How one client itinerary can create weeks of travel marketing content

Marketing can be so much easier when it comes from the work you’re already doing.

A client itinerary is a great example.

Lots of advisors see a proposal or itinerary as something they deliver to their client.

They’ve paid your planning fee and you’ve put in the work to pull together a great proposal for them.

The client takes a look, maybe asks some questions, and you might make a few changes.

Once they give the go-ahead, you move ahead with booking everything. Then you prep them for their trip, they have a fabulous time, and you follow up once they’re home.

Simple, right? And you do that over and over.

The challenge with that is, doing it on repeat doesn’t leave you much time for marketing.

But what if you look at it differently?

What if that one itinerary gives you potentially dozens of content opportunities?

So let’s break it down.

Planning the itinerary

Let’s say you’re planning a 7-night pre-cruise itinerary for London, the Cotswolds and Southern England ending in Southampton, before your clients get on a cruise.

Your clients have never visited London but also like gardens and landscapes. They want to see the Cotswolds and spend time enjoying the outdoors.

So you’ve planned three nights in London, two in the Cotswolds, and two in Southampton.

Sure, you can plan a standard itinerary that hits the highlights and sends your clients on small group tours. It's some easy commission for you and less work.

But you also know none of the standard things are quite what they’re looking for.

Since you know what most interests them, you aren’t giving them a “standard” itinerary. 

The itinerary itself

You’ve decided to design a unique itinerary, and use the resources in the British Isles Travel Expert membership to make it even easier.

Maybe you’ve been to some of these places yourself.

Maybe you’ve planned similar trips before.

But you’re also drawing on recommendations, hotels, attractions, and restaurants that will fit what these particular clients are looking for.

Here’s an abbreviated version of what you’re proposing.

Days 1-3: London sightseeing

• Black cab tour on arrival day

• Main London sights (recommending specific ones and in a logical order)

• Walking tour of lesser-known public gardens

• Half-day at Kew Gardens with optional visit to Richmond Park

Day 4-5: The Cotswolds

• Private transfer including visit to Blenheim Palace and gardens

• Accommodations in Stow-on-the-Wold

• Hidcote Gardens

• Visit several villages, with selected villages based on clients’ interests

Day 6-7: Southampton area

• Scenic transfer to Southampton, stopping at 2-3 villages that morning and Salisbury Cathedral in the afternoon

• Choice of visiting New Forest or Isle of Wight, based on client preferences

Day 8: Embarkation Day

• Optional visit to SeaCity Museum in the morning

• Taxi to the port and cruise embarkation

How do I get content from this?

This is where most advisors stop.

They finish the proposed itinerary, the client signs off, and you make all the arrangements. Then it’s time to move on to the next one.

But take another look at the itinerary.

How many decisions did you make while building it?

What about the places you researched?

How many options did you rule out before landing on this specific itinerary?

What questions did you answer before your client even had a chance to ask them?

That’s where even more travel marketing content opportunities are hiding.

Content can start with the destination

The actual itinerary itself can give you plenty of content.

Content doesn’t just mean social media. It’s great for emails and blog posts too. 

If you have a blog, you can write a longer blog post based on the itinerary. Just don’t give away all of the info you spent hours putting together. 

Use the blog post as a starting point, and your social media or email content can pull from it. 

Repurposing what you’re already creating means you’re maximizing the time you’re spending on it.

Here are just a few ideas for general content, based on this specific itinerary:

• Lesser known public gardens in London

• Visiting Blenheim Palace Gardens

• Why stopping at lesser-known Cotswolds villages is worth it

• Restaurants with Rooms can be great lodging options

• What to see in New Forest

• Visiting the Isle of Wight

• Day trips from Southampton

• What to see in Southampton

Think about the decisions you made

When you created this itinerary, you made a lot of decisions about what to include and why.

Those can all be great topics to use for content. 

Here are some ideas:

• Why visit Blenheim Palace

• Why Hidcote is worth visiting

• Why a private driver can be worth it

• Making dinner reservations in the Cotswolds

• Why I recommend staying in Stow-on-the-Wold

• Why I recommend staying in a smaller Cotswolds village

• Why I create a custom Cotswolds itinerary instead of a standard group tour

• When to visit Bourton-on-the-Water

• How to take the car ferry to the Isle of Wight (especially relevant if you looked into renting a car, but decided on a private driver for your clients)

• Getting around New Forest without a car or driver (especially relevant if you considered this and decided on a private driver)

• Why you may want to visit SeaCity Museum after your cruise

• Why SeaCity Museum can be a great pre-cruise stop for some people, but not all

Share your thought process

The decisions you make are a great source of travel marketing content.

But don’t stop there.

It’s more than just “visit the Cotswolds” or “you need to see Blenheim Palace”.

It’s talking about more than just an itinerary.

Not every post has to be a specific recommendation.

Sometimes it’s more about sharing your perspective on how someone can experience it.

It’s things like:

• Why I don’t recommend trying to see the Cotswolds in a single day

• How to avoid the Cotswolds crowds

• Why staying in one village can be a better experience than changing hotels every night

• Experiencing the Cotswolds is more than just visiting small towns 

• Why I don’t recommend a standard tour to actually experience the Cotswolds

• Here are the parts of the Cotswolds that are perfect for slow travelers

• Why purchasing something (coffee, pastries, souvenirs, etc.) is so important when visiting small towns

• Garden cafes are highly underrated for cream teas or hearty, full meals during your visit

• New Forest is great for this kind of traveler

• The Isle of Wight Heritage Steam Railway is great for this kind of traveler

Is there anything that surprised you when planning?

One of the easiest sources of content is what you learned while building the itinerary.

Maybe you found that there’s a few things for tourists to do in Southampton, but the best places to go are outside the city.

Maybe you found a garden you didn’t know about previously.

You might have started out thinking the Isle of Wight and visiting Osborne House was an obvious choice for these particular clients, before realizing New Forest might be a better fit.

Those discoveries can become great content. You’re sharing what you’re learning, not just what you already know.

Don’t forget about answering client questions

When you presented the proposed itinerary to your client, did they ask you any questions?

Don’t forget to write them down. 

If one client asks, they probably aren’t the only ones wondering.

Client questions can be your best sources for content, because they’re telling you what people want to know.

Instead of answering the question once and moving on, you can turn it into a social media post, email, or blog topic.

For this itinerary, they might ask questions like these:

• We like the train, so would taking the train to the Cotswolds be better than a driver?

• Is there time to walk part of the Cotswolds Way or should we save that for a future trip?

• If we had time for another garden or two, what do you recommend?

• If we want a great dinner experience too (Michelin star or similar), where could that fit?

• Isn’t there a passenger ferry to the Isle of Wight? How would that work and can we see the same things?

• New Forest and the Isle of Wight both sound great. Which do you think we’d like more?

Those questions can turn into content like this:

• What you can see with a driver on your way to the Cotswolds that you can’t see from the train

• Why it’s worth walking part of the Cotswolds Way

• How long it takes to walk the entire Cotswolds Way

• Cotswolds gardens worth visiting

• Great dining in the Cotswolds

• Pros and cons to taking the passenger ferry to the Isle of Wight

One itinerary means lots of opportunities

Just one itinerary can give you a ton of content.

You don’t have to give away all your work to share some great info with current and potential clients.

Talk about specific places. What you recommend and what you don’t. 

You can touch on a specific hotel, or one hotel vs another and the type of client each one is good for.

Talk about transportation and how to get around. Lots of people have questions, so share what you know!

You can share about a specific attraction, or one “good to know” about visiting it that people may not know about.

And of course there’s info about places to eat, things to see, or places to go that people may not be aware of.

The itinerary is just the starting point.

Even more content comes from the places you’ve researched, the decisions you made, the questions you answered, and all the things you learned along the way.

The bottom line: Itineraries can make great travel marketing content

Advisors who seem to have tons of content ideas aren’t necessarily creating more content. 

They’re paying attention to the things that come up while they’re doing their job.

That’s how you get great marketing, and you’ve already done a lot of the work to get there!

If you missed our prior post, check out why marketing feels like so much work.