I'm trying to narrow down who needs what we offer.
I have a team of awesome travel writers that do great content for astonishingly low rates.
I love this type of questions because it has to do with strategy which is my sweet spot!!
My name is Humberto and I'm the co-founder of www.Unthink.me a digital marketing agency that allows small business owners and entrepreneurs negotiate their subscription budget. We started offering marketing as a quality measure for our strategy consulting, over time we pivoted a bit and offer our combined services to small and new businesses at a higher leap in value.
FROM YOUR QUESTION
You have built a dedicated team of writers and bloggers that write about Travel - my question to you would be what type of travel? what scope within the Travel niche are you focused on right now? if at all.
Answering these type of questions will help you identify possible prospects for your business. As inbound marketers we have a methodology that we follow, is called the Buyer Persona, the Buyer's Journey and their Moments Of Truth :::
A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional character of who your audience is, hobbies, lifestyle, family, personal/professional phase in life, etc. - use this to help you identify what social channels they are most likely on, what are their interests in travel, what magazines or blogs do they read on travel, etc.
This helps you identify possible clients such as family oriented magazines, bloggers, media companies, PR agencies, travel agents, etc who might want to pay for an article or two...
Then you use the Buyer Journey methodology to help you create the type of content that your prospect client might be interested on and thus searching for on Google or their social account of choice:::
Awareness -- Prospect first becomes aware that they have a problem, may not be sure of the origin or if there is a solution, but they Google their problem or situation.
Consideration -- Prospect finds content (various formats) that identify the problem and possible different solutions and alternatives.
Decision - Prospect finally understands the different available solutions and alternatives for their problem. Makes a decision on what approach to take and who to hire or what to buy or not to buy.
For example, a travel agent first launching her business might know she needs to blog but has no time nor the skills to write content with the right structure and images and CTAs for her so she might subscribe to travel blogs, magazines, and accounts for inspiration as well as maybe actively Google for subscription services for travel articles she can share on her own blog. She might be re-sharing content with some attribution to it already.
Knowing this you might then create content that talks about how travel agents benefit from outsourcing their writing to other travel bloggers, you might write about why travel writing is good for business, how can travel agents benefit from travel writing in general and then share it through her favorite medium or have the content built with really good SEO so she finds it on her own. That would be for the Awareness stage, then you may write content for the Consideration stage of why is good to outsource as a business owner, or travel agent best places to visit, etc. You can do the same, SEO, share and or because this piece is for the 2nd step which is now consideration you might send it to those who have subscribed on the first content CTA and now you have targeted email to send to her to move her from Consideration to Decision of actually giving you a try.
Obviously this approach applies to anything else in any other industry and does sound easier than it actually is, but the methodology is pretty straight forward.
Consider the fact that many magazines and publishers already pay for the content inside those magazines too, so all you have to do as well is cold-email them or cold call them if that's your thing. For a more scalable and sustainable approach though, Content and Inbound Marketing is key.
I hope I have been of any value and brought some clarity. If you think so and would like to do me a favor, please follow me on twitter @HumbertoVee or my team on http://facebook.com/iwillunthink
Thank you for asking and reading!
What a question with so little depth. Who is your target market? Think of their position- why do they need your services specifically? Keep that answer in your mind.
Now what do you know about them? Is there an organic way to cross paths? Connections, events, happenstance-meetings- all valid ways to introduce yourself and/or your work in a less pressure, more comfortable for them and you way.
Sometimes it helps to tackle the issue in a human approach- making your low rates an added bonus to the quality of the work.
It seems you need to know two things: 1) Who wants to hire low-rate professional travel writers? 2) How can I land them as clients?
1) Who wants to hire low-rate professional travel writers?
That really is a broad market, from hotels, travel websites, travel agencies, and more.
Try narrowing it down by geography or theme, and company size. Obviously you'd want to focus on writing about the places your writers know best. And larger companies are more likely to need a higher volume of content and have a higher budget to spend on it.
2) How can I land them as clients?
Start by making sure they can find you if they're looking, by building a web presence with a good understanding of organic SEO. This involves building a portfolio of published content. The more high quality websites your content has been on, the more high quality links your own website can link back to, which contributes to raising its rankings.
Create a lead magnet you can use to engage with potential leads. "Ultimate Travel Writing Guide 2017" might be of interest to content marketing teams at these companies. Do the research and offer the most relevant statistics and other info.
Offer your lead magnet on your website and promote it regularly via multiple social channels (online and offline) where you know these industries can be found. Offer it to contacts your writers have already written for as well.
If you get your entire team involved, you'll be able to have several times the impact of doing it yourself. Keep track of who's contacting who, when, and how with a content management system.
Also build in content that draws travel writers from everywhere. The best way to do this is to teach them how to make their craft better. Get them to subscribe and engage. They have knowledge and experience to contribute, and contacts you want.
At the same time, you can use outbound marketing strategically with coveted prospects you can't reach any other way. Personalize each first contact to get a response--not make a sale. You can do it by phone, email, or a combination of both.
I can offer successful scripts for outbound, and point you in the right direction for best SEO practices nowadays, tell you where to invest your time most efficiently for distribution, and more. Just give me a call to begin bringing your marketing plan together.
