Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 192: Storytelling in Action: how big brand use is (& how you can steal it as a travel advisor)
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome back to the Travel Agency Near Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. Yesterday we talked about why storytelling works in your marketing strategy. Today let's get specific, a few more brand examples. And hope maybe, you know, I should have put this at the end of yesterday's episode, but maybe you could do some homework and think about brands that you really connect with and what stories they have told in their brand. Okay? And I think I mentioned this in past episodes, when you are developing your own brand and you're like, ⁓ I want to get into super high-end luxury. Consider looking at true super high-end luxury brands and seeing their fonts, their colors, because that tells the story as well. Their messaging and copy on their website, because that tells the story as well. And what kind of stories of that brand could align with you, you and your clients. All right. But we're gonna talk about how to translate multi-million dollar campaign strategies down to something you can do this week from your phone. And so easy. Okay, we're gonna talk about Patagonia, which I had a really fun conversation with this chick named Kim at DFW Airport during a layover. All about all about Patagonia. Not even at all, actually. We were talking about so many other things. And I didn't know this woman from Adam and I was just telling her about my trip and I was like, it was the weirdest trip ever, because guess what? Anyone who travels with me knows like weird shit just happens to me. And she didn't know me, and she's like, I live here in Dallas and I could go home right now, but I'm gonna buy you Diet Coke and we're gonna sit here and talk for another hour. And I was like, Okay. Alright, Kim. So She's like, tell me more. And then I was like, well, what did you do? And she was at a tech conference and she was like, ⁓ I sell software. It I don't remember something about tech bros. And she's like, you know, it's 95 degrees out, and they're all wearing their Patagonia vests. So now we're gonna talk about Patagonia. She's like, There's no need. They're not athletic, they're not climbing mountains. So we kind of had a laugh about that. They built an entire storytelling strategy around not even selling. Their most famous ad said, don't buy this jacket. It sounds like the opposite of marketing. They were focusing more on telling a story about their values. Durability over disposability. And it made their brand more magnetic, not less. So the lesson is sometimes a story that builds the most trust is the one that isn't asking for anything. Then let's say okay, another one I got is the Doves Real Beauty campaign. I don't even know if that's going on anymore, but that was a thing for a minute. That shifted away from like product focused advertising entirely and just told stories about real women, their real insecurities, and real moments of their self-perception shifting. And that was like one of the most I even I don't remember when it came out, but I know I studied this campaign in one of my marketing classes in college because it made people feel seen and not sold to. Okay. So a story that reflects your audience's real experience back to them builds more loyalty than any list of features you could own. Let's apply this campaign strategy to a niche and travel and we're gonna talk about because it's like women focused right with the Dove Real Beauty campaign ⁓ female solo travel and you could put together like group trips where single women can go travel somewhere either with you or without you and you could have Once you have those people go, you could ask them to interview, like you could interview them and have or have them just record a film of like I felt so lone. You could even do this yourself if you are a lady. You could be like, I felt so lone. I felt like there was no one else in my shoes, my kids were out of the home, I wasn't married. I wanted to see the world and I wanted to do it my way, but I was also a little nervous and so I started working on this. Now if this was a client of yours, they'd be like, XYZ travel helped me get there. And so there's they're offering, they're kind of like marketing the feeling that you connect all those women and bring them together and create a community. Okay. The last one I'm gonna bring back up again is Airbnb, which I secretly am mad about, but it's fine because you know we're travel advisors. Their Belong Anywhere rebranding didn't happen because of their supply of listings changed. It happened because they realized their story really wasn't about finding a cheap place to stay. As evidenced by now by Airbnb prices. It happened because they it was like Connecting and being feel like feeling welcome in unfamiliar places. So sometimes the biggest growth doesn't come from your new offer, but it comes from telling the story of what you do more truthfully. And this is why also I've talked about this forever and ever. It's important to have a niche. You can have more than one niche, and you need to have these stories for each niche, okay? I recommend them doing one. Don't have like five niches. Three is okay too, you know. But you need to be able to tell the stories for each niche. Okay, and what you're already doing. There is a course that I launched way back in, I think, 24. Maybe it was twenty-five. Hmm. Maybe it was twenty-five. So about a year ago, called the sweet spot to success. It's forty-seven dollars and it talks all about finding your niche, creating your service packages. Tiered service packages. Don't just charge a rando fee. Have tiered service packages. and we're gonna talk about that in future episodes as well. I I think I've already brought it up a billion times though. Anyway And being able to tell your story based on your superpowers. There's so much into it. It's $47. No big deal. You can find it over on ElevateWithRachelk.com. Sorry for that rando plug. But anyway, storytelling is cool. So a lot of advisors, the mistake that they make when they hear these examples, they think they have to have footage of the actual resort or the cruise ship, and there needs to be Like all this special production value. No. Specificity and honesty. A 30-second video, boom, of your phone in your face. Of you explaining why you talked a client out of an overpriced resort. Just filmed in your car. No editing. The algorithm does favor makeup. So maybe a little mascara, sorry. Or no makeup. I don't care. But that can carry more weight than a polished ad because it's unmistakably real. You can fight me in the comments. The number of clients I have gotten who came to me and said, I love your content because you are real. Like you have your hair is in a frizzball because you're in humidity. You're in your office. You're not traveling the world twenty-four-seven and all of your content. Like you are being you. Now some travel advisor like friends of mine would find my profile or I'd share it and I tell my students that I I mentor, I'm like, go find that profile. It's terrible. If you see it, it doesn't apply. Like it doesn't appeal to you. But it appeals to my clients. ⁓ and I've had them be like, How can you even go on camera without makeup on? How can you do any of this stuff? Like, you don't have any filters. What are you doing? And I'm like, because I want to be me. You know, people want to work with real people, especially with AI creating more content, and now there's like AI that you can generate entire fake like human quote unquote bots doing like quote unquote podcasts and they're just people are making so much money off of that and they'll have entire fake funnels and campaigns and whatever. It's crazy. So be a little bit flawed in your content creation. Don't worry about it being perfect. All right, sorry I went on a tangent there. So simple exercise at the end of this week. You can just ask yourself, what's one thing that happened this week that made me feel something about this work? Maybe a client's reaction to a surprise upgrade. Maybe you had to have a tough conversation about your budget that led somewhere better. Maybe you are traveling and there is a destination that like you've never been to and you're on this trip and it surprised you. You were like, ugh, like my first time going to Mexico. I was one of those Midwest, I'm gonna get kidnapped by the cartel people many, many, many, many moons ago. And I was like, I feel like Mexico's dirty. It is my favorite place to be now. you don't have to manufacture this stuff. You just need to notice it and be willing to share it. Some story examples that I have, let me think, from the last few days. on the travel side. I am relocating across the country. Location not disclosed on this podcast. Just in case. And I started ⁓ reaching out and networking with compatible business owners in the new destination that I am moving to. And I had a fantastic, like two hour call yesterday. with someone who also referred me to three more, I think two or three more people who are interested in doing a partnership for my secret super secret plan. We're not talking about that. And we talked a lot about it just made me feel really, really excited of all the possible opportunities and where I am relocating to has a completely different energy, especially amongst the small business owners and entrepreneurs compared to where I currently am right now. And it's just beautiful. Another thing, let's see, another story I could tell. I feel like there was something I was gonna tell was on the tip of my tongue today, like a minute ago, of something I did this morning. I have a new group that I signed on that wants to do some events. ⁓ along with their room block. And I had to screen record. Nope, this is a terrible story. This is a terrible story. You're like boring, not listening to this anymore. So what I do, just so you know, I do the event planning side and the travel side in my travel agency. And so I did all the estimated costs and I prepared, they already had their venue picked out. They knew exactly what they wanted to do. And so I prepared three different estimates of three different ways they could do the events and then gave them my recommendations. They excuse me are on like the West Coast. And I was shocked when I sent them over this morning at 10 a.m. my time. So that would be like I don't know, 7 a.m., 8 a.m. their time. I don't know Pacific standard. Sorry. ⁓ they'd already watched the videos, like 20 minutes in. So I'm like, ⁓ these people are super pumped. So I went ahead and even though we haven't like totally secured the event dates, I went ahead and requested the room block proposal. Because I'm like, they're ready to roll. Anyhood. That wasn't a very good story, sorry. But what's something that you did this week? Like that could be a story for like a day in the life of your job. Like I could talk about that and be like this and then you are already preemptively sharing the experience of working with you and that feeling of like knowledge expertise and like me being psycho and doing screen records of everything. They can do they can watch the videos on their own time instead of setting up a phone call or like email and all that fun stuff. I mean it was sent via email, but they don't have to text me, they don't have to schedule a call, they don't have to call me out of the blue. They have that information to watch at two o'clock in the morning. Alright. So what's one thing? A moment from like this last week that made you feel something about this work, that you're actually helping someone. Gosh, I had something and I don't know why it just like left my mind. But that moment is your story material. That it that is a story you can tell. Okay, and before you post anything else, I mean you can post new stuff. You should have it probably scheduled out or at least drafted. Run any new content, like not necessarily don't redo anything that you've got drafted. Just keep it going. The new content you're creating, not necessarily for this week to be posted, but maybe next month. It just depends on how far ahead you are with your content creation. Ask yourself. Three questions. Is there a specific person or like a moment in this? Is there like tension or a turning point? Something that almost didn't happen like the usual way? And does it end somewhere that reflects what you actually believe about your work? Okay. If you can answer yes to all three, you're not sharing just information. You're telling a story and it will perform differently. Okay? Trying to think of a good story I could tell. I got stories for days. I got too many stories. Hmm. Trying to think of an easy one. Here's one from a couple weeks ago. I probably told this story. I had a repeater client come in and be like, we want to do our honeymoon because we're grown up now. And I'm like, good for you. Congratulations. And they said, there's just no way. We talked to this other travel agent and they said we could only go to Sandals in Jamaica. I was like, with a butler. We had to have that for our honeymoon. But our budget was super limited. We can't do more than $5,000. And I was like, well, I don't know why they didn't even listen to your budget and are just forcing you to book something that you it's not in the country you want to go to. You don't need a butler. You're way too young for that brand. I think I think. I g I have some opinions about that brand myself. And it's way over budget. So I said I was like based on your budget, where you're flying from, and like you can't really go over that much more. You're gonna have to choose either here you can get a whole week, like in the DR, or you can do like five nights in Riviera Maya, but are you open to a family friendly resort? And they were like, absolutely, we don't mind kids at all. And I was like, okay, because that's gonna help you get maybe a higher level room category for the time of year that you're going. So I knew exactly what I was gonna offer them, by the way. I was like, ⁓ I know the perfect place. And that was my first proposal. And then I sent the two other options and I said, look, these are all in budget. And I said my personal rec, what I would book is this one, which was the first one I sent. I said, but you're welcome to look at all of these. And they are super pumped and excited because they got it like f maybe four hundred dollars less. Then their total budget. And I was like, now you got room for tips. And now you got room for excursions if you want to add ⁓ on, like while you're on your honeymoon. And you get the full honeymoon package and you get all this stuff. And they were like, this is awesome. And it took like thirty seconds from start to finish to get it booked. So I would revise that story. But that's a story you could tell as a travel agent in your marketing. Alright, tomorrow we're gonna talk more about the founder's story, which I also have on my old tic-tac-toe. My Y story. not the brands that you admire, but the actual story of why you started doing this and travel in the first place and why that story is one of your most valuable marketing assets, whether you've ever told it publicly or not. Like, I used to have I called it my resume, and I think pr I I haven't deleted my TikTok account, but I used to have My resume, pinned post, and it was my story of my why. Because I did destination wedding. So I'm like, well, here's my proof of my experience that led me down the road to destination wedding and event planning. Alright, that was day 192 of the travel agent senior podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe so you get daily notifications. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.