Rethinking the Marketing Funnel for your Travel Business

Welcome to this Strategic Travel Entrepreneur. My name is Rita Perez. Hello. I've been a travel Advisor for over 10 years and am navigating this winding road of entrepreneurship with you. I created this podcast because I wanted to share all the things I've learned from leaders both in and out of our industry that I really wish I would have known way back then. But alas, the important thing is I'm aware of them now, and I want you to be too. Ready for this week's show. Let's jump in.

Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. It is a solo episode for you this week. And in the episode, if you can tell by the title or not, I wanted to go over the my Mining for Gemstones framework and also the idea of hosting a challenge for my own travel business to spark interest and educate as well. So let's get into it. If you've been following me for a little bit on social media or in my Facebook group, the Strategic Travel Entrepreneur, I have been talking about how I am taking the standard marketing funnel and I am turning it on its side. I'm making it horse because I feel like the traditional marketing funnel as it is right now, it's vertical and at the top it says attract and then engage, nurture, invite, delight.

And I felt like attract was too passive. Almost like the marketing funnel or the marketing funnel gurus, gods, however you want to call them, we're telling you just wait for somebody to be attracted to you. Granted, that's not all that there is, but that's kind of like the majority of the that you just have to wait for someone to be attracted to your business, and we just cannot wait anymore. The idea that you just put a lead magnet out there and you wait for someone to be attracted to your business or to that lead magnet, we can't do that. We can't do that. We're not online business owners. Do we have a business that we can work online? Yes. But our business heavily relies on relationships and connections, and in order to garner that, we need to go out and search for that and create that.

So that is why instead of attract, my first stage is search, you are going into the mine, and that's really what mining for gemstones is all about. We're going into the mine to mine for these gemstones. And gemstones doesn't mean actual gemstones. These gemstones are your ideal clients and your referral partners. Because that's another thing that I don't think we talk enough about in the travel industry is the importance of Referrals and creating a referral network that may become your ideal clients at some point. But even importantly is that they send ideal clients or people that they know who would be interested in partnering up for some sort of a collaboration with your business in the future. It is critically important to have these people in your life. I will say probably equally or maybe even greater than, than having your ideal clients, because they just funnel even more ideal clients to you.

So search, that was the first thing that we did within the Mining for Gemstones challenge. And that I was like, the whole purpose of the challenge is I wanted people to take action and people to think about their client journey. Because again, this is another thing that we don't really talk about. We really talk about selling and a lot about marketing. But it is that client journey, because the client journey helps us to create these ideal clients who then turn into our travelers to hopefully become repeat clients and also raving fans who also become referral partners. It's like the big circle of life, this mining for gemstones. So we have to first, just like a miner is going in to mine gemstones, you have to go into the mine and start looking for them, start searching for them. And this for us means that we have to start googling, start searching for different events that our ideal clients or referral partners would be at.

And then the next step, of course, is to attend these events, whether they be in person, whether they be virtually, and connect with people on some sort of level. And I love the analogy. I watched a dating show recently off of Netflix and the analogy with dating is if you don't know what to talk about, talk about something that you love so that you can find common ground. And you know, really, we're in the travel business. It shouldn't be that hard to find some common ground with different people at these events. Because I would say nine times out of 10, people are going to love travel and talking about travel. So once you have started that conversation, a joke that I had made with the people that were enrolled in the Mining for Gemstone challenge is you have to extract them. So once you found them in the mind, how are you going to take them out of the mind to keep the conversation going? Because you just can't be like, hey, well, it was nice to meet you, see you later.

So the joke that I had made is that you can't, like, if you're at an event, you can't just be, hey, I have a freebie, do you want to sign up for it? That just sounds ridiculous. If you're telling that to somebody in person. Something that is more likely to help you extract is maybe you want to connect via coffee chat. Maybe you want to stay connected to see what kinds of events that you might be able to see each other at. Maybe if this is like an ongoing group or if this group produces events, you say, hey, I'll see you at the next meeting, or you swap business cards or however it be that you keep in contact with this person. Hey, you know, I'm very active on Instagram. Please, you know, feel free to follow me. If you'd like to know more about traveling to the Maldives on your honeymoon or whatever conversation starter that you have for your ideal client, that's what the lead in should be to get them moving to the next phase, which is uncover.

So you've gone into the mine, you've taken out this rock. Now we have to see if this rock is a gemstone or if it's just a rock. And how that's going to happen is people need to uncover things like you are uncovering things about them, they are uncovering things about you. So this can be that. Maybe you're just attending more events and you're seeing these same people at these types of events and you're just keeping the conversation going there. Maybe it's you are doing a weekly webinar or a weekly live somewhere. Maybe you're hosting your own challenge to educate and get people thinking more of how they can work with you and how you can help them in whatever niche it is that you help and serve. Maybe it's just that you post weekly on social media and you have fun.

Different infographics. This could also be your email list sending out weekly emails. Or maybe you're producing weekly emails on YouTube or you know, we talked about lives. I want to loop in LinkedIn here because LinkedIn is another really great channel to start meeting people. It really is all about providing value and doing the three things, engaging, entertaining and educating. And you have to keep in mind the different buying stages. So you can't always be talking to people at the first stage, which is them getting to know you. Because you're never going to keep moving people onto the next stages, which is so they're newbies to you, then they're lurkers and then they become actual travelers.

There's different, I would say different touch points and messaging that each one of those people needs to know at each of those different stages. And you can do it in the three different ways of educating, engaging and oh man, I forgot Entertaining, engaging and educating. So that is the uncover. Once they have uncovered, you're kind of like, I really want to work with this person. I can't wait for them to say yes. Once they have said yes, because they have decided that you are the travel business owner that they want to work with, then it is time to set it. So it's just like the jeweler you have acquired. Like, you know that this is a beautiful gemstone and you are trying to piece it out.

Does it belong in this type of ring? Does it belong in this type of watch? Does it belong on this type of necklace? Setting? You are setting the stage, which means you are planning the travel and curating everything to make sure that this gemstone shines as bright as it possibly can on their trip. So this is going to be like your whole buying process. Do they fill out an inquiry form? From the inquiry form, are you communicating how long it's going to take? Once you communicated how long it's going to take for you to craft something up, have you sent them some sort of onboarding document? How are you keeping in communication throughout the whole planning process? Are you sending them something before they leave? Are you sending them something on their return? Because that is another very important thing that we don't talk about is that onboarding is very, very important to make sure that we have certain expectations or that they are aware of certain expectations. But offboarding is really important just to get feedback for how everything went and if there's anything that you can do to improve your service for next time. So that is set. And then once we finish with set is the fifth stage, the final stage, which is polish. Just like many of the other jewelry that you have lying around, you can't just leave it lying around and expect it to stay beautiful and shiny and bright all the time. At least the good jewelry.

Good jewelry does dull and does need a little bit of polishing up every now and then to make sure it's sparkles. And that is just like their client, and that is just like your clients. They have to be aware that you're still in business, that you're still offering the services that they want, and that you are still the right person to be working with. And to do that. It's going to be some similar things that you've already done on the uncover process, but you're going to do a couple of additional things because someone who's not a client doesn't really deserve extra measures like a birthday card or a holiday card or anything of the sort that would be kind of weird, I think. I think you might agree with me on that. But someone that has book travel with you and has traveled, they do deserve a little bit of extra recognition throughout the year. So those are that is the stages of mining for gemstones.

So we have search, extract, uncover, set and polish. Let me know if you have any questions about that. Ready to play bingo in your travel business? Did you even think you could play bingo in your travel business? The monthly Bingo board is more than just having fun while working your business. It is a tool to help you stay focused and hold you accountable while taking the necessary actions to move your business forward. You can even enter to win special rewards when you achieve a bingo for the month. Join our travel Bingo community by visiting the link in the show notes. We can't wait to cheer you on in success. Now moving on to the second part of this podcast which is I really wanted so I there was a lot of stuff that I learned putting on this challenge.

This is kind of like my first challenge and I've hosted a couple other things before, but this was the first challenge and it was very time consuming. But I am so glad that I have all these assets now because it's not going to be nearly as hard when I put on my next challenge in the future, whenever that should be and whatever the topic that should be on. But it also got me thinking, hey, I should do a challenge like this for people who want to support my travel business. And I think for me it might be a little bit easier because I I have created again my own frameworks and that is if you didn't know, like a little business type insider tip is you can really differentiate yourself from other business owners when you have proprietary frameworks that you have created. So in the support business I have mining for gemstones and then I also have the four phases of the travel business which is Freega foundations, Rinse and Repeat, Grow and Ascend. In my travel business, if you didn't know, I specialize in cruise ship retreats. So I have a framework for cruise retreat planning and that's called the five Cs of cruise retreat Planning. Now I didn't intentionally mean to put a letter pun in it, but it just so happened that it kind of fit.

And so my framework for that and kind of what will serve as the framework for each of the challenge days will be the themes that's going to be cruise calculate, calendar, curriculum and captivate. So maybe even when you're thinking to do your own challenge, maybe even before you start to do that, think of your own framework. Maybe you have the four Ds of destination wedding planning, or maybe you have the mind framework. And mind stands for four different things specific to sports travel. So think of those different ideas and how you can create your own framework and how it will help for so many things. Not only for drafting up whatever you want your challenge to be and figuring out the curriculum for that, but it is also going to help identify you as a leader in your industry, especially in your field, in your niche. People are going to start thinking like, oh my gosh, yes, that's Trevor. And Trevor, he has the mind framework.

So that's like we have to work with him because he knows how to plan sports travel trips. It just helps build your authority in the craft that you do. And you probably already have a certain framework, a process that you utilize every time or certain things that you think about in the process of planning the family trips that you plan or the Disney trips that you plan. Maybe you have the magic wand formula for different types of magic tricks, magical getaways that you have. And I'm including theme parky type travel in that you've never really talked about it or published it before, but that is something that you can start talking about and can shape how you theme your challenge. When we talk about planning a challenge, there's going to be a lot of different things that this is beneficial for. One, people who I would call in that lurker category hopefully will be able to get them closer to that traveler category depending on what your challenge is about. So if this is like if we go back to Destiny or babymoon, let's try something different.

If we're going to baby moon planning, maybe you give them or help them decipher key decisions in the babymoon planning process so that at the end of the challenge, your ask, your call to action is please give me a call so that we can start planning your baby moon today. It's kind of like you've created all of this anticipation that they are really excited to pull the trigger at the end of the challenge or at the very least have some sort of consultation where you can get some one on one time with them, get to know their needs, get to know who they are, and maybe they don't put the trigger right then, but in the future they'll be able to pull the trigger. And also this is a great way again, when we're thinking about referral marketing, they have just been able to create a relationship with you. So if they know someone Else maybe they're not ready to pull the trigger, but they know somebody else who is ready to go ahead and book a vacation very similar to what they want. They can refer them to you as well. So this helps really to build your authority. You're educating, hopefully you're entertaining in some way. It's not just a dry, boring presentation that you're putting together.

And of course you're engaging with them because you're going to be sending daily emails. If you have a group, you're going to be doing daily posts. You're going to be engaging with them on whatever platform that you utilize to go live or present this information at. And that's really. It sounds super simple, but you have to write the daily emails, you have to write reminder emails, you have to write posts in social media that gets them really thinking about whatever the topic is for the day. And I know, like I just told you about my five C's of cruise retreat planning, I even think that I might take one of those C's out and put something that I would qualify as like a pre C as one of those days instead. Because really, if we're talking about calculate and talking about budget, that's really on an individual level. So I don't know if I'd want to touch on that.

But, you know, at least these are some of the things to start thinking about. Maybe budget for your clientele is a really great thing to start talking about in the sense that you can set some expectations that baby moons start at $5,000 a couple to St. Lucia for a week or however it may be, you're able to start that conversation off and maybe highlight a few key properties that they can start like really picturing themselves going on this, picturing themselves going on this so much that they're like, okay, just take care of it for us like you have, you have gotten this in and we are sold and we are ready to go. So I have not yet crafted out my challenge. There's a lot of stuff that I do have going on, but I would like this to be a quarter two goal for me to be able to start talking about this and putting a challenge together and getting people who have already told me that they are very interested, they just don't know how a cruise retreat can work for them. That's what I want this challenge to be for them, is for them to start thinking about how this could work with their business and, and making their ideas really come to life, as well as educating them on different things in my field and Letting them know if you want to be planning something like this for your own business, I am the person. Like, it really will solidify. I am the person that you want to be doing all this planning for.

And who knows, like, maybe they were thinking, like, maybe there's a family reunion. You specialize in family reunions? Family celebrations. They were thinking about doing 12 years from now, but maybe because of the challenge that you put on, they're like, no, we got to do this next year. We got to start planning now. So let me know. I would like to know this also. Have you planned a challenge for your travel business? How has that gone? Do you have any pointers for us in planning a travel business? Did you get any amazing referral partners from that? Did anybody pull the trigger? I am so intrigued. So let us know.

Comment on the podcast post. That really is it for me, I hope. I've kind of like inundated you with some ideas both on mining for gemstones and crafting your client, your ideal client journey, as well as how a challenge might be able to help you in your own travel business. And something that I didn't mention too is I wonder if I could create these as something that is evergreen. Like maybe I don't have to put these on all the time. Maybe it's something that people can enroll in when they're ready. Or maybe I do want to do these live. And maybe it's something that I do quarterly or annually or every six months.

And in addition to putting on a challenge, I also put on some sort of quarterly webinar to have a different theme pertaining to my niche. So, like, maybe it is business coaches is something that I do this time. And then service providers is another focus that I don't know, I need to flesh that idea out a little bit more. But I just want to get you thinking about doing things a little bit differently that really haven't been done. And I think, you know, it's rampant in the online business world to do some sort of challenge for online business owners, but I feel like this could be pretty successful if we do it for our own travel businesses as well. So once I get everything kind of put together, I will let you know. And then of course, I love getting results and everything on here on the podcast and on my own social media. So I'll be sure to post however it goes.

And we'll see, we'll see what happens from here. Maybe I create a couple of templates for you to utilize too, for your own challenge, but that is it for me. Make sure to send me some feedback onto the podcast post. It's either you'll find it on Instagram or you'll also find it on the Take the Helm Facebook page. You guys have an amazing week and I'll see you here next week. Bye. Thanks for joining me on the Strategic Travel Entrepreneur. Please subscribe and leave the show a rating on your favorite podcast platform.

Oh, and don't forget to take a look at the show notes for important information and links. See you next week. Sam.