5/2016
THE HOW-TO MAGAZINE FOR TRAVEL TRADE PROFESSIONALS 4
EDITORIAL
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LEADERSHIP WEBINAR SERIES – THE TRAVEL INSTITUTE
6
CREATING SLOGANS
12
COLOUR COMBINATIONS
15
FONTS
19
TRAVEL POSTERS
21
CTA SLOGANS
25
SELLING TRAVEL’S WEBSITE CREATION SERVICE
27
READ MORE ME HERE!
28
HOW-TO E-GUIDES
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VIDEO BLOCKS – SAVE UP TO 90%
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Share your money making ideas in SELLING TRAVEL. CONTACT Steve Crowhurst steve@sellingtravel.net 250-760-0893 www.sellingtravel.net
Publisher: SMP Training Co. www.sellingtravel.net
Contributors Steve Crowhurst, Anthony Dalton, Steve Gillick.
Attention Suppliers: Advertising in SELLING TRAVEL reaches the serious business-minded travel agent. Promote your products and services using Selling Travel’s unique promotional formula – you write the articles on how to sell your own products offering step-by-step selling tips, tools and techniques that you know have worked for your agency accounts. Full page rates range from $300 to $425 based on number of insertions. Remember, if you can’t sell it to them, they can’t sell it for you! Please note that Selling Travel, owned and published by SMP Training Co, is not connected in any way to Selling Travel magazine published by BMI Publishing Ltd., and based in the UK. The latter publication focuses entirely on destination and travel/tourism product training and is circulated solely to the UK and Ireland travel industries. To benefit from this resource visit www.sellingtravel.co.uk and be sure to subscribe.
SELLING TRAVEL is owned and published by Steve Crowhurst, SMP Training Co. All Rights Reserved. Protected by International Copyright Law. SELLING TRAVEL can be shared, forwarded, cut and pasted but not sold, resold or in any way monetized. Using any images or content from SELLING TRAVEL must be sourced as follows: “Copyright SMP Training Co. www.sellingtravel.net” SMP Training Co. 6171 Strathcona Place, BC, Canada, V9T0A1 Note: Steve Crowhurst is not responsible for outcomes based on how you interpret or use the ideas in SELLING TRAVEL. T: 250-760-0893.
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SALES & MARKETING TIPS, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES FOR ALL TRAVEL TRADE PROFESSIONALS
Steve Crowhurst, Publisher
SLOGANS THAT SELL TRAVEL… How many times have you been captivated, entranced, wooed and nudged to buy something based on the slogan used to promote what you are looking at? You may say never, but then sometimes those clever marketing types know that even a simple word or phrase, in a font size of 12 can cause your subconscious to say “YESSS… I WANT THAT!” Hmm, seems that particular slogan is already at work. The Source uses it. Coca Cola knows about slogans. They’ve used dozens as have many other large companies and the travel trade is no different. Every department of tourism has a country slogan. Every US state has a slogan, Canada’s provinces and territories also. Towns and cities have slogans. Every county in the UK has a slogan. Most small businesses have a slogan. You know what’s coming… what’s YOUR slogan? What does it say? Does it beckon the reader in any way shape or form? In this issue of Selling Travel we dive into the art of sloganeering. Creating headlines that sell or at least break the ice so that the prospective customer is WOWED into making contact. Let’s get busy… … and don’t forget you have a series of e-Guides you can purchase from The Travel Institute that will help you move ahead in most things related to selling travel. Here’s to your continued success! Best regards. Steve Crowhurst, CTC, CTM Hon. steve@sellingtravel.net www.sellingtravel.net
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No one said it was easy! Selling travel that is. However, you can make it easier on yourself by putting some time into studying the art of creating slogans that cause a prospect to read and respond to what you have posted, printed and emailed. A slogan, like a picture, is worth a thousand words. That one word or phrase could generate a few thousand dollars-worth of sales if you had the right choice of colour and the right font. We’ll talk about size, placement, 3-D and more a little later. Just know that for now, you need to be thinking about words and phrases that will attract.
What Switches on Your WOW Response? One way to test which slogans work, is to watch yourself responding to various ads, billboards, magazine ads, and more.
or phrase or one-liner. If not in-house then they out-source the project. None the less, there is a ton of money flowing somewhere to help create the eventual slogan.
Almost everyone’s #1 response to something they like is WOW! Now that WOW can be a quiet wow, or a honkin’ super WOWWWWW! The main thing is, we all do it, say it and often without thinking about it.
To my mind, if a supplier is paying out tens of thousands to have a slogan created then the one they decided on is worth looking at.
Try to catch yourself when you see things that cause you to say “Wow!” You could also watch and listen to your friends and be ready for when they say “Wow!” Check out what they are looking at. Ask them. “Why the WOW?” Was it price, colour, image… everything? Find out and make a note. This type of field work will help you build a portfolio of what causes that wow response and that’s very important to know. Start Collecting Slogans Over my years in the trade I have always made notes of travel trade slogans. One reason for doing this when I had my own agency was that it saved time for when I needed a slogan myself. Your suppliers usually have a creative department, people that think up the slogan
Of course you can only look, you cannot copy and use unless you have your supplier’s permission and then you can only use their slogan to promote their products. Just to study this expensive slogan is an education in design, layout, colour schemes and you can be sure the creators of the slogan have done their homework on what it is that people, the travelling consumers, are responding to. Now you can create your own and very similar slogan. Put the same colour scheme to work. Use the same font. Add a word, delete a word, rearrange the phrase – just don’t copy it. Slogans About YOU What are your clients saying about you? Better re-read their comments and validations, the good ones only!! Right there you will find one or two key words to use.
Has someone found you ‘warm & friendly”? How about helpful, knowledgeable and going beyond the norm’?
Edinburgh fits nicely into the invented word INCREDINBURGH. Incredible + Edinburgh. Clever. Now with that arrangement duly noted, where can you apply the same concept? This Costa Rica slogan below is riding on the fact that the world in general is concerned about artificial anything… here they’ve hit a global nerve. Once again, very clever. You can create a standard looking poster or you can go retro, fast forward to the next century or go grunge, underground or simply pastel. Check out this wonderful arrangement of coloured lettering from MailChimp. That was not easy to create. Can’t copy it, but you can use the same colour concept.
The CNN List: 20 Most Memorable… With a little searching you can find all sorts of slogan related sites and posts. Here’s one from CNN, and this is a very clever play on the city name Edinburgh.
One more from the CNN list and similar to the Edinburgh slogan, Slovenia has found LOVE in the name of their country. This is a situation where the tourism team have been looking at the name of their country for years and possibly have never “seen” the word love embedded there. One day, as it might have happened, someone spotted it, the word love, then added the I feel phrase and bingo!
An hour or two browsing online will deliver more than enough slogans for your creative source folder.
Watching and LISTENING to Videos Another technique I have used many times for finding a slogan is to watch supplier and destination videos. Actually it is more like listening to the audio more than watching. Of course you get wrapped up in the imagery, however when you close your eyes and just listen, you will pick up on key words and phrases.
Making The Switch I was searching Google Images for the best industry slogans and amongst the images this one caught my eye. The reason it popped out was the tagline under the company name. Straight away I could “see” a travel word in place of the Roberto’s name. See below:
Just like someone has created the main slogan, someone else has written the script. Within that script are numerous opportunities relating to words and phrases you can use. Other Industries Your search for a great slogan should take you into the worlds of other industries. You can look for non-travel slogans and then adapt them to suit your needs. Travel & Tourism Related Search amongst hotel chains and the entire accommodation / hospitality industry. Also the incentive business and car rentals too. For sure check in with the travel and general insurance industry plus airports and airlines, downtown associations and retail merchants. They all have a slogan that might jog your creative juices into action. The Next Step Once you create or find your slogan from any of the resources mentioned, you’ll need to do something with it. That means turning it into a work of art. You do this by selecting a great font, colour scheme and then use all the other tools listed as shadow, perspective and more. There’s always the element of overkill and knowing when to stop working on the slogan is something you learn overtime unless you have the artistic talent hired in or it is part of your own list of talents. Remember the key to your slogan is for others to send it viral.
Cruising The Med’ So Good, It Should Be Illegal. Costa Rica So Wonderful, It Should Be Illegal. Ballooning Over France. So Thrilling, It Should Be Illegal. You see how you can use the actual tagline in a travel related promotion and then you can also change the word ‘good’ to something else such as wonderful or thrilling.
How about changing this well known slogan to…
something like this?
Those Age Old Quotes When you research the long lasting slogans, quotes, taglines etc., you’ll probably find that “Where’s the beef?” and “I’ll be back!” are still listed. When you think on these well known, done to death phrases, you can still make use of their longevity, like this:
How about this one…
I’d use it this way:
Or…
Then you add your BUT… But It Is For YOU! Or, Unless You’re Booking With US! Multi-Use Starters There are some open ended one-liners that you can use and to finish your slogan you simply tack on a place name at the end.
Playing with the font and colour scheme will take some time to get it as you want it, so that it suits your product, destination, theme and idea. These two phrases are well known by most Baby Boomers… so now you look for similar wording that would be well-known by the generation you are selling to.
Avoid The Current Done-to-Death Phrases Not sure about you but I’ve had it with the phrase “Let’s Do This!” Enough already! At The End Of The Day… that’s another. One Stop Shop…add this to the list. If I Tell You, I’d Have to Kill You! Mind you, that last one could be turned into:
Check these out: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE… THERE’S A LOT TO DO IN… THE FUN BEGINS HERE IN… WALKING TOURS OF… Complete the one liners with your own city, destination, town, place…
Check your own speech patterns and the words and phrases that you are locked into. You might be over using them in a generic way and also in your ad & promotional activities. Post these over-done phrases too many times and you’ll lose readership. They’ll go viral for the wrong reasons.
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Where do you look for colour combinations that might excite your slogan? You can try searching for art books, visit the local hardware store for paint chips or look outside your window to view what city billboards offer and then there’s nature itself. If you glance at the image of the flower, and then look down the page to the two Musashi products you’ll notice the colours used in the Musashi products can be found in the floral image. The blue cap and logo is a blue to be found in nature also. The opposite page shows a wild combination of colour and the product name of BOOM CHIKA POP. Blue, teal and err… red/pink something. I was in a store recently and snapping all the various labels and colour combinations and great use of text, fonts and phrases. It is amazing what you can find in a grocery store to kick start your own creative juices. The three sauce bottle labels below are offering a terrific combination of colour schemes, phrases, fonts and clever wording too. Now beware that these labels may not suit the travel industry or the product you are selling, but they do lend a new angle to how you might suggest that your product is the best. Not only that, when you are pitching to generations younger than Baby Boomers, you may have to amp up what you push out there.
Okay then. Off to the local grocery store you go. Along the way, be sure to check out the retail shop windows too. Take it all in and bring it back to your agency. Ponder it. Create your own.
Hundreds of slogan ideas to help you attract more business. Publishing July 1st 2016 and available from The Travel Institute.
You can have so much fun with fonts. It can and might take up all your spare time, so best to set a date and time as to when you will focus on creating your slogans and search for the right font then. The trouble is there are hundreds of fonts and thousands of variations. See below the 1001 FREE FONTS logo and a sample of one font set.
Here’s it all works: Let’s say you want the font shown below called 28 DAYS LATER which is shown in the text sample. It looks good for your ADVENTURE promotion. Click on the Download tab. A new tab will appear asking you if you wish to open or save the font. Click on OPEN.
After you click OPEN, your selection will appear as a ZIP file as shown below. Next, Double Click on the file and you will receive a new window asking if you wish to OPEN the file.
Click on OPEN and a new window will open showing you the font in various formats.
Click on the INSTALL button.
Type the word ADVENTURE and then select the 28 DAYS LATER font which will now be found in your Windows font selection window.
Here’s your new font and the start of a wonderful promotion. Do you want to change the font colour? Why not? Try out the TEXT FILL, add the TEXT OUTLINE like so…
Or, just use the Text Fill, and here I’m going with red for some OOMPH…
Do you sell adventure products that are out of this world? If you do, well hopefully my graphic just above will help you on your way. Now you could also be promoting a galactic tour… a scoot around Mother Earth or tours further afield. You might try the new Disneyland venture opening soon on Pluto. Now that would be a trip and a half wouldn’t it?
Now you have an idea of where to find additional fonts, you should spend some time reviewing the font list in Windows / MS Word or whichever word processing program you use. Eventually you will find the right combination of font to match the travel you sell. Next then is the colour, the font size, use of WordArt and then adding various graphics to support the selected font. Everything I am reviewing with you here eventually leads to your phenomenal slogan. That’s right. You can stick with black and white, or the reverse… better to go with some colour, but only if it suits the travel you are promoting. Don’t leave yet. More to come. We’ll be exploring colour in this issue too.
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Good friend and multi-talented Dave Friesen spoofed a couple of images, added words, phrases, a slogan, lightening, stars, gases, selected the cracked concrete font SF Aftershock, stuck a tanto (that he made) in his belt and stamped his crest on his left shoulder! Ta daaaaa! What do we have? We have a movie poster promoting what seems to be an exciting movie for sure. So now, take a breath and ponder what you could do with your images to create a travel poster to push market your next tour, a new service or simply a call to action to make contact with you. Your graphics would change to suit your audience. Depending on the generation you are attracting you would want your poster to appeal to them specifically. If you are attracting prospects by the type of travel you are specializing in, then you would search for the best images that project the ultimate enjoyment of that activity… like this:
Look Here for Ideas Would you like to explore hundreds of travel related posters? Of course you would. Click here to view them You can also use Google Images to search and here’s what you will find:
The All-Posters website is an excellent source too where you can pick up layout ideas and for those of you who are not wanting to create your own poster, you can purchase your choice online, direct from All Posters. Using Your Own Images When you create your own poster you are also displaying your photography and where you have travelled. Consider it a mini bio. A one page resume of your travels to a certain place. Don’t be afraid to use yourself as the model and if you are promoting your services and talents then you should be featured nice and large on the poster with your selected fonts and text around you. Over to YOU! No time like now to make it happen. Give it a try. Work on screen and print to see what your output will look like. Then head to your local print shop. Go 22” x 30” for impact.
You’d use this CTA in conjunction with a special price…
Are you using CTAs? Call-To-Action slogans in your marketing? You probably are. A simple “Call Us Today!” is a CTA. Now you may be using a CTA in regular font size of 12 and possibly a typical font such as Times Roman, Arial or Calibri. What if you ramped up the visibility and urgency by increasing the size of the font and changing the font to something more dramatic or more in line with the product you sell? The following may seem over the top. You can tone the ideas down to suit your needs.
Call US today! Font: Algerian
LIMITED SPACE - INQUIRE TODAY! Font: Copperplate
The art of a CTA is to direct your prospective customer or an existing customer to take action. Unless you tell them, they will not know what you want them to do. It’s that simple. So make sure you think about the ACTION you want to attach to each of your promotions. Is the offer time sensitive? Are there actually very few seats left? Will the price go up? Whatever it is that’s behind the CTA do not beat around the bush or try to be too clever with your wording. That can sometimes confuse the customer and they click away in frustration. Time to review the use of bars and buttons and different colour schemes…
On this page we explore the LEARN MORE… CTA and of course the good old DOWNLOAD button. The BUY NOW is old but works and then the LET’S GO FOR A SCROLL… which I found in an e-Book you can review right about HERE. The button is easy to create when you use the Rounded or Square Rectangle found in Shapes. Here’s the drop down Window.
Select the Shape you want, fill in the colour and right click for Add Text. You can also draw a Text Box over the shape and add your text that way.
1. Get Started Now! 2. Sign up in 60 seconds. 3. Subscribe now! 4. Visit our website now. 5. Everything you need to know is here… 6. Join OUR Bucket List right HERE. 7. Read our customer comments… 8. Request our brochure… 9. Unlimited travel for only… but you must buy it by… 10.Tell us where you want to go.
Here’s a few more ideas that I’ve found on other websites and in free publications. Generally you can adapt a CTA used by any other industry. Just add the travel word, phrase, destination… and bingo…you now own your new CTA. TRY EVERYTHING UNTIL YOU FIND THE CTA YOU LIKE!
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Here’s where you find even more ideas on how to sell travel and boost your revenues. Ct is the destination information and how-to-sell trade magazine for travel agents and every article I write is always geared to new business generation for YOU and your suppliers. The content ranges from a step-by-step how-to article to a comment about a current topic. Many of the articles are worth reviewing with your suppliers should you be able to work together to generate that new dollar for all. Click here to read.
Easy to read, no-fluff how-to marketing tips, tools and techniques. Each guide comes with a one-hour coaching session via Skype.
You can preview and purchase any of the above guides from The Travel Institute. Be sure to join TTI and save on your purchases by using the member discount.
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THE HOW-TO MAGAZINE FOR TRAVEL TRADE PROFESSIONALS
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