Can A Travel Audience of One Work for You?
If your travel content isn’t bringing in inquiries, bookings, or engagement, it’s likely your content and messaging isn’t suitable for your real audience.
Your general content and messaging might be so general, it fails to click with anyone. The audience of one strategy might help you make all of your content resonate to your best customer prospects. It makes it more enjoyable, purposeful, and significant, thus can power up sales.
Let’s explore how this strategy or technique might work for you.
There are Two Issues with General Targeting:
- You’re sharing the wrong message with the right travelers (wrong UVP and offer)
- You’re sharing the right message with the wrong travelers (weak targeting).
🔹 If you’re sharing the wrong message with the right travelers, the issue is relevance and and content clarity—you need the right topics, hitting the right painpoints, with better storytelling, visuals, proof/trust signals, stronger UVP and promotion, or a more compelling hook.
🔹 If you’re sharing the right message with the wrong travelers, the issue is targeting—you need to expertly craft content for SEO, social media posting and do targeted advertising to reach specific, well-targeted prospects that need your travel services.
Top Travel Blogs and Sites often Have Specific Themes, Content and Followers
There’s one key support for this approach in that many successful travel blogs and travel companies tend to focus exclusively on the traveler type. Engagement is better, but also, people tend to share and promote content/brands that have specific benefits. Few people like and share general purpose travel content.
Yes, you need that content on your site for SEO and relevance purposes, but it’s promoted carefully as a way to broaden your top of funnel traffic and keep your brand visible.
Aligning to Audience-of-One is a Technique that Brings Focus
And it can be used in any industry, not only travel. At it’s core, audience of one is about alignment of the UVP delivered in content experiences to the essential desires of a representative customer profile (i.e., their buying intent).
When there’s misalignment of content or messaging to the target audience, there’s confusion. Thus we should narrow our focus to our best, ideal, convertible customer prospect. If we can reach them, we’re likely to impact, engage and persuade them to buy.
Instead of trying to reach everyone, narrow your focus to one dream traveler—the perfect guest for your tours, trip experiences, or services. This is the one who will be your forever customer who believes you’re “the only provider for them.” That’s powerful branding with long term revenue value. Your analytics solutions will prove that.
An Easy Fix: Market to an Audience of ONE
The concept of marketing to an audience of one is about providing the best content experiences and relevant messages to the travelers most receptive to your brand and offer.
Millennials parents, solo Gen Z’s, babyboomers, and middle aged, female ocean cruise buyers want different content experiences and offers. By focusing on one single traveler profile, we get a high-fidelity signal to them, one that’s easier for them to scan, consume, understand and act on.
Just the fact that your content is more resonant sends a message to related traveler profiles that you’re credible and trustworthy. A part of them likes that signal you’re sending out. Maybe they like your company a little too, or they have a family member who fits that profile. They can appreciate the value of your value proposition, even if it isn’t significant to them personally.
Find Your Very Best Travel Customer
Your brand and content strategist should review traveler profiles and begin building a clear profile based on your customer data. Use your dashboard filters to narrow your best customers down to the top 10. Then compile the characteristics that are most common. Then based on that, find one customer that is your best ideal customer.
Then you can design topics, phrasing, copy, visuals, and UVP points matched to their specific travel dream and painpoints. This makes content strategy and creation much easier, thus allowing you to get deeper into the core of the value proposition for them – emotions, benefits, rationale, and each of the why’s of their decision making.
You’re crafting the perfect match of content to the customer.
All for One Content Creation Process
When crafting content and messaging for your one ideal travel customer, focus on precision, emotional connection, and value. Follow this process:
1️⃣ Define Your “One Ideal Traveler”
- Who are they? (Age, lifestyle, interests, travel habits)
- What kind of trips do they dream about?
- What problems do they face when booking travel?
- What emotions drive their travel decisions? (Excitement, escape, status, connection?)
- What questions do they ask before booking?
Example: If you’re targeting luxury travelers, their key concerns might be exclusivity, hassle-free experiences, and premium service. If it’s budget travelers, they’re looking for affordability, hidden gems, and maximizing value.
2️⃣ Craft a Hook That Speaks Directly to Them
Make the first line of your content feel like it’s written just for them.
✅ Luxury Example: “Imagine waking up in an overwater villa with a private butler handling your every need—this is how you should be experiencing the Maldives.”
✅ Budget Example: “Did you know you can explore Thailand for less than $50 a day without sacrificing amazing experiences?”
3️⃣ Speak Their Language & Pain Points
Use words and phrases they actually use when thinking about travel.
- Luxury Traveler: “Exclusive, VIP, tailored, stress-free, bespoke, once-in-a-lifetime”
- Budget Traveler: “Affordable, hidden gems, best deals, travel hack, budget-friendly”
Then, address pain points directly in a more creative and persuasive fashion:
❌ “We offer private tours in Italy.” (general)
✅ “Skip the tourist crowds and get a private guide who unlocks secret spots in Rome just for you.” (specific)
4️⃣ Tell a Story That Makes Them Feel the Adventure
Instead of listing features, paint a picture:
- What will they see, hear, taste, or feel on your trip?
- How will it improve their life or solve a problem?
- Why is this experience different from anything else they’ve seen?
Travel Tour Company Example:
❌ “Our Santorini tours offer breathtaking views,” (here’s our stuff messaging).
✅ “You’re sipping wine at a cliffside taverna as the Santorini sunset paints the sky in fiery orange. A private chef prepares seafood caught just this morning. This isn’t just a tour—it’s your moment.” (here’s your personalized significant experience).
5️⃣ Include a Call to Action That Feels Personal
Instead of generic CTAs, personalize it to what they truly want.
🚫 “Book now!”
✅ “Want to experience they sights, sounds and lifestyles of Paris like a local? Let’s make it happen—DM us for a custom itinerary.”
6️⃣ Test & Refine
- Build campaigns via SEO, social media and ad campaigns to build sufficient responses
- If the content resonates and creates leads, expand on it!
- If engagement is low, tweak the messaging, visuals, or CTA.
- Keep learning from analytics reports, comments, DMs, and traveler feedback to sharpen your content.
Are There Drawbacks in the Audience of One Strategy?
There could be. Overly specific topics, treatments, and offers can alienate other types travelers. So you might want to try a multipronged approach for separate ideal audiences (e.g., family of four vacations, USA travel lovers, foreign culture experiences, eco-tourist meaningfulness trips, etc., awesome adventure seekers).
Audience of one potentially could limit your growth and reduce the connections you have with the full industry online.
The solution is to master your most ideal, profitable customer profile first. Once mastered, you’re able to repeat the process for your 2nd best ideal traveler profile. It’s possible to present these separately via different channels (e.g. content channels, social media accounts, and focused advertising and remarketing campaigns).
This takes skill in strategy and execution, but given the power of modern travel marketing software, it’s all doable.
Need affordable travel marketing services that ease the risk and maximize the best channels which your ideal travel prospect use?
🚀 Call Gord at 416 998 6246 to discuss how we can capture and convert them.
