Episode Overview
Episode Topic:
In this captivating episode of TravelPreneur, we welcome Kristin Richards, the creative lead and founder of In Flow Design Co. Kristin shares her extensive experience in visual branding with website engagement, emphasizing its critical role in the travel industry. From the importance of a well-designed logo to the psychological impact of color choices, Kristin provides valuable insights for travel business owners looking to create a lasting first impression and establish a strong online presence. This episode dives deep into the strategies and elements that make a travel website not only visually appealing but also highly engaging for potential clients.
Lessons You’ll Learn:
Listeners will gain a thorough understanding of how visual branding with website engagement can significantly impact their travel business. Kristin Richards explains how to choose the right colors, fonts, and design elements to create a cohesive and professional brand image. Additionally, she discusses the importance of maintaining brand consistency across all digital platforms to foster brand recognition and trust. Kristin also shares practical tips on how to enhance customer engagement through effective website design and messaging, ensuring that visitors are not only attracted to the site but are also motivated to stay and explore further.
About Our Guest:
Kristin Richards is the founder and creative lead of In Flow Design Co., a company dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs through design and marketing. With a background as an art director, Kristin has a wealth of experience in helping businesses, particularly in the travel industry, develop strong visual branding with website engagement. Her approach combines creative design with strategic marketing to ensure that businesses not only look good but also perform well online. Kristin’s passion for travel and design shines through in her work, making her a sought-after expert in the field.
Topics Covered:
This episode covers a wide range of topics essential for travel business owners looking to enhance their brand and online presence. Key areas of discussion include the importance of visual branding with website engagement, the psychology of color in design, and the role of a professional logo. Kristin Richards also delves into practical strategies for improving website functionality and user experience, from mobile-friendliness to clear and compelling messaging. Additionally, the episode explores how to create a cohesive brand image that resonates with the target audience and encourages customer loyalty.
Our Guest: Kristin Richards – Masters Visual Branding with Website Engagement
Kristin Richards is the dynamic founder and creative lead of In Flow Design Co., a branding and web design agency focused on empowering women entrepreneurs. Born in California and raised in Atlanta, Kristin’s journey took a transformative turn when she moved to Australia after meeting her partner. This international move catalyzed her passion for design and travel, leading her to combine these interests into a thriving business. Kristin’s background as an art director for a women’s travel accessories line honed her design skills and prepared her for the entrepreneurial leap into creating bespoke branding solutions for travel advisors and other women-centric businesses.
In Flow Design Co. was launched in 2018 and has since become a beacon for travel businesses looking to enhance their visual branding and website engagement. Kristin’s expertise lies in creating visually stunning and strategically sound designs that not only attract attention but also convert visitors into loyal clients. Her intentional branding framework, which includes clarity, connection, and conscious design, has helped over 180 women globally establish and grow their businesses online. Kristin’s unique approach ensures that each brand she works with is not only aesthetically pleasing but also deeply resonant with its target audience.
Kristin’s philosophy is deeply rooted in the belief that businesses flourish when they are aligned with the owner’s passions and values. This is evident in how she tailors her services to fit the specific needs of travel advisors, coaches, and interior designers. Her commitment to empowering women through design and marketing is reflected in the wide range of resources, courses, and personalized services she offers. By focusing on elements like color psychology, typography, and brand consistency, Kristin helps her clients create cohesive and compelling brand identities that stand out in the crowded digital marketplace
![](https://travelpayments.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kristin-Richards.png)
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Episode Transcript
Megha McSwain: Welcome to another episode of TravelPreneur. I’m your host, Megha McSwain. Today we have a special guest, Kristin Richards, the creative lead and founder of In Flow Design Co. Kristin’s experience spans from being an art director to empowering women entrepreneurs through design and marketing. Today, she will share insights into the importance of branding in the travel business and how to leverage your website for growth. Let’s dive in. Thanks for joining us, Kristin.
Kristin Richards: Thanks so much for having me.
Megha McSwain: Kristin, how critical is a well-designed logo and the right choice of brand colors for a travel business in creating a lasting first impression?
Kristin Richards: Okay, so I to use the analogy of your brand’s visual branding because there are many aspects to branding. There’s the visual side, but there’s also your messaging and the customer experience. All these things create what you’re branding is. So on the visual side, I to think about it when you see someone from across the room and you glance at them, you can only visually see them at this point. It’s human nature to kind of create that initial opinion about them based on just looks. That might change over time. We might start talking to them and your opinion may change and evolve and everything that. But you’re creating a first impression just by looking at them. And it’s the same thing with your visual branding. So your colors, your fonts, your logo, the images that you use, all of these things are creating that initial first impression.
Kristin Richards: And I do want to say about the logo, which people may probably think I’m not going to share. This is the logo isn’t that big of a deal. A lot of people think the logo is such a big deal. It’s such a small piece of the puzzle of your branding. The logo should be legible. It should look professional, and it should be clean, but it’s not that big of a deal, especially in the online business world. There are so many other factors that affect your branding versus just the logo. That tends to be a relief for some people because I see clients obsess about the logo and they feel it needs to be this big, important thing. I was you’re just putting it in a few places. people got to read it and you need to be professional looking, but all the other aspects are so much more important. So why all of this matters is based on initial first impression.
Kristin Richards: It may spark someone’s interest to lean in and maybe read about you and learn more and stick around, or they may just pass you by. So it’s that initial attraction, that visual attraction, to then potentially start a conversation to learn about you, to read about you, things that. And then beyond the initial piece hones in the brand consistency. So brand consistency creates more brand recognition. On the visual side, color plays a big factor in this. I’ve seen this in my business over time. I have people tell me, I can tell it’s your stuff just by the look of it, by the color of it, by just the feel of it. So they recognize your brand over time. And color plays a big piece in that. So the visual branding is creating that initial first impression, creating that spark, allowing them to potentially lean in more if it’s something that they resonate with. Not everyone’s going to resonate with it, and that’s fine. They’re not meant to be for everyone, just in dating, you’re not meant for everyone. You’re looking for your people or your diversity. and it’s the same thing, with that, quite you’re looking for that client that resonates with you. And then consistency over time creates that brand recognition.
Megha McSwain: And can you explain the psychology of colors, I know you mentioned colors just now. How does the psychology of colors impact customer perception and behavior in the travel industry?
Kristin Richards: Yes. So the travel industry with color psychology, I mean, it’s just any other industry in any other experience with color. I to use the example of the color of a ruby. So imagine walking into a room and it’s painted a soft blue. And how does that make you feel? Usually, when I say this, people will say calm, peaceful. It just those are different forms of those words tend to be what come out. That’s the feeling that it creates. It creates a physical reaction. And it can create impressions in our mind based on how we physically feel about what that means to us. And then imagine it being opening another door you walk into, this bright red room that’s going to create a different feeling in your body, and then you’re going to create an opinion about that. I’ve had people, when I use this analogy, some people in the Red Room love it. They feel energized and some people are agitated. It’s just that. It also depends on the hue of the color and the value of the color. So if that blue is an electric blue, it’s going to create a different feeling than the soft pale blue that I was talking about earlier. There’s not so much to say all blues mean calm and relaxing, and all reds mean, we have to think of a stop sign.
Kristin Richards: It’s a warning sign. But it also can be related to love and passion. If it’s a wine color, that’s going to create a different type of feeling. So there are so many different shades of color, saturation of color, value of color that create these different feelings literally, physically within us. And that creates a psychological meaning. So when you’re looking at creating your brand colors for your digital business, I to start with how you want people to feel when they interact with you. How do you want people to feel when they encounter your brand? Because the color is going to help create that feeling inside of you, and then you use those answers to direct us with choosing different colors. And your brand colors are made up of a variety of colors. You’re not just picking soft colors, you’re just picking bold colors. You need to have a mix so that you can layer them appropriately and things can be legible. If everything’s light, you can’t read anything. If everything’s dark, you can’t read anything. So you need that depth of different ones. So you can kind of create your mix a unique mix to create your personality with your brand just by mixing your colors. So look, I have almost the same brand colors, but you throw in a pop of another color, and all of a sudden it, adds that, a dash of another personality.
Megha McSwain: Right. And from your extensive experience in design, can you share an example of a travel business transformation that you may have witnessed through effective branding?
Kristin Richards: Sure. So a client of mine, a few years back, was a little bit she was in a distinct business, feeling a little bit lost in her branding. She wasn’t she didn’t have quite the confidence to niche down in her offering. And she was a little all over the place with the look of her business. She would tell me, I didn’t even want to send people to my website. I don’t even want to, have it out there because I’m embarrassed about it. It doesn’t represent how I feel inside. So she wasn’t putting herself out there. She wasn’t even using your website. And then part of her brand is your niche. your niche is a part of what makes your brand your brand. Because she wasn’t a stone with exactly what type of travel focus she wanted. She was a little all over the place. It wasn’t as clear. So going through her process of working with us, she did one of our courses that I think helped more with the niche art before we did her brand design. And at the end of all of this, she reached out specifically into cruising. So she cut out all the other types of tricks that she was planning for clients that only did ocean cruising and river cruising and owned it. As far as her website that was all over the website, all in her messaging redid everything. So it was modern, clean, and easy to navigate. She’s proud to send people to that website, finally, and proud and clear and confident in herself to, put herself out there work. And from then her business has just, exponentially grown in that particular niece.
Kristin Richards: And now she’s seen as an expert in the river cruising and ocean cruising field. She has a partner in that. So one focuses on an ocean and she focuses on a river. So it’s where her passion is. People feel that passion and it has allowed her to be on boards of different organizations within the cruising industry, and just expanded her business so much because she allowed herself to step into what she wanted to do. And then on the visual side of her branding our designs created the professional look to kind of get behind that direction so she could confidently put herself out there. So I just love that example, because it’s kind of a great before and after of someone is different when you’re brand new. After all, you’re not out there yet. There’s not as much of a before because you’re there is no anymore, right? But when you’re existing and you’re just kind of a big mix of everything and you’re not stepping into who you want to be, right? And that feeling of confidence, it sounded when you put out a and you take your time to fix your hair, put on an outfit, you’re looking good. you feel so much more confident. It’s kind of that sometimes with the visual side of our company. As far as design, that just adds a little extra touches where we’re hey, if I did reach out to this company and they would type a website, I would feel good about that.
Megha McSwain: Right. It helps you stand out for sure. I can’t imagine in this day and age, not having a website that you could use for your business. I mean, that it’s it’s almost having a business card. You have to have one.
Kristin Richards: I have to say it’s the digital business card these days.
Megha McSwain: Yes. It is. You have to have one.
Kristin Richards: Yes. Yes, exactly.
Megha McSwain: So what are the key elements of a Travel Advisors website that make it a powerful tool for gaining visibility and establishing credibility? I mean, we mentioned, you have to have something that, these days, even social media, if you don’t have social media, it’s kind of oh, wait, is this company legit or not?
Kristin Richards: So softly.
Megha McSwain: You know, are there? Yes. Are there any tools that that people can use to gain visibility, you know when having these, all these things that they’re supposed to have?
Kristin Richards: Yes. So you’re exactly right. People want to feel you’re legit, established or professional. The social media accounts, you don’t have to be everywhere with social media. I feel that pick the ones that you want to do and do those and then have the website right. That looks professional and clean and easy to navigate and all those things. what we want to make sure to do as far as allowing that to gain visibility and credibility when they get to the website, it does need to be professional because that’s what’s going to help establish the credibility. If it’s not very mobile friendly and they can’t navigate it on the phone, half the people usually coming to your site are on their phone. So that’s going to be something that kind of a deterrent for people. so you want it to be mobile-friendly, you want it to speak and connect with someone. A lot of people overlook the messaging side. They’re very stuck on the visuals and they people don’t read, blah blah blah. Some people don’t read as much, but there are a lot of people that still do. And so having messaging that connects is very important as well. you want to also.
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Kristin Richards: Remember that your website is such a great place to just be found online. It doesn’t mean right when you go live, everyone’s gonna find you on the internet. Because especially with SEO and search engines, it does take time for your website to gain that online. But what I love about the website versus social media is that when the people do land on it, it is your place where you’ve curated exactly what your company is all about, your mission, what it looks to work with you in an organized, clean manner versus the like. Social media is great, but it’s a bunch of little random things that they might see this post, they might see that, but when it lands on the website, you can curate them through that process, right?
Megha McSwain: The website is not changing. Social media is everyday, social media, you can post multiple times a day. So it could be they might not be seeing exactly what you want them to see.
Kristin Richards: Totally. I had a client. I don’t remember how long it was after our website launched, at least a year or something, but she messaged me and said one of her was a family member or something that shared about her business on social media. A friend of hers then clicked on it, went to her website, and ended up booking it with her. This is a six-figure client booking from this random person who came over to her website, and she told her, the reason why I reached out to you was because of your website. That’s what the client said. And then she has this dance for your booking. Now that that’s happening, every day and that would be great, but it’s possible. And then when they get there, it’s once they land on the website, the right person because not everyone is going to be the right person. We don’t have to convert everyone. It’s probably not everyone is the right person for you, but we want to make sure that it’s going to look professional. It’s going to be clean. You’ve chosen colors and fonts thoughtfully. The imagery makes sense. The messaging is relevant. A lot of people have outdated messaging. Well, it’s not how I work anymore, though. That’s not who I work with anymore because they just haven’t kept it up to date. So when all of those things connect you’re able to book more clients and then, um I think we’re going to maybe get into a little bit more of engagement conversions later, but those are just some ways to help you. I bet the website helps to create more of that visibility and credibility.
Megha McSwain: So if you can kind of offer your opinion on this, how do they use their website to enhance customer engagement? We know people can do things directly, you can schedule consultations or appointments on Calendly now, which is nice for travel professionals to maybe set appointments. Is this kind of something that you would recommend travel professionals do to kind of up their I guess business leads?
Kristin Richards: Having a website versus just having a calendar booking.
Megha McSwain: Right. having kind of trying to increase engagement on these websites with actual customers.
Kristin Richards: I wouldn’t say a big thing with engagement. It can come down to messaging because the design is what’s going to draw them into the first. It’s going to make them think, do I want to stick around more than two seconds, or am I a thousand away? It’s that initial attraction. And then it’s even if they don’t decide consciously if it looks professional and clean and attractive, they take it more seriously versus it. They can’t read things. Or if you are using blurry images and things that. But what after that to get them to stick around and to do something? Your messaging is where more of the connection happens. So we want to make a connection with them in their writing. And I think a lot of people overlook this because I mentioned earlier, they feel people don’t read anything or I don’t want to. It’s writing. So they barely have any writing, right? So many people who do read, and that’s where you’re making that connection. They may be making, a bond with maybe what your company is all about. You’re addressing what their struggles are or you’re addressing the benefits and the value that you can bring in your services. A lot of people might not understand fully what you do as a travel advisor. They think what’s the difference between a travel advisor, and a travel agent? They don’t understand, all the extra benefits that they could be getting with you booking these trips or them.
Kristin Richards: All the suppliers you have connections with, the benefits of seeing a beach hotel, the early check-ins, and all the little bonus things I’ve gotten now that I’ve learned about them. I reached out to some, flights, bookings, and celebrities. a lot of people have no idea what any of that means. So that happens through your messaging, not happening through pretty photos necessarily. That might react that way. But we need to explain the value that you bring, all the things that you’re saving them from, all the wasted time or they could be using that time to spend with their family or to earn more money. There are so many things that come through in the messaging that then get them to step forward and decide, hey, I want to contact this person. Another important thing will be the opt-ins because not everyone is ready for you right when they land on your site. Some people find you, maybe they’re just not with us or they’re not planning a trip yet. Maybe it’s not for a month later. But if you happen to have an opt-in that they connected with and they got your freebie, now they’re on your email list, and you can continue to nurture that relationship until maybe it is the right time. Sure.
Megha McSwain: Flow Design Company or Sorry Design Co in emphasizes the alignment of business strategies with personal values. How does this philosophy impact the branding and web design services you offer to travel entrepreneurs?
Kristin Richards: So we only offer services that we love doing. They extend people and this is relevant if you’re someone in trouble thinking about what services you offer when you’re only offering things that are in your zone, that you’re passionate about that everyone’s going to win. It’s going to shine in the work that you do and the excitement in your company. It can be easy to feel well, I can do all these things, so why will I do them? Because someone will pay me to have them. I had this, I think, in that early stage of my business where I offered extra things that I was just kind of figuring out who I was as a new company, and that I let go and streamlined to only offer the types of services that we offer because that is what we’re best at. And that’s what I’m most passionate about. So that would be branding. And then what’s unique about our website services is that we only offer template customizations for our templates. I don’t believe anyone needs a custom website unless I mean, some people do, but it’s a whole different type of movie industry than a travel advisor. There’s just no need to invest that much. All that, the extra time and work and money that goes into something from the ground up. It’s just something that you don’t need. I will never sell someone something that they don’t actually need. So at a certain point I decided to cut out any custom website services.
Kristin Richards: Everything is based on the templates, and that just feels aligned with the direction that we want to go in. Freedom is a big value of the company and people interpret freedom in different ways. I have employees who interpret freedom as you know, being able to cut off work and disconnect. You know, they’re not the business owner, so it’s not following them around it tends to follow us around. Sometimes they can just disconnect. Uh, another one of my employees, the freedom, the fact that she can work from anywhere I create her own schedule is a big value of freedom for her. For me, I find a lot of freedom to. When there’s a lot of streamlined processes, I find when there is, organization and a flow to your process, it creates a lot more freedom and ease in how you work. And so because we’re honed in with our services and we’ve cut out working with any type of niche, we want to focus on our favorites, which travel is about 75% of our clients. I started a company to begin with to be able to travel and then move to Australia. So it’s a big part of the brand coming to be from the beginning. And so honing down those services and then creating all those streamlined processes that allow things to just flow, everything just feels so much more natural, easy, flowy for everyone involved. If you’re kind of doing a bunch of all these different things, it’s hard to create more of a flow in a system.
Kristin Richards: It’s different. It’s you’re reinventing the wheel every single time. and then also, the way we work with our clients is very aligned with our values. So for us, flexible schedules where we can work around our families is important. We work with a lot of women. Women is kind of our niche. We still have many male clients. Uh, it’s not that we only work with women, but that tends to be who we market it to. And it’s a important value of mine that we’re working remotely on our own schedules to work on our families. You know, I have a two and a half year old. My project manager has three kids. Uh, one of my designers just had her second baby. That’s an important value that we mix into, how we work with our clients. Also having clear boundaries around work and personal life, operating from a place of honesty and integrity. all these deeper values come through and not only let the type of work that we offer, but how we actually work with the clients. It’s kind of scary to find someone online and here’s thousands of dollars. I hope you make something I I it. So Yes, just to allow them to feel that sense of trust and security was always operates honesty, integrity. It’s important to me because it’s probably.
Megha McSwain: Like got.
Kristin Richards: Like something in the beginning. Not everyone loves everything you do. first Rock. It’s normal when they create for other people. And so just reassuring that, we always get there in the end, it’s I think some people have been screwed over by people in the past where they just couldn’t get there and it never went anywhere. And now they wasted all this money and they have something that they don’t like. I have people that come to us who have had that experience, and I would just never let that happen. and so, Yes, kind of the types of services we offer and then how we work as a company ties back to our allies.
Megha McSwain: And you offer specific, specific marketing courses for your clients as well. How do these help in positioning a travel business effectively and in such a crowded market?
Kristin Richards: Well, okay, so first, with the crowded market thing, that piece in my mind is a huge mindset piece because it’s actually not crowded. We want to pretend it’s crowded and we feel it’s crowding because we’re in it. when people are out there, their ideal client isn’t exposed to all the things that you’re exposed to. They’re not as connected with all those other, profiles on social media that are now serving them ads and showing them all of this content. So it tends to sometimes feel more saturated than it is. I feel when people are coming from the sense that it’s a crowded market, either you’re not owning you. I feel we are. That is when you tap into your values, your passion, your specific person. You want to work with, your specific services and then you’re making design choices based on all of these things. you’re creating your own niche just by being yourself, and there’s no one else you. Even if they’re branded out, you might not be you might not have a brand that’s named after you, but you’re still such a horrible part in that. And we create our own niche. So operating from an abundant mindset versus scarcity mindset is, oh, it’s oversaturated. There’s so many people that are already doing what I want, why should I bother? Why I’m not going to stand out.
Kristin Richards: No one’s going to pick me. all scarcity, scarcity, scarcity. But when you operate from an abundant mindset where there are always more clients and you are the unique point of your company, that’s a great place to start. So I feel getting that out of the way is such a good thing, a good release to feel and then going into our courses. So our main course is called Brand New Vision. It’s a brand new course. So it incorporates marketing aspects because we need to think about marketing strategies when branding our business. So it goes through my Intentional Gradient framework, which would be clarity. we need to get clear on that. A lot of the things I was just talking about, are who you are as a company or values, your focus, your niche, not only your service niche filling different niches. We have the client niche and then our service niche. So we want to get clear on the deeper levels of you as a company, as well as the benefits that you bring and the outcomes. A lot of people focus on the features, so you get a complimentary console call all the way. You know, an itinerary based, a customized itinerary based on our call. You get me the X amount of edits. I give you all your travel documents. I give you support during your whole trip. Xyz, all of those things are great, but then what are the benefits of that? While you’re saving them time, you’re saving them energy.
Kristin Richards: They’re able to take a trip they maybe could have never created on their own. And what are the outcomes of those benefits would be extra time spent with their family, lifelong memories, people don’t take it that far, always in their marketing. And so this is kind of all covered in the clarity piece of that. And then we take all of that and also want to create a connection as well. So once we understand who we are, and who our ideal client is on a deeper level, we’re able to create more of a connection with them through messaging and how we talk about our company. And then all of that informs the conscious diet. So we want to be making design choices within this course. You go through all the typical branding things, making your brand color palette using color psychology choosing your brand fonts. A lot of people don’t make that much about the fonts, but fonts do play a big role in the impression of creating a high-end-looking brand or creating one that feels more casual, or I see people making those statewide. Yes. Yes. They pick fonts that feel to me anyway, more childish, yet they want a high-end luxury client. They just don’t think about the fonts.
Kristin Richards: So I go through understanding more about typography and then creating your logo. So it’s a lot more in-depth at the beginning, and then be able to create the core aspects of your branding based on all of that. It goes through imagery style as well. A lot of people wonder, how can I make my images stay more consistent? They feel all over the place, especially for taking out from your phone. Having decided what is my imagery style like? Is it going to be bright, and saturated? Is it light and airy? Is it light, dark, and moody? Is it more just a natural? All of that can play into visual range.
Megha McSwain: And sometimes I feel just honing in on one thing is such a big step, because it’s everything you can see other people’s websites or other people’s branding and say, oh, that looks good, this looks good, and you just can’t narrow it down to something, so you just end up getting a hodgepodge. So I think for me, I’m using myself as an example. I know honing in and sticking with one style is, it is such a hard thing to do. Yes. And I think sometimes.
Kristin Richards: You don’t have the extra information about how to help you make the decision, right? Or you’re just picking random colors. Well, we want to make sure we have I was kind of mentioning earlier, a darker medium light. And it just kind of helps you rule things out. Oh, you don’t want it. You want it to feel light and airy while being technique-desaturated colors and you want it more energizing. You have a pop of energy with one pop of color, but everything else may be more neutral, or having more strategy knowledge behind it helps guide choosing that. And then you can just weed out stuff that you don’t want. Sometimes it’s helpful to be okay, I don’t know what I want yet, but I want I don’t.
Megha McSwain: Want, don’t want. Right. Yes, that’s a good place to start for sure. Eliminate what you don’t want. Yes. In the way of free resources, how do those play in supporting entrepreneurs? How should they be utilized to maximize a business’s online presence?
Kristin Richards: So a free resource problem would be a freebie. Sometimes people call it an ESO. Here’s a simple free offer. There are so many different lead magnets. There’s a lot of different names for that. A lot of people don’t understand what this is, to be honest, when they come to work with us and you’re are you going to do a freebie on your website? And they’re I don’t know what that is. So what a freebie is, is if you go to someone’s website, usually you see it as an opt-in area, but the whole page potentially as a pop-up where they’re offering something to you that you have to put your email address into get, that might be a guide. That might be a checklist. It might be quick it could be there are so many different things people ask for what’s your mind like?
Kristin Richards: That’s how am I supposed to know that there are so many factors inside, there are so many options, but something that they’re getting for free in exchange for the email address. So the benefit for you is that you’re growing your email list. But why do you want to grow the email list? It’s a way to then continue a relationship with someone directly in their inbox. Versus even if someone follows you on social media, your content is only being shown to them in such a small little window, if at all, it reaches such a small percentage, doesn’t mean everyone’s going to open up your emails, but the percentages of people viewing your emails versus I need to stumble across your social media posts. That’s in their inbox is going to be a lot higher. So you’re then able to nurture the relationship. The freebie itself strategically should be a way to build your trust factor. So they’re learning more about you. They’re seeing oh they know this particular area. you’re just kind of creating that relationship. I always say you want to create a freebie that positions you as the next natural step. Or if you notice a pattern of people in console calls asking the same type of questions, turn that into a freebie,
Kristin Richards: Because it wondering that that had those. And then I think some are great. The best free-to-use was turning information and got patterns that I saw into okay clearly want this. Let me just create a free resource for this. and I mentioned earlier, that not everyone’s ready to work with you right away. I found people on my email list for over a year, and it just wasn’t the right time. And then all of a sudden they reached out. Although I’ve been reading your emails for however long or whatever. I had this one client who booked in recently and she kind of holds up all of my freebies because I don’t I mean, I made freebies over the years. It was a niche market freebie and naming your business free. all this stuff. I’ve done a lot of things I’m ready. I’m oh, you didn’t have to do all those. But it just wasn’t the right time for her. So she was ready to consume, free content for now. And then she decided she wanted to invest. It was the right time. So. Sure, you can be growing that email list to be able to market directly in someone’s inbox and then just nurture their relationship, because it’s not always the best time.
Megha McSwain: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And when you hear something that, it just proves to you, gosh, all this is working, that that made a difference to someone. And now I’ve got this client that you.
Kristin Richards: It doesn’t, I said, Yes. It’s not like it always happened immediately. As soon people are oh, well it’s okay. And then you’re well, how long have you been doing it? Are you sharing with Brady? So people forget that they have it and it’s just on the website. But are you promoting it and sharing it, right? Promote it. Yes, And then is there some type of actual follow are you doing email marketing? Are you just doing freebies and then you know, not doing any process?
Megha McSwain: Well, Kristin thank you so much for all of this. I mean, I know how important branding is but it’s nice to get a reminder of all these little things that go into it. You know the logo, the colors, the font I mean everything. So thank you so much for sharing the importance of branding and web design in the travel industry. Let our followers know where they can learn more about you and In Flow Design Co.
Kristin Richards: Sure, so you can go up to inflowdesignco.com. It’ll then send you in a few directions. So we have a website that’s only for travel. It’s a whole shop that’s only travel. All of our templates are specifically designed for travel advisors for websites. So you just click Travel Advisors and it goes to your little website. And then you can find us on Instagram at inflowdesign.co. Well, wait. It’s inflowdesign.co.
Megha McSwain: Okay, inflowdesign.co. Okay. Got it. Well great. Thank you. And claim the freebies right when you see a freebie claim there’s a bunch of them.
Kristin Richards: Freebies and freebies for travel. Yes, there’s one specifically for travel advisors. So go grab those out. There’s some on the homepage.
Megha McSwain: Great. Amazing. Well, thank you, Kristin. And to our listeners, please, remember to follow and subscribe for more episodes. Leave us a review and share your thoughts on today’s topic. Until next time, keep exploring and growing your travel adventures. Thank you, Kristin. Take care.