TRAVEL MARKETING & MEDIA

Well this definitely needs to be done before we can start designing your website but you’re probably closer than you think. If you think you’re not ready to start work on your website book a call in with our expert team and explain your business model ideas to her. She’ll let you know one of two ways to move forward:

1. Refine just a few things and get started or
2. Get some help (coaching, copywriting, mentoring) and circle back when you’re done.

If you’re a travel advisor or travel brand one of the best places to get this clarity is inside of our free Power Sessions (catch the replays if you miss the live sessions) and also inside of our free membership called Travel Marketing Townhall.

Getting followers on social media is not your priority. It really isn’t. Social media has two purposes – to guide potential clients to your website where you can build your email list, or to show social proof to those who need it.

Building your email list? Now this IS YOUR PRIORITY. Having a free offer of extremely high value that is relevant, appropriate and valuable to your potential clients is a must have on your website. They will give you their name and email address (subscribe) and you give them a PDF, video, checklist or service in return. We setup this up free of charge on your website. You’ll then email that list of subscribers every 1-2 weeks with your latest blog or news.

If you’re not attracting the right type of clients (or any clients at all yet) we recommend joining TRAVEL MARKETING REVOLUTION in our next enrollment, and taking the our EMAIL LIST BUILDING COURSE FOR TRAVEL ENTREPRENEURS.

Yeah – not a good idea. Here are three good reasons why your website needs to go up the second you have your business idea thought out (a landing page is just as good as a full website when you’re starting out – especially if you’re on a budget):

1. All marketing roads lead to your website – your business cards, conversations, social media; it all leads to your website. Frankly, a business with no website is not credible.

2. Once your website has been submitted by your web designer to Google in order to be indexed – it takes a bit of time to for the site to rank in the search engine. While your site is ranking and you continue to add new content you can be growing your business.

3. It all gets real when you have a website. The day that your website goes live is the first real day of business. It’s when you’re visible to potential clients. Why delay the day that your next client finds you?!

Take a look at what we know to be a close to perfect travel advisor’s website. It has every element you need. You can have a website just look this in just a few weeks!

We have heard that many times before. But a travel agent’s website is the single most important asset that you will have. It’s more imporant than a business card, pull up banners, flyers or any other type of marketing. It is far more important than the time, effort and any money that you put into social media marketing even. Not to say that you shouldn’t do any of those things – you absolutely should. But at the end of the day, all marketing channels lead to your website. Travelers just will not find you or book from you if you don’t have a credible website.

DIY websites for travel agents? Well they look DIY. If you do a website on a budget you are putting yourself out there to get clients on a budget. Don’t put out there what you don’t want back.

Travel agents need a website that is FULL of helpful and interesting content. You need to show off the destination and industry knowledge that you have and show potential clients how you can be of service. Travel agents also need to demonstrate their skill set through testimonials.

So if you think you can’t afford a website – consider if you should be in business and what your business priorities are. Not having a website that refreshed at least every 18-24 years dates you as an expert in the industry. No expert in any industry would have a website that is not updated frequently.

On average a good website will cost you between $2K – $4K. For a full price list and menu or services – CLICK HERE.

We offer incredible payment plan options so be sure to ask us about that.

Your website is not something you do in addition to your business.

It is the heartbeat of your business.

We guarantee that if you dedicate just one hour a day for a 7-10 days you will have a stunning website full of brilliant content to engage and motivate your potential clients to book more travel.

And isn’t that the goal? To book more travel?

That’s actually one of the many reasons that our clients choose us over a standard agency. We know travel and we know travel imagery. We provide our web design clients with FREE access to our image gallery.

Our gallery has the obvious gorgeous city and landscapes but we also know that travel is about people so we have a ton of people, food, culture, activities and more in the gallery.

We will download an unlimited number of Shutterstock images (you would have to pay $29/each if you were buying them yourself) so that we have the right images for your travel business.

All images that we download for your website are at our expense, not yours.

Well that’s all up to you! You have two options.

We show you just how easy it is to update your site by connecting you to a powerful series of how to guides for anything and everything you need for your website.

We recommend only changing text images and leaving any layout changes to us.

If you don’t want to maintain your website at all we are happy to do it for you for a small fee.

We hear you on that. Writing is not everyone’s strongest skill and knowing that about yourself is so important. It is vital that you can communicate your brilliance and core messaging to your audience.

We are certain that our Content Mangement System will help you to pull everything together however if your budget permits we strongly recommend hiring a professional writer to either write for you or at the very least revise what you have written.

We have a team of professionally trained travel and marketing writers. They have completed the StoryBrand framework and will write write your content based on that – saving you thousands of dollars.

You’re in luck.

We realized a little while ago that asking a client for all of the content for their website was a terrible idea. Since 2009 we have never had a client that had everything written, organized and ready for us to receive at once. And it’s not a surprise.

Most travel agents are sales people and travelers at heart – not copy writers, marketing experts or designers. So we knew we needed to do something to help them out. We created a clever Content Management System that guides and supports clients in pulling together the content they know that they need – and more importantly the stuff they didn’t know they needed.

To be clear – we don’t create or proof content. We just help you figure out what you need to do in an organized manner.

We have over 20 years of experience in the travel industry we know what your website needs to have on it to engage your visitors and lead them to contact you. So that’s where we start.

You’ll work with our talented (and super organized) Operations Manager who will support you, keep you on track and on time – and get all of your content organized for our design team. ALL of our websites are designed by Sandra McLemore.

Your domain name is the address that you give to people to find your website, also known as the web address or URL (uniform resource identifier – cause everyone knows what that is!?). NEVER let anyone, not even a web designer buy your domain. You must buy it yourself and our strong recommendation if you haven’t bought it is to buy it from Google Domains as they throw in the privacy settings for free and have the best support. Be sure to buy a domain name that is easy to say, spell and that you can legally tie to your business.

Hosting is like rent. It’s what you pay to connect your website to the domain name. We will run through hosting costs with you on our first call but you should expect to pay between $10-20 per month. That’s a whole lot cheaper than storefront rent!

Still confused? Think of it like this…your website is a car, your domain is the address you park it at and the hosting is the rent you pay to park your car there! You need all three.

Yes we do. But we’re a little different here when it comes to logos. Usually the first thing a new business does is to go out and have a logo designed and then try and design their whole website and corporate ID around it.

Our advice is that if you don’t have a logo right now, leave it until the end. We don’t believe in designing a brand around a logo. Your brand should be designed around your core messaging and your target market. After all, if your brand doesn’t speak to your customers, neither can you. Since the beginning of time brands have changed and evolved their logos, even the biggest brands in the world. So don’t get caught up on your logo. Let’s get to work on your website and let the logo happen later.

But when it is time… we are the perfect company to create your visual brand. We challenge you to find a design agency with more than 20 years experience working in the actual travel industry. As far as we know, we’re the only one!

Let’s make it easy and give you the preferred order of how we recommend your visual branding comes together:

1. Get clear on your niche
2. Identify your ideal client – age, gender, interests, values, travel preferences
3. Name your business and give it a tag line
4. Choose your colors and have your website designed by an agency that knows the travel industry – US!
5. Have your logo designed by a professional graphics artist who understands your business. Giving them your website is the best brief. Our logo designs are stunning!
6. Have us create you a marketing kit: social media banners, email signature banner, business cards, letterhead, with compliments slips, pull up banners and more.

Unless you are a trained graphic artist or web designer you SHOULD NOT do any of the steps 4 through 7.

DIY never ends well. It looks like DIY and your clients will know. You want clients to hire you for your expertise and not DIY their round world trip – so do the same.

Hire professionals. Be sure to hire professionals who can show you examples of their work, put you in touch with current clients to speak to and who KNOW TRAVEL.

Yes we certainly do!
Simply send an email to hello@cottammclemore.com and advise us that you want to work one-on-one with our custom logo designer and we will provide you with details for that service.