Author by : Cassandra Ingraham

Travel Agents have had it hard every since the Airlines realized they could communicate directly with the consumer and sell airline tickets online.

Once the online travel site business pattern proved successful, the airlines cut travel agent’s commission to an average of $10.00 per ticket. The Travel Agent has been left to fen for themselves after providing excellent service for the airlines for decades. Those agencies servicing Corporate accounts have done much better then the small personal travel agencies that provided services to the neighborhood and surrounding businesses.

Travel Agents must become familiar with online marketing solutions.

The first task would be to develop an SEO web site. (keyword: seo) It does not have to be fancy. It has to be functional and have good content.

The second task would be building a client e-mail database. This is one of the most important steps to your online marketing program. Once you can contact your clients using e-mail, at the click of a mouse, you are on your way to real online marketing. (Always check your spelling) You will need a privacy policy (keyword: privacy policy) and a web based e-mail marketing service. This will cost around $10 to $25.00, starting out.

The third task might be witting travel articles to be distributed online (free) to web content sites. This is the single most important online marketing task.

Your next step, before contracting to get your own online booking engine would be to advertise online. One excellent method is to “buy traffic” to help build up your ranking. You can purchase target traffic for as little as $10.00 per month. (keyword: buy traffic) Provide a “sign-up” on your web site for a monthly newsletter or more information.

Don’t expect to sell travel on a visitors first or second visit unless they are existing clients. Give new clients time to get to know and trust you. Do not be intimidated by the mega online travel sites. If you have done your homework, then you realize which wholesale travel suppliers they are using and you can use a different one.

Another excellent free online marketing tool is to use well know classified ad sites, such as LiveDeal, Craigslist, Backpage and a new one Travel 360 at www.travel360degrees.com.

[tags]travel agents, travel, marketing, free, solutions, classifieds, advertising, tips, tools[/tags]

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