Over the past three and a half years, Lauren Bath has been paving the way for a new style of social media marketing in the tourism industry. Quitting her job as a chef in early 2012, she has blazed a trail as a professional “instagrammer” but she is the first person to tell you how small of a part the actual Instagramming is. Below are her four top business tips for working as a digital influencer in the travel industry.
What are you selling? Knowing your product.
These days it seems like everyone has online “influence” and if you ask any one of my many tourism clients they’ll tell you just how regularly they receive pitch emails from aspiring instagrammers, bloggers, writers and photographers. But what sets the successful applicants apart from those that are ignored? The answer is, knowing your product.
I regularly have discussions with up-and-coming digital influencers about their product and ask the difficult questions, predominantly, “What are you selling?” and “What sets you apart from your peers?” They might have 5 million Instagram followers, but if they can’t articulate what they do with their audience to a client, they will never get work.
Generally speaking the best advice I can offer is to be guided by feedback and advice, and not be afraid to ask questions of your peers. I believe that a healthy industry involves communication, and not secrecy. Since I focus mainly on Instagram, the key deliverables that I offer my clients are:
- Three Instagram posts per paid day. I personally believe this is the best number of posts for momentum and awareness for destination marketing.
- A workshop on Instagram for marketing to all new clients. I include education as I know this helps my clients to maximize the results of doing a campaign with me.
- Additional social media posts on my other platforms; Facebook, Google+, Steller and Trover. Extra reach = extra value.
- Edited images for social media usage only. I understand the need for images and provide my clients with a full gallery of shots to use on social but I don’t include joint copyright, as I don’t want to undercut commercial photographers working in the industry.
- A report on reach.
My way is not the best way for everyone so break down your platforms and skills and the traits that make you unique. If you have less social media reach, you might consider packaging up more image usage rights. If you are a stronger blogger, you might include blog posts. If you’re a writer, offer to supply written content. Play to your strengths, write your own package of services and understand them. That is the first step to success.
Email etiquette – the beginning of everything
Once you know what it is that you’re selling, it’s time to start pitching, and the best foothold into the travel industry is email. I have read the best of emails and I have read the worst of emails, and what I know for sure is that email skills and etiquette are important.
Finding contacts to email in the first place is the easiest part. Often tourism boards and travel brands have PR contacts and Media ‘contact forms’ on their website. If I am starting from scratch with an email address found on the Internet, I call this a cold pitch and destinations and brands get loads of these.
To stand out, the first thing to consider is your subject line. This is a space to immediately grab the recipient’s attention and ensure they actually open your email. Do what you have to do here. For a time, I was writing “Australia’s First Professional Instagrammer” or even something like “A pitch” or “Top Photographer/Instagrammer coming to your destination”.
From here, do your absolute best to address the email to an actual person with their first name. I usually then apologise for reaching out without having met before, then launch into a brief introduction that includes only the most important information in a couple of sentences. Pull out the big guns! Mine might read…
Hi _____,
Apologies for reaching out like this, and I know that we haven’t met before but I am very keen to chat to someone about visiting your destination and I thought this would be the best place to start.
My name is Lauren Bath and I am an Australian-based freelance social media marketer working predominantly in the Instagram space. I have 3½ years’ experience in the tourism industry with 120+ travel campaigns under my belt and I’m currently sitting at over three quarters of a million online followers across my various social media platforms …
I then continue with a short paragraph on what I want and a short paragraph on what I’m offering. What I want is usually a job and what I am offering is the services that I figured out in step one. I finish with a note that I am attaching my media kit and express an interest to chat on the phone or over email. I always include a short note on discussing fees so that the uncomfortable topic of money is on the table straight away. I offer professional services and I get paid for them. I don’t skirt around the subject.
Never, ever, ever write one email and send it off to a million people. One new email per new client is best and if you can squeeze in a personal touch, that’s even better.
The important steps:
- Find contacts online
- Have an eye-catching subject line
- Write something personal to a real person
- Introduce yourself using the big guns
- Tell them what you want
- Explain your services
- Keep it all short and sweet, but personal and engaging
The Media Kit
A media kit is a great asset to go into more detail about your work without writing long, boring emails. Since I am a photographer, the first page of my media kit is a big grid of square images that show the diversity of my work.
Page two is a photo of me and a fairly long bio and introduction. If you include a profile photo, make it a good one that shows your face. From here I have a list of clients and my experience, two case studies, and a page with my services. I wrap this up with some links to articles on my work.
The layout is flexible, but a good media kit should tell your clients all of the important information with links to find out more. You could consider including testimonials or references here too but I leave that on my website instead.
I’ve seen media kits that are very basic, too basic perhaps, and I’ve seen media kits that are impossible to understand with bar graphs and pie charts and long analytical descriptions. People that work in travel are just people. They are busy and they don’t want to decipher pages of fluff. Use important information only and make it clear, pretty and readable.
Relationships that last: how to make ‘em and how to keep ‘em
Hopefully, if you follow the advice given above you’ll be on your way to some great jobs and opportunities, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to relax. Repeat clients should form the basis of your business and you won’t get repeat clients if you don’t follow through on the jobs you do.
Some of the best tips I can offer to impress new clients and keep them coming back for more include:
- Reply to all emails promptly. Some clients send a lot of emails; they need media forms filled out, copies of ID, flight preferences, itinerary questions etc. etc. Don’t be that guy that takes weeks to get back to every question. I try not to leave emails any longer than a day or two.
- Don’t be a diva. When you get to the job, be grateful and professional. Often you will be hosted, especially when you are starting out. Even if the light is shit, even if it’s raining, even if your client makes you do a hotel site inspection at sunset, just take the time to explain your frustrations, but use that as an opportunity to educate your client on your workflow, not make an enemy of them.
- Share as much information as you can with your client. Help them to understand you and to understand the industry. Treat them like real people, make friends.
- Don’t take advantage. Often when you work in travel, you are exposed to a calibre of accommodation and dining that you might not be in “real life”. I’ve stayed at hotels worth thousands of dollars a night and dined in Michelin star restaurants, but I try to never take advantage. Resist the urge to order the most expensive items on the menu or sample one too many cocktails. Just behave like you would in real life.
- Turn deliverables around in a timely manner. Email your client post travel to give them as estimate of time for the work to be completed and stick to those timings.
- Finally, secure new opportunities by keeping your clients posted on your movements and chasing them annually for work. By this stage they’ll be dying to have you back!
About Lauren Bath
Lauren Bath is a chef turned photographer thanks to her early success on top photo sharing site Instagram. Quitting her job in early 2013, she launched full force into a career in the tourism industry, effectively becoming Australia’s first professional “instagrammer”.
Since then, Bath has diversified into other social media platforms, as well as travel writing, and has also become involved with project management and education. With a passion for tourism and a hands-on approach to social media she has grown her online community to upwards of three quarters of a million followers.
Bath’s approach to photography is to tell the story of a destination or brand through a series of images; the people, animals, details and landscapes. This combination of content is dished out to her community daily with a main emphasis on Instagram. With her unique method of brand-awareness marketing, quantity of posts and organic messaging, she is able to tap into the all-important “dreaming phase” of holiday planning.
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Learn more…
Lauren Bath along with Georgia Rickard (travel writer) and Elizabeth Carlson (Young Adventuress blog) will be holding an intensive one-day workshop in Sydney on 18 June. The Travel Bootcamp will teach you everything you need to start your career as a travel writer, blogger and/or instagrammer. For more information and secure your place, follow this link.