Digital marketing for DMCs

1. How to do marketing for DMC in its origin country

The Internet allows people geographically far away to know about your existence and be interested in your proposal. If you think about it, this was impossible a few decades ago. Although it’s possible now, it’s essential to reinforce certain values that are decisive in the relationship with your client. Nowadays distance isn’t an obstacle, since marketing strategies and technology are your ally.

In B2B and B2C markets, the keys to proper marketing at origin country are:

Trust · Reputation · Information

Accessibility · Transparency · Offer

The marketing mix of a DMC which wants to sell at origin country should be focused on enhancing these values, working on certain techniques which facilitate its location and to offer content that differentiate the company from its market competition and, mainly, to create interest in the visitor.

2. How a DMC conveys trust thousands of kilometres away

Certainly, once our client has found us, the main value which we must convey is trust. A traveller located thousands of kilometers away, who usually doesn’t know the destination, needs to feel sure that upon his arrival they won’t find an unpleasant surprise. Therefore, our first objective is to convey trust, not to convince them our product is appropriate for them.

How do we convey trust to our client?

Website. The website is the great storefront of your DMC on the Internet. If we think of physical stores, the difference between one business and another is their ability to order their products while making them attractive and easily accessible to consumers. Simplicity should prevail on your website. Don’t use aggressive colors and shapes, large banners which appear abruptly or invasive offers. And most importantly, remember that your website is aimed at your target audience (whether is the final customer or travel agencies): design your website to meet the preferences of the buyers you want to attract!

Data. Show your contact information easily at your website, so it can be seen at a glance. Make sure you create a page where you show your tax and legal registration data. On the other hand, explain who you are, how many people form your team, how long have you been in the industry. It’s important to be transparent and show your USPs (Unique Selling Points).

References. If you have worked with travel agencies in their country, include them in your website. If your company is a B2C DMC, the multimedia content will be a great ally to convey trust. Later we will talk about it.

Opinions. You can include TrustPilot or other portals of clients’ opinions on your website. Try to use online portals that are internationally recognized, especially those portals of greater use among your target audience.

Content. You must create specific content with perseverance and patience. There’s nothing worse than visiting a website or a DMC social media and feeling that the content has been uploaded quickly and without criteria. In other words, it doesn’t provide any value to the user. When you create value content for your potential clients, it’s fundamental to focus on their needs and doubts; basically, if your intention is to attract users, your content must always be educational.

3. The B2B or B2C strategy defines your DMC marketing

Have you defined your strategy? Do you want to attract agencies in their country or are you an agency that prefers to work with the final client?

You must consider mixing both models has some inconveniences. So if, as some of our clients, you are still in a definition phase and you haven’t decided in which audience you want to focus yet, you must be careful and create spaces aimed at each type of audience.

Which are the advantages of defining your strategy?

If your company model is B2B, the outgoing travel agency won’t see you as competition. If you choose a hybrid model (B2C and B2C company), they might believe your company is a direct competitor in their industry. Do you think an agency would recommend another company that offers the same products for the same audience?
If your company model is B2C, the client understands that you are an agency closer to the traveller, with an emphasis on the personalization of tourism experiences and greater care for details.
In a B2B model, your proposal will revolve around your strength, management capacity, reliability, solvency and cost competitiveness.
In a B2C model, your proposal will revolve about your deep knowledge of the destination, of those details usually tourists can’t notice, the closeness of your staff before, during and after the trip, and the guarantee of being able to make each experience unique and unrepeatable.

4. The 10 benefits digital marketing brings to a DMC

Increases the business with a 800% ROI.
It helps to think over the business model, the objectives and the strategies to achieve them.
It's a long-term sustainable system.
The client is located at the centre of the strategy, since the strategy fits the characteristics, interests and concerns of your buyer-personas.
It helps your DMC in the brand positioning between clients and potential clients as an expert in the destination.
It allows your to create your own leads generation system, independent of the interests of third parties.
The business opportunities have a higher closing rate, since the clients receive information and education before closing the sale process.
It increases the reputation in the industry, to generate more visibility and notoriety.
The company value grows, since it will have a self-generated and independent business generation system.
Unlike traditional marketing, you can measure and know which actions generate ROI and to which extent.

5. The marketing plan of a DMC

5.1. Differentiate your DMC

If you've heard this sentence over and over again, don’t underestimate it. The DMCs tend to be similar, because they impregnate their proposals of the aesthetics of the destination and they offer similar tours to tue clients. Even their company nomenclature is similar, in many occasions, due to the teams including the name of the destination in the company name.

Look for your own personality beyond your brand, create your corporate profile to convey your values with strength, and make your prospects and customers associate you with them.

5.2. Identify your buyer-personas and study their interests

Think about the different types of clients you have at the moment, plus the ones you want to achieve in the future; this will give you ideas about:

Queries (keywords) made in search engines (Google).

The concerns associated with the purchase process and the service delivery.

What do you expect to get from a DMC.

This information will be the ground for the content generation that you will provide to the prospect in each of the purchasing phases.

5.3. Your website is your main attraction channel

Your website is the first impression your prospect will receive from your business. Create a website which:

Collects the interests of your buyer-personas, the solutions to those points that generate concern during the purchasing cycle (pain points) and the specific proposal you make to each one of them.

Must have a simple and clear structure, so users can easily locate the contents of their interest and also easily traceable by search engine spiders.

Must be optimized for SEO according to the searches your prospects are going to do.

Offers quality information and value for your prospects, in other words, which is easily consumable and, mainly, useful in the purchasing phase where your prospects are at.

Don’t skimp on creating a quality website, because your business in the next few years may depend on it!

5.4. B2B - How to attract outoing travel agencies

In most cases, the outcoming agency isn’t an expert in the destination in which the DMC agency is located, so the local agency will look for one located in the destiniation who is able to demonstrate its experience in the destination, its management capacity, and who should have a temporary experience in the industry which can ensure its reliability and solvency.

To do this, you must create broad content to be recognized as a destination expert. The agency will consume the content during the exploration or in the consideration phase. Examples of their queries can be:

Why Spain is a perfect destination for wine lovers (exploration phase eBook).

The 40 unforgettable experiences of a week in Spain (exploration phase eBook).

Advantages of hiring a DMC in Spain (consideration phase eBook).

El Valle del Jerte in Spring (exploration phase video).

Prepare your website to be found by searches like 'dmc + destination', 'outgoing services + destination', etc.

5.5. B2C - Take advantage of the traveller's cycle

In general, the tourism companies concentrate their relationship with the client starting at the booking stage, when the client has made the decision of the destination, the route and the activities that they want to carry out. However, your DMC can take advantage of the gaps left during the dreaming and planning phases to reach your customers, who will generally be those customers willing to spend more to make a personalized trip according to their preferences.

5.6. How to sell personalized experiences in origin country

If you want to know more about how to sell personalized experiences in your clients’ market, we leave you this complete article that explains how to do it.

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How to create a marketing strategy for DMCs (Destination Management Companies)

The digital marketing mix for a DMC