New to Selling Travel? Here’s Branding Advice From a Peer

In 2016, when a then 23-year-old Robin Brown was hired by Explorateur Travel, she had an experience familiar to many young travel advisors. Every time she told someone about her new job, they were puzzled. Aren’t travel agencies from the ’90s? people said.

It became clear to Brown that travel agencies needed “to break through archaic, preconceived notions of travel advisors.” Yet when she looked at the websites of other agencies, she thought, “none of these websites or brands are doing us any favors.”

“The branding was a little flat. Explorateur’s was too,” said Brown, who was hired by Explorateur Travel founder Jennifer Jacob to handle social media and later moved into sales.

After Explorateur revamped its website, Brown and Jacob started hearing from travel advisors. “Advisors would ask, ‘How did you pick your colors? How do I pick a brand?’”

So last September, in the middle of the pandemic, Brown, and Jacob co-founded ‘TIQUE, a consulting service for travel advisors, and Brown began offering her self-taught website design and branding expertise. (Jacob consults on workflow and systems design.)

What is branding?
Brown sees part of her role as educating travel advisors. “A lot of people design a logo and think, ‘That’s my brand.’ A logo is not a brand. A brand is a strategy of finding your ideal client and attracting more of them.”

Branding is really about “how your ideal client will feel when they interact with you,” said Brown, whose services are often sought out by younger solo advisors looking to grow their business and eventually develop a team of advisors.

Frequently what’s missing in branding efforts is a strategy, and Brown’s process with travel advisors often involves “helping people find out who they are, who they want their business to be and who they want their business to attract.”

Define your audience
The first step is identifying the advisor’s ideal client. Brown asks advisors to dive deep into the profile of their ideal client, asking questions like, “Where do they go to eat? What’s their profession? Are they working all the time? Are they more stay at home?

“You want people to be inviting, casting a wide net, but at the same time get closer to their business goals, whether it’s more FIT, or European, or more destination weddings.”

Embrace your personality
The advisor’s own personality is another key. “Your brand should be an extension of your personal style. It wouldn’t make sense to have a laidback and fun personality and a stuffy buttoned-up brand,” Brown said.

“I want people to feel comfortable, that I have a brand that is clear; I know how to articulate my brand; I know how to live out my brand.”

When advisors aiming for the luxury market worry that they won’t be in sync with their ideal client, Brown reminds them that luxury encompasses many different styles. For instance, she said, “I would much rather be barefoot than go to a fancy dinner party. So my ideal clients liked splurging on a nice trip, but they weren’t people who would only go to a Four Seasons or Ritz.”

Imagine a party
To help advisors think about their personalities, Brown invites them to picture the kind of party their brand would be. “Would it be a birthday party with a lot of color and pizazz – very fun, playful, and inviting? Or a casual dinner party among friends, where they bring wine, there’s an intimate conversation, a little more muted and sophisticated?

“There’s a million different ways to do a party. It doesn’t have to be a Miami nightclub party to be attractive.”

Set your creative direction
Brown’s clients also complete a branding questionnaire and interact with her on a shared Pinterest board, which is especially helpful for those who are more visual than verbal.

The next step is to come up with four brand keywords that describe the feelings, impressions, and images the advisor wants to evoke in potential clients. These words should be what someone thinks of when they see the brand, for example, “sophisticated, inviting, luxurious, clean.”

With those branding keywords and other client inputs in mind, Brown works up a choice of creative directions. The creative direction serves as a blueprint in all areas where branding comes into play – basically everything on the customer-facing side of the business, including website, social media posts, emails, and client documents.

After the advisor chooses a creative direction, Brown will design a choice of three logo variations, color palettes, and type font suites.

Keep it simple & consistent
Consistency and repetition are key to brand recognition, so once an advisor has settled on their brand’s creative direction, it’s important to stick with it. Don’t be tempted to tweak your colors or your type fonts, Brown advised.

Another tip: “Simplify your logo, because that is going to make it timeless – the simpler the better. Most major brand logos are simple.

“People want to throw everything into their logo, I say take the pressure off your logo.”

Be empowered
For website design, Brown uses Showit, a platform that features easy drag-and-drop technology. She provides clients with video tutorials that walk them through the launch of their websites and how to make their own changes to the sites.

“I want to empower them, so they don’t have to spend a grand to make a simple change. You want people to feel in charge of their business. That’s the basis of ‘TIQUE – running your business, not letting your business run you.”