How to Attract Clients to My African Tour Web Site

Q:  We have come up with a tour company that I am really hoping to see it grow into a multi-million company. The company is situated in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. I would like you to advise me on how I can get clients from Europe and other countries since the company is new and I don’t have any links to those countries. At the moment I am working on my company’s web site. Please advise.

Grace Mwihaki

A:  Hi Grace!  Congrats on taking the plunge into entrepreneurship!  It sounds like you have created a very exciting business.

Here’s how I would get started:

1.  Create a lead generator.  The first thing you need to do is to begin creating a list of prospective customers. To entice them to join your list, you need a lead generator or a client attraction device. Many times this is an ebook, audio, or ecourse that solves some problem of your target market.  In your case, your giveaway might be called something like, “The Best-Kept Secrets of Booking a Successful Tour of Africa That Other Tour Companies Don’t Want You to Know.”  In this giveaway, you tell your prospects how to look for a great tour company to book a tour of Africa and mention how your company can help them.

2.  Build a list.  You’ll need an email marketing program like Birdsend,  which is what I use to collect leads.  You’ll need to install an opt-in box on your site where prospects can leave their names and email addresses in exchange for your client attraction device.

3.  Educate prospects.  Write one article a week about some aspect of booking a tour in Africa or visiting Africa.  In your resource box, be sure and point the prospect to your web site to pick up your client attraction device.

4.  Stay in touch with prospects.  Publish a weekly email newsletter with an article about traveling in Africa, along with an offer for your prospects.  This offer might include special limited-time pricing on a specific tour package, a free consultation to help a prospect plan a trip, or your upcoming tour schedule.

5.  Blog about traveling to Africa.  In addition to writing articles and publishing an ezine, start a blog about traveling to Africa post new info on it 2-3 times per week. If you have a client who lives in Europe but has traveled to Africa and would be willing to share his/her experiences on your blog, all the better!  You can also publish the articles you write on this blog, as well as repurpose your email newsletter content here, as well.

6.  Seek out strategic alliances.  What other kinds of companies serve this same market but provide a different product or service to the market?  Perhaps a travel insurance company or company that sells tour clothing?  Each of you can promote the other’s web site or feature articles by each other on each other’s blogs or email newsletters.  Finding web sites that travelers from Europe frequent would be another way to get in front of your target market by advertising there or becoming an expert content provider on the site.

7.  Video.  Video marketing is very hot right now, and if you can take video excerpts from tours you have conducted or take a video of places you will visit and post those to places like YouTube.com.

I hope this helps you get started, Grace, and that your tour company has a very long and prosperous life!