The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Buyer Persona for Your Travel Business
Do you own or run a travel business? If so, you’re probably eager to find more people to book their trips with you, right?
One of the best ways to do this is by creating a buyer persona. It’ll help you gain insight into what your audience wants from your business. As well as how they want to consume the information about it.
This guide will walk you through the process of creating a traveler’s buyer persona. It'll help you grow your travel business through effective targeting and communication.
Who Is Your Target Market?
Let’s determine who your ideal traveler is and what kind of journey they’re looking for.
Creating a buyer persona ensures your marketing efforts focus on the right people. Plus, you'll be able to understand your travelers' needs and pain points.
Start by writing out a list that asks certain questions. Then research the type of traveler that fits the profile. Once you have all your answers, you can step back and put a face on your target market.
Here's how to create a buyer persona for your travel business:
1. Define your ideal traveler.
What are their demographics?
What does their lifestyle look like?
What type of travelers are they?
2. Do your research to learn more about this traveler type.
Use surveys
Look for interviews
Search other data sources
3. Build out their profile.
Give your persona a name,
Age, occupation,
Family status, etc.
Here’s an example of a traveler’s buyer persona:
Frequent Flyer Phillip
Age: 32
Location: Dallas, Texas
Hobbies: Cooking, hiking
Education: Bachelor’s degree
Role: Sales Consultant
Income: $86,000 annually
Status: Single
Type of traveler: Travels for work
Now, write your content directed at Phillip. There are many Phillips out there wanting to read your content because it’s something they’ll need. Especially if they travel often for work.
Maybe they love to hike. So, what better vacation to offer than one of your many backpacking excursions?
Knowing who you’re talking to, you’ll learn their pain points. Now, you have half of your content ready to write. So it’s important to create a buyer’s persona so you know exactly what you need in your content.
What Does Your Target Audience Want?
So, we’ve determined that your target market is people who love to travel. And now you have a buyer persona for your ideal traveler.
How do you figure out what they want and need from your business?
To know this, start by asking these questions:
What are your favorite destinations?
How often do you go on vacation?
Where are the places you've always wanted to visit but haven't been to yet?
What are three words that describe how you feel when planning a trip?
Now take these answers and distill them into a few main ideas.
Are they traveling solo? Do they travel with kids? Are they traveling the states? Or, traveling Europe?
This helps you determine how to approach your reader while giving them the necessary information.
Where Are They Finding Information?
Now that you have a traveler’s buyer persona, you need to know where they’re finding information.
Your target audience is using a mixture of search engines. They'll use social media, and travel websites to research their trip. They might also be reading blogs, magazines, and guidebooks.
To reach your target audience, you need your business visible on all the channels. This way they'll see you on the platforms they're using to plan their trip.
You can do this by optimizing your website and blog with keywords. The same keywords that your audience will use in searches.
You should also provide content on social media sites. Such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram to target your ideal customer.
Create Your Traveler’s Buyer Persona Today
To have an effective buyer persona, you have to understand your target audience on a deeper level.
You can find clients by creating an avatar, a fictional character that represents your ideal traveler.
By doing this, you’ll be able to better understand what type of content will resonate with them.
Focusing on your type of traveler will increase your engagement, in turn raising your conversation rates.
If you’re looking to connect with an expert on this, let’s chat. We can build out your buyer’s persona today and talk about what type of content will better reach your target audience.
Contact me today and let’s get you on the road toward finding your dream clients.
Author’s Note:
Shelby Lou is a creative copywriter specializing in the travel industry. She has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and many certifications in content marketing, SEO, plus more. She’s an avid adventurer and a dedicated writer. To find out more about Shelby Lou, visit shelbylouagency.com
