Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 223: Announcing your new travel niche is more than just posting once
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in the Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K, travel agency owner, helping travel advisors become the CEO of their travel business. Travel, travel, travel. Did say travel enough? I don't know. Today's day 223. Going wide. Rolling out the new offer, or just simply announcing that you're a travel advisor. Story time. I became a travel advisor and didn't announce it for like I think fifteen months. I didn't even tell my s o at the time for several months that I was one. Because I was like, I'm gonna even see if this I just something I would do in my spare time. I'd just do all the little trainings. anyway. So I've been there. I've been there where it's like I really gotta put this out there now. Your soft launch is done. It's day 223. Somehow you did the soft launch from yesterday's episode in one day. You've made your adjustments. Now it's time for the real deal. Holyfield telling everybody whether, again, new package, new niche, simple, huge announcement that you're officially a travel advisor and you were taking on clients. a common mistake is cru k treating a launch as just one announcement post and then moving on. You've gotta repeat yourself and your content. I think that is back in. I'd have to look at my show notes. my gosh. It might be back in the 210s. day two thirteen. Good thing I have my show notes just up on my monitor. Yeah, welcome. You need to repeat your message. But anyway. You can't just post once, hey everybody, I'm a travel advisor and I'm hosted under this, and this is what I specialize in, and go on. A real rollout has like a buildup, a moment, and a follow-through. Spread across several days or even a couple of weeks, not compressed into like one little caption on a post. So let's do a sample rollout arc. Number one, the tease. I know you're gonna be like, this is so cringy, Rachel. Just do it. Just do it. It's fine. A few days before the full announcement, hint that something big is coming or something new is coming. This isn't about being cryptic for its own sake. It's about giving your audience a reason to pay attention when the real announcement lands instead of scrolling past it as one post among hundreds. Okay, so once you tease. Then you're gonna do the announcement, which will be the clearest, most direct piece of content. It could be a video, a written post, in your email newsletter. ideally more than one of these together. Now if you're announcing your travel advisor. Your newsletter, you could put it in your newsletter if you have had clients actually book. Put in your newsletter and be like, hey, I'm ready to share this with the world. Please tell your friends and family, this is how they can contact me, share this. Like you could put that in your email newsletter if you knew travel advisor and you have a handful of clients you've served. Okay, and ideally you want to do more than one of these things together. So it could be like a story, it could be I don't know about story. It could be a story and a video and a written post and in your newsletter. Because you don't know how people are gonna find your content. Not everyone sees every single post, even if they are huge followers of you, not everyone sees every single post you make. Anyway. State plainly what it is that's new, why it matters, and what someone should do if they're interested. So tying this back to I want to announce I'm a travel advisor. You could write a video. No, you could write. You could write a video. You could film a video. And you could say, hey, this has been my passion for several years. I've been training for months. This is what I focus on. This is what I'm gonna do. And have your handle for the different socials, specifically for your travel agency, just like on the screen. You know, you can do text on the screen, just have it on the screen, like TikTok, Instagram, whatever, YouTube, whatever you do, and you're at whatever username. So that they can follow you and then point down to it or point up to it or whatever and say, you can follow my travel agency adventures here. That's a great way to announce it in video. And just put it on your personal reels. And then you can share your own content. By the way, I know some people are like, no, I just use my own personal. I'm not a fan of that. Keep personal and business separate. And also you can share your own business content. Duh. Helping boost yourself in the algorithm because you can share it on your own page, your personal page, if you want to. Okay, anyway. Then there's the follow-through. In the days and weeks after, keep reinforcing the announcement. A client's early reaction if you have one, a specific detail that you didn't cover the first time, a reminder for anyone who missed it the first time around. Remember the rule of seven that we talked about a few weeks back. I'm not gonna scroll through my show notes, but the rule of seven, one announcement rarely reaches everyone, let alone moves them to act. So back to the video, because I'm a fan of the video content. If you want to do the follow-through a few days later, say, hey, did you know I became a travel agent and here's my handles? You can go follow my travel agency. I specialize in Ba Ba Ba Ba Bah. And over there I have an in-depth video all about whatever the heck you specialize in. Follow me for the best tips and tricks for your niche here. Whatever your niche is. Telling people you're a travel advisor is a big moment. It's kind of a big deal. Cause you're like, it's kind of like the red ribbon cutting with the giant scissors and the mayor. Somehow you get the keys to the city. I just like went like 80s cartoons of that in my brain. And you cut the scissors and you're open for business. It's kind of a big deal. You need to treat it with the weight that it deserves. You can't just be like Subtly update that you work as a travel agent on your profile. This is the exact moment to draw on your founder story from earlier this year that we've created, which I think is back in the 190s. I'm sorry if you're sorry, not sorry. You should have been listening to this a while ago. It's fine. But we did it like an entire week on founder story, brand story. Let me see if I can find that. I'll go back in the sh show notes. It's gotta be It's gotta be around two eleven, maybe. It might be two nine. Do do do do do marketing the mission I don't freaking know where it's at. Two five, maybe. nope, that's a mindset episode. Okay, anyway, there's an episode about the founder story. You should have your founder story which is your about me. Anyway, gosh. Sorry. Sidetrack, you probably are like, well, done listen to this crap. But anyway, when you are announcing that you are becoming a travel advisor, this is the exact moment to draw on your founder story. You're about me. Why did I become a travel advisor? Why am I so passionate about starting a travel agency? What led you on this path? what you're genuinely excited to help people with. People are going to remember and respond to the honest story far more than a purely informational, I'm now booking travel post. Okay? So I know a particular agent that listens to this episode every day, and I'm not gonna name names, but if you show up. Let's see, you won't hear this episode by then in any of the recent live QA's and mention it. This person currently works in a furniture store setting up the showroom. So this person, part of their founder stories, they and they've spent a lot of time there. So if they don't create like do this launch, like the big rollout of I'm a travel advisor right away, I dun I don't think that they have yet. I think they're like just getting their systems in place. But if you're listening, you could talk about how you really enjoyed working in the showroom, setting up the beautiful living spaces and creating moments that families or married couples, like or newlyweds buying their first home could enter into the store and start to live the experience just in those little living areas that you created. And then you decided to hone in on your sales and service skills, because I know you're moving. To a different department so that you could really practice your active listening and serve your travel clients real well. And now that you've done that, along with other extensive training with your preferred suppliers, you are ready to take all of that experience and create, I'm not even sure your niche is finalized yet, your niche here experience. Totally do that. Whatever you are rolling out, be very explicit about the next step. Have the good, clear call to action. Not just I'm now booking travel. DM me if you want to get started on a trip to da-da-da next spring. I'm not a fan of people DMing me on social for help, but you could do that. Here's my consultation link. Reply to this email if you want to be one of my first clients. Follow me, follow my travel agency adventures at this new social handle. If you launch with a vague, soft ending, it leaves excited people with nowhere obvious to go, and that energy fades fast if there's no clear action attached to it. So you want to be very clear. Like you could even be as explicit as like now accepting sorry, I had a weird fingernail incident if you're watching the video. you could be as explicit as now accepting ten clients for summer twenty twenty seven or whatever year it is that you're listening. vacations to Europe. But you could be you could be even clearer on that, like the Mediterranean or adult only Mediterranean cruises. 'Cause I think Virgin still has sailings out there. Something like that. I don't know why I always go to cruising when I'm like, I don't even book cruises. But I'm like, cruising? Just be very, very, very explicit on what you want them to do. Don't just say, tell your friends. Just say, you want this. And you could add to it afterwards, like, and if you're not ready, share this with someone who is. I'm not a fan of like multiple call to actions, but you could do that. so tomorrow we're gonna talk about tracking your new rollouts, your new offers impact over time. And I'm a big fan of tracking, not psychotically logging all the data, but just looking at it over time and seeing the percentages going up and down. I think it's very important, especially if you do email and social media marketing and/or social media marketing. So, how to track the impact of your new rollout over time. why that matters for your monthly and quarterly reviews. This was day 223 of the Travel Agency Near Podcast. Have a wonderful day.