your friends and family are on Facebook, and are slowly learning HOW to turn those computer clicks into commission-checks through the art of conversation marketing… or are you?  It’s not a big deal if you are not, unless your target market is online… and as we all know they are!!!  (Fact:  90% of all Canadian Internet users also have a Facebook account!). 

Some questions to leave you with:

If your target market and customer is online, is social, is researching their next travel and cruise vacation, don’t you think you should let them know you are also online, can help them save some time and money and add incredible experience and value to their research and shopping ordeal? 

Does your business card educate your target customer how to find you online?

What does Google say about, your business, and online brand?    

Recommendation:

Educate your target market, your ideal customer, your niche how you work online and off and how you ADD value as their friend in the business.  WHY…?  So that when they think travel, they think of you, call you, book with you, pay you, refer you, and then do it all over again next year…