…
Incoming Agencies usually print “confidential tariffs” or brochures they combine destination promotion, description of services, rates, and company profile. This might be a good practice for tourism but for the incentive and meeting market.
a DMC that want to take a position in the industry produce a Corporate Brochure profiling the company. This brochure should be a unique marketing piece; tell your prospective clients who you are, what your references are, and what you can do for your clients. It is preferable to avoid publicity pages in this brochure although one or two tasteful ads related to incentives can be acceptable.
Let your corporate brochure speak for you. We all know that the fate of most brochures is the waste basket. The critical moments are the seconds between the time the envelope is opened and the time a brochure can end in the waste basket. Creating unique cover that will capture your audience and change your road from the waste basket to the filing cabinet can make all the difference.
A corporate brochure should reflect the image you want to project. It must be serious, creative, original, sensible, clear, short and easy to read. Enhance it with a few exceptional pictures of the destination, and above all pictures of the managers, your staff and offices. Future clients want to see with whom they are going to work. Pictures of the directors and staff help the client to remember you better.
This brochure should be explicit in what you are doing: Destination management for incentives, meetings and conferences. Slogans of the type “we do it all” do not mean anything, and indicate that you do not have a clear vision of your targets or clientele.
Your message must create a feeling of confidence and assure the clients that you can help solve their problems. Almost without exception, a client/buyer will come to you because he has one or both of these two problems:
- He does not know the destination or
- He does not want to have any problem with the destination.
In both cases the client has a problem that you must solve.
Bob Guerriero CITE, founder of Journeymasters, USA used to say, I do not care to hear how good you are. I want to know how you can solve my problem”
One could not agree more with this. One of the many characteristics a DMC should project in any of his sales approaches is: Confidence that you can solve any potential problem for the client.
A sample of a corporate profile brochure
Click image to enlarge
In the next issue: The effective “Sales Manual”
© Tasso Pappas CITE
Tasso Pappas is President of the Site Greek Chapter and served as President of Site Intl. in 2000. This article is an extract from his book "To be or not to be a DMC" which he wrote in 1996 as his thesis for the certification CITE (Certified Incentive Travel Executive).
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
