Email marketing should be at the centre of your marketing campaign. It is the number one way to keep your business at the forefront of your potential customer’s mind, so when they are ready to take action, they come to you. However, before you can start an email marketing campaign, you need emails. If you are a new travel agent and you are not sure how to go about building your email list, here are ten effective strategies you can use.

1. Use A Website Opt-in Form

If you don’t have a website, then get one. Your site should include a visible customer opt-in form that site visitors can use to subscribe to your emails. Website opt-ins are the most credible, and they are emails most likely to convert into customers, and for that reason, website opt-in form is at the top of this list.

2. Run An Online Contests

Running an online contest is a great way to get a lot of emails quickly. Put together an attractive prize offer and an easy set of actions for participation and use all channels possible to promote your contest. The contest should include voting and voters should be required to enter their emails to submit their votes. You will end up with a lot of bad emails from running a contest, but it will also attract a lot of interested parties to your business.

3. Produce And Share Incredible Content

Good quality content is bait for email subscribers and website traffic. When the content in your newsletter and on your website is well organised, relevant and delivered correctly, it will encourage viewers to want more and share the content that you produce. Show viewers that you know your business by creating high-quality content that represents what you do.

4. Run An Online Surveys

Surveys are great to get useful information about your potential customers that can help you improve your service offer. Surveys are also excellent for capturing emails to add to your email list. There are many tools you can find online like Survey Monkey that you can use to setup your online Survey. For your survey to be successful, you will need to promote it properly to get as many participants as possible. Leverage social media to get more exposure and participation for your survey.

5. Sponsor An Event

Find events that are happening in your local area that has a large number of attendees that you would love to become your potential customer. Find out from the event organiser how you get to become a sponsor. Make sure your sponsorship proposal includes getting access to the emails of the attendees. A good way to do this is to offer something like a free vacation package of travel voucher as a prize given at the event. Attendees would need to fill out ballots at the door to qualify for the prize

6. A Free Offer

“Something for something.” It works all the time, and it will work for your list building ambitions. Promote a free offer on your website that encourages site visitors to opt-in to your email list. Unless you have something like an eBook or something that does not cost a lot of money to produce in volumes, it could get very expensive to offer something to every subscriber. So you can do something like offer an offer to get submitted into a monthly draw for a free travel coupon.

7. Save Customer Emails

While working to build your email list through the various channels, make sure you are taking care of the emails of your existing clients. When you help clients arrange their travel plans, that client and travel partners should be correctly saved in your customer databases and automatically added to your email list.

8. Become A Subject Expert

When travellers are visiting a destination or a hotel for the first time, they have a lot of questions; they need suggestions and any useful tip that can help to improve their overall travel experience. Many travel agents only offer advice to only those that come to them to book travel. However, if you become that expert that offers free tips and information on your website through blogs and videos, this will translate into a lot of interested travellers subscribing to your email list.

9. Encourage Content Sharing

When you send out your Newsletters or post your website blogs, include buttons for email forwarding and social sharing. Ask your readers to share the content with friends and family members they think would be interested in the information provided. This is an excellent way to expand the reach of your content beyond your email list and site visitors and get you new subscribers.

10. Ask For Emails

Simply asking for what you want is still a strategy that works. When you meet people at events or in your regular day-to-day life, tell them about your business and ask them for their emails so you can send them your newsletter. They will either say yes or no, and I find it’s extremely hard for most people to say no when you are face-to-face so that you will get their contact information more times than not.