Why not Have a Dedicated, Active Brand Ambassador?
One of the most common issues with digital marketing campaigns is while they’re designed to meet advertiser needs, they often fail to create the kind of compelling human connection that resonates within travel consumers.
Instead of leaving a lasting impression, the ads, messaging and landing pages often come across as sterile, distant, impersonal and inauthentic. They don’t seem to have the emotional glue that binds travelers to your company.
Building a Powerful, Lasting Connection to Customers Intent
Sure, slick marketing materials may be “best practices”, but they don’t forge personal connections. And without this authentic bond to customers, even a well-designed campaign struggles to convert leads. This causes travel companies to spend more to achieve less.
While marketing overall can be improved to build this human connection, an additional layer of engaging activity might make your brand more compelling, even to be the “only travel company they’ll ever want.”
Impersonal, mass advertising is a problem for big corporations such as Expedia, TourRadar, Travelocity, American Airlines, and VRBO. Once their marketing content builds up the corporate strength/credibility/trust benefit, they’ve unwittingly distanced themselves personally. Catch 22, where they fail at intimately connecting with each customer on a personal, warm, emotional level.
The key message here: real marketing power is through a warm, interested, personal touch — showing authenticity by employing a brand ambassador who fosters genuine relationships with your audience. These team players demonstrate authenticity, caring, and a welcoming presence — timeless values that are important to any travel consumer.
Why is the Brand Ambassador So Important Now?
It’s likely a trend that will grow. Influencer marketing is just the leading edge, and influencers come with issues and conflicts of interest (their own interests). Here’s why your own dedicated Superhero is essential now:
- promotes your brand and offers as an authentic, trusted, caring and reliable person
- become an active part of the glue that bonds your brand to customers
- supports the power of your content marketing strategy
- helps make social media channels more engaging and effective
- energizes user-generated content and validate it for audiences
- they can physically validate travel destinations and make travelers take note of them
- interacts with travelers to personally validate their travel intent and urge them on
- act as an ambassador, separately from sales staff and customer service people
- understands and promotes your unique marketing strategy
- works with influencers, bloggers, and travel business connections to include your company
- adds other marketing value such as video content generation and SEO support
If this person(s) can manage additional aspects of your marketing campaigns, then they might be a great solution.
Activate Your Personal Connection
When we speak of warm and personal, we’re talking about people. A person is the medium where emotions are turned into action like clicking the booking button. So it seems a special advocate is needed to be the glue between the customer and company, one who may gently pave the path to a travel adventure.
Best Solution? Open up to create your own dedicated Brand Ambassador or Superhero. This person, as a marketing specialist as part of your team can generate numerous powerful benefits to open up your full travel marketing mix. A brand ambassador finds ways to engage your customers more deeply and create more interaction with your marketing content and tour and travel package offers.
Enjoy the description of these types of people and how you might find and develop them below.
Creating the Emotional Connection
Ads and marketing content try to be this glue, but our website analytics tells us it’s just not getting the results. We second guess the content creators, but the problem might not be the content. Information alone has it’s worth, but when that info is delivered through a person, it gains significance to become cherished by the customer. That’s why many small businesses live by this “personal service” motto.
Marketing Concept: a person is the medium
It’s through a person that content gets its power, life, impact and significance. Proof of that is seen with social media influencers who garner all sorts of likes, shares, publicity, praise, and money! They’re a medium.
The key point to make is that the glue or connecting element is a credible, engaged, caring, active, helpful person — your brand ambassador. Tour operators, OTAs, or travel management software companies with no people visible and actively involved in demonstrating their brand, can’t register strong enough emotional impact.
Of course, as I discuss here in this post, it’s about more than meet the staff, about us, and a message from the President. It’s more like “Here’s Gord, joining you in your epic travel adventure, ready to help as a traveler.” I really like that one!
Remember Flo of Progressive Insurance?
A first example of a marketing superhero is Flo of Progressive Insurance. She appears warm, likable and represents the brand well. However, there’s no real personal interaction between her with insurance customers — she’s just a video character. Still, her character shows us how powerful the concept of a brand ambassador is.
And Rick Steeves, who has made European travel interesting for so many, is one of the best examples of a great travel brand ambassador. He engages travelers in his videos and on social media pages with his narratives and descriptions. Many Europe travelers’ consider him their best travel buddy. Customers trust him because they see an informed, authoritative, actively traveling person who shares their interests and experiences.
All the content he presents would not be palatable for most travelers if it wasn’t for him presenting it personally. What impact did Rick have on the European travel boom? He’s just one person, yet his enthusiasm for Europe is notable. Rick sells the joy of travel to Europe and connects audiences well, at scale.
Don’t Really Have the Time or Energy for This?
While many business owners are exceptional promoters and communicators, they may not always have the time or inclination to engage directly with customers in the way a brand ambassador can.
This role of brand ambassador requires a rich, diverse set of skills and aptitudes, listed below.
With travel companies as an example, you need to cultivate a person for the role based on your budget of course. You can’t buy them off the shelf. This one real, consistent, dedicated and authentic person could supercharge your entire marketing effort from content to SEO to social media. Because people connect with people for real satisfaction.
The Goal: find a multi-skilled marketer/traveler, educate them, train them, inspire them, and pay them to be a powerful connecting agent to your target niche market.
The Brand Super Hero
Your brand superhero is more than a marketer. They’re part of the voice of your brand, a person your customer’s trust and feel connected to and make their travel dreams relevant and valuable. They listen, respond, and show empathy. Their interactions are genuine and they care about your customers’ experiences.
When you hire your brand superhero, you’re communicating your intent to your customers and your brand value in a much more comprehensive way than advertising or general marketing campaigns. And it’s more than just differentiation. It’s about the power of your brand to welcome new customers, validate their travel experience personally, and actively encourage them to experience more. A brand Super Hero makes it all about your customers.
Of course, with a dignified marketing manager or CEO, their ability to be selfless and supportive might be weak. In fact, a clearly engaged brand ambassador living the spirit of your brand is the most powerful promoter possible. They might acknowledge traveler’s personality, desires, comments, background, and visual experiences and celebrate them further with others (influencing, promoting). This takes time, strategy and a supportive person.
Connecting powerfully with travelers using stock photos, tour package details, discounts, apps, or email promotions is difficult. The real power is with authentic engagement between real, known, and liked people — to release all their travel intent, celebrate their pics and experiences, create cohesion, grow engagement, and create trust in your views and travel advice via a real person. One real person brings intense focus — human to human.
Brand SuperHero Traits and Capabilities
You’ll never get all you want in a great travel brand ambassador, however, being clear of what you need might help acquire and develop a good one. There is much to review such as personality traits such as spirit, energy, marketing and engagement skills, expressive talent, availability, willingness, travel expertise and their drive to reach people and communicate via digital marketing. Most of the role is via digital marketing.
- authenticity: genuine, living the life, appreciating and personally advocating
- charisma: magnetic and approachable with a warm sense of humor and ability to express their joy of travel
- storyteller: able to describe experiences in down-to-earth fashion
- fun, confident and financially-enabled: able to perform and enjoy their experience without stress
- connectivity: likes to create new, useful connections in the business
- empathy: listens, responds and shows understanding
- emotional intelligence: can see the hidden, unspoken things about customers and travel trips
- generous: love for sharing and making people feel good so they will act on their travel impulse
- communication: talkative, persuasive, creates value, is caring, and loves to support others
- presence: poise, calmness, balance and engaging
- shared values: gives audience the feeling they’re just like them
- vibrance: fit and energetic
- expertise: travel experience, expertise in destinations, programs and travel challenges
- market knowledge: understands your market niche and targeted customers
- active social media engagement: love of brevity and impact
- content creator: strong marketing content writer and expertise in marketing strategy
- entertaining video creator: weaving together video experiences for customers and followers to share
- brand knowledge: strong understanding of value propositions and branding strategy
- expert content marketing: expertise in content strategy and SEO along with funnel analytics to work with your sales team to carry out lead gen strategies.
How to Find your Ideal Travel Brand Ambassador
Can you have your own Rick Steeves or Flo? Well, you’ve got a small company. As long as you have a process to find someone, you can develop them and still get big value out of this. There is likely no one with all these skills, expertise and desire available. In fact, it looks so demanding, that many might not want the role unless it pays well. This is a project for you to take charge of.
- Your Current Staff: you may have a marketer or travel agent who could fit the role.
- Tour Guide: many tour guides and Vloggers have these kinds of expertise and engagement qualities.
- Microinfluencer: these are travel enthusiasts active on social media or blogs who love engagement with travelers.
- Digital Travel Marketing Freelancer: If they are digital nomads or a talented marketer who long for their own travel experiences, they might pan out.
- Active, Passionate Travel Customer: someone who is active in your travel segment and enjoy your trips, tours and celebration of experiences.
How To Develop This Talent
You are developing a talent and they’re not a robot. It’s wise to identify their strengths to build on them and then develop new ones. If they’re not a video production expert, they can get training for that. If they’re not engaged enough, they may need to do some initial travel with your tours and packages to various destinations so they get comfortable and confident. They need to feel it to love it. And if they don’t know how to write copy, tell stories, and engage with travelers online effectively, find someone who can train them. Learning and attitude will go a long way.
After you find someone with significant talent, personal skills and drive, you can build a plan to empower them fully.
📞 Contact Gord at 416 998 6246 for a free review of your travel company’s digital marketing and how my affordable, powerful approach will work.