Are You Wasting Your Budget on Bad Media?
Don’t spend another marketing dollar without considering these four factors
How much confidence do you have in your media marketing partners?
If you answered “not much,” you’re not alone. There are so many media companies competing for your marketing dollars. Many of them operate in pretty chaotic ways. And some are less than transparent about their audience and impact.
At The Group Travel Leader and Small Market Meetings, we know you have an abundance of media companies to choose from when planning your marketing strategy. We also know choosing the wrong partner can be painful and expensive — and we want to help you avoid a group marketing disaster.
Here are four important factors to keep in mind when evaluating media partners.
Frequency
Who do you feel closer to — the friend you hear from a few times a year, or the one you see on a weekly basis?
The answer is pretty obvious. And it applies not just to friendships, but also media brands.
Audiences are most deeply connected to the media brands they interact with often. And that means that a media platform’s publishing rhythm is a critical part of its effectiveness.
When it comes to marketing, a magazine published once a quarter will never be as effective as one published each month.
We have been publishing our flagship magazines The Group Travel Leader and Small Market Meetings on a monthly basis for 35 years. And each brand has accompanying digital products that touch audiences every week.
Nobody else in tourism media has that kind of relationship with their audience.
Quality
Spending time in a well designed space feels great — and it makes you want to stay longer.
For media consumers, the quality of the audience experience goes a long way toward determining the level of loyalty to the brand (and openness to the brand’s advertising partners). Poor-quality editorial content and lackluster visual design frustrate audiences and erode loyalty.
That’s why you shouldn’t choose your advertising partners on price alone. You need to spend time examining the quality of their media. Is the content professionally created? Is the visual experience inviting? Does the quality inspire confidence?
Top-quality content and design have been the cornerstone of our brands for 35 years. Every article we publish is custom written by professional journalists (never recycled press releases or AI slop). And people love the design of our magazines so much that they often keep them on their desks for months.
Authority
Anyone can give you simple instructions for solving simple problems. But when you’re working on complex projects, there’s nothing more valuable than guidance from experts.
One of the problems in travel media is that many people think they’re qualified to write about travel just because they have gone on a few trips. In the complex worlds of tour and meeting planning, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
People who consume tourism and meetings media don’t want generic articles. They want insights from experts who have learned through experience.
A media platform without expertise isn’t valuable to anyone. Not its audience. Not its advertisers.
At The Group Travel Leader and Small Market Meetings, our expertise is unparalleled. Our CEO & Executive Editor, Brian Jewell, has spent more than 20 years in the groups and meetings space. He’s a podcast host and in-demand keynote speaker. And he leads a team of seasoned travel media professionals that nobody else can match.
Trust
How much do you trust someone if you suspect they have ulterior motives? Probably not much.
It’s the same with media brands. Audiences can smell compromised content from a mile away.
And if the audience loses trust in a platform’s credibility, they’ll stop paying attention.
There are plenty of media brands in our space guaranteeing editorial coverage for advertisers. Many times, that guarantee boils down to “buy an ad, and we’ll run your press release beside it.”
It’s not original. It’s not journalism. Many times, it’s not even well written.
The audience can tell… and they stop paying attention.
Since The Group Travel Leader was founded 35 years ago, we have always avoided pay-to-play advertorial deals. Because we care about our quality, we respect our audience and we value the trust they place in us.
Simply put: If an audience can’t trust a media brand, advertisers shouldn’t trust it either.
