President's Message
Travelzoo. Sherman’s Travel. Expedia. Priceline. Travelocity. Hotwire. The major cruise lines, hotel companies, and tour operators.

Win the Email Wars!
By OSSN President Gary Fee

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Online travel companies, the big media companies like USA Today, and even the travel suppliers that support the agent community spend tens of millions of dollars every year blasting emails to your clients. Once they’ve captured your clients’ email addresses – whether it’s from a past trip, or a subscription to an email newsletter, or even a rented list of email addresses – your clients will continue receiving promotional emails from these sources until those clients say “Stop!” and remove their names from these lists.

And, you can bet that those sales emails are not urging your clients to call you to book their next trips, right?

That’s why it’s critical for home-based agents to build a current client database that includes your customers’ updated email addresses – and, then, to begin a regular schedule of sending emails to those clients to remind them you’re ready to help them plan that next getaway!

We're very proud that OSSN introduced in late March a brand-new FREE marketing database product designed for home-based travel retailers!

ITAMS (the makers of the popular ClientEase database system!) and Passport Online (the folks behind the NexCite and VacationPort Web services for agents!) have joined forced to create MarketEaseOnline. It's an email marketing program that lets you create, manage, and send customized marketing emails to your clients. (And, did I mention it's available free of charge?)

Technically, it's a Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system with email thrown in, so that you can turn your client database into a true marketing vehicle.

If you don't already have your own database, MarketEaseOnline will help you create profiles for your clients using more than 100 preset criteria and 25 different fields. You can make this system match your business!

If you do have a database set up already, you can use MarketEaseOnline to customize supplier content and match it against your names to set up personalized emails with just four simple point-and-click steps.

This new OSSN benefit will be a huge help for agents who may be unsure about the best ways to turn their client lists into marketing machines. We're planning a Webinar in the next few weeks to demonstrate the system. And, you can go to the new marketing section of OSSN.com to learn more! (You must sign into OSSN.com as a current member first; then, you'll see the Marketing tab as the third option across the top of the page.) Also, you can send an email to info@marketeaseonline.com, or you can call 866.867.0803.

Remember: If you're not staying in touch with your clients by email - your competitors are!

Gary M. Fee is president and founder of the Outside Sales Support Network, the world's largest trade organization devoted to home-based sellers of travel. OSSN serves more than 7,500 home-based travel agents around North America.

(Credit: ITAMS and Passport Online; OSSN)