Managing your Travel Business
by John Hawks

Client Databases

Why should you bother keeping a client database?

If you've been in the travel business for any length of time, you'll know the answer firsthand. It's the huge difference that crops up between saturation marketing and repeat sales.

Have you ever come home at night to find bulk mail flyers and doorhangers at your house? (The worst times are after a rain shower, when you'll find soggy colored paper all over your porch and sidewalk.) Pizza restaurants and home cleaning services and other local businesses hit whole neighborhoods, paying high school kids a few bucks an hour to run through and deposit these ad materials at every address, regardless of whether you even like pizza or need help keeping your house neat. Typical response rates can fall below 1 percent for these materials, so the key is huge volume.

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