Want to know how to get more travel clients? Well, first, you have to make sure people know your travel business exists.
One of the best ways to do that is through press releases.
It sounds like an old-school marketing tactic, but — when done right — it absolutely can score you more travel clients and make you look like a travel planning superstar.
Still not sure about the whole press release thing? Then let me tell you a story.
How My First Press Release Scored Me My First Press Feature
Do you want to know the very first thing I did when Bon Vivant Copy went live in July?
I sent out a press release.
Well, first I hit the “launch” button, then I did a happy dance — but the very next thing after that was the press release.
It was a pretty basic release, announcing Bon Vivant Copy’s launch, laying out what I specialize in, and it included a quote from myself and my old boss, who’s a leading travel industry expert.
You could find a template online to produce a pretty similar press release yourself.
So what happened after I sent it out?
Well, I got a lot of crickets from a lot of contacts (to be expected).
BUT one editor emailed me back almost immediately. She was working on a column about travel agent websites, and she was wondering if I could hop on the phone for a chat in the next hour to give her my advice as a copywriter.
And that’s how I got featured as a travel industry marketing expert in a column in Travel Weekly just a week after I launched my business.
But wait, there’s more.
The day after that column ran, I noticed that a travel agent had signed up for a free consultation to talk about my services. Turns out, she was interested in my website copywriting packages (yes!).
Guess where she heard about me?
Yep, the Travel Weekly column.
One press release led directly to a press feature, which led directly to a client inquiry on one of my most expensive packages.
How to Get More Travel Clients Through Personalized Press Releases
The moral of this story?
Press releases work, y’all.
And while there wasn’t anything particularly special about the press release, there is one thing I did that I think made a big difference.
I got personal.
Instead of mass emailing this press release out to every “editor@publication.com” email address I could find, I made a list of every publication I wanted to reach out to, found the specific names and email addresses of the editors I thought would be most interested in my release, and then I emailed each editor individually.
I wrote a short, personalized email intro to go along with the pasted press release. If I saw that my old boss was once featured in the publication, I mentioned it. If I saw that they recently ran content related to travel agent marketing, I mentioned it.
And I started every email with “Hi First Name.” (But, ya know, using their actual first names).
Editors are busy people who get more email than most. Luckily, most people send bad emails that are easy to ignore.
Make yours stand out by getting personal — it shows you’ve done your research and you deserve to be taken seriously.
So next time you do something BIG in your business — participate in a travel show, partner with another brand, bring on new ICs — take your time writing a bang-up press release.
But spend just as much time on making it personal, polished, and inviting to each specific editor you reach out to.
It could lead to your next big sale!
Have you sent out a press release before? Did you personalize it — and do you think that made a difference? Share your thoughts below!
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