Storytelling, Strategy, and the Future of Marketing

[00:00:01.440] - Intro

This is Brand USA Talks Travel, elevating the conversation about international travel to the United States. Here's your host, Mark Lapidus.

[00:00:09.240] - Mark Lapidus

Tell me about your hot-or-not marketing trends for this year.

[00:00:12.530] - Mary Charleson

Ah, well, I had a list of 10 of them on my website, Mark, but I can give you sort of, like, the top three things that I've got my eyes on. You know, building relationships versus building an audience and playing into vanity metrics, right, that's one. Second one, I call it crafted content versus AI slop. There's a lot of AI slop out there, whether it be the posts or comments, automated comments, and I've talked about building that crafted content that only a human can put together, tell storytelling, data that you've backed up, you know, real thought leadership. And the third one is consistency versus chaos. Let's face it, we got a lot of chaos in our world these days.

[00:00:49.620] - Mark Lapidus

That's for sure.

[00:00:50.350] - Mary Charleson

And marketing, too, right? People chasing the latest shiny object, trying to be too many places all at once and not doing any of them particularly well. So I talk about the rule of three, right, sort of pick three things that you can do well and hone in on those, rather than trying to do everything for everybody kind of things. So that's, yeah, building the relationships, crafted content, and consistency, kind of the three top things.

[00:01:11.010] - Mary Charleson

And we can get into AI and all sorts of stuff later, but those would be three I'd highlight.

[00:01:14.850] - Mark Lapidus

My guest today is Mary Charleson. Mary is the President of 5MinuteMarketing.com, a keynote speaker and marketing columnist for many publications, including Huffington Post Canada, and she is the founder of CarryOnQueen.com, which we will talk about, that's for sure. Welcome to Brand USA Talks Travel, Mary.

[00:01:31.510] - Mary Charleson

Thanks, Mark. And it's a real pleasure to be here with you.

[00:01:33.880] - Mark Lapidus

How many people call you "Charleston" by mistake? A lot of Americans, right?

[00:01:37.500] - Mary Charleson

I say it's Charleson, it's the dance without the 'T', right?

[00:01:42.250] - Mark Lapidus

That's good. You've been in marketing for a long time, over 30 years. So I'd like to hear about your career journey into travel marketing.

[00:01:48.950] - Mary Charleson

Well, you know, I worked in the media side of things, in ad sales, for many, many years. You know, print was my first love, then shifted over to client side through agency kind of work. And around 2008, I launched my marketing consulting speaking, and that was sort of based around the 5minutemarketing.com brand identity. But I'd always been a travel writer on the side, kind of side project type of thing. Launched CarryOnQueen in 2018, and that's kind of where I lived the double life, but Covid enabled me to bring my double life together, and it created this unique opportunity for marketing in the travel industry where we came out of Covid and people had to rethink who their target audience was. Remember all the rubber road traffic, international dried up. They had to rethink their product, they had to rethink the distribution, all of that. So they've been two parallel interests in my career all the way along. But it was around 2021, I think it was Jim Cloonan from Travel Show Marketing Group was doing the Las Vegas Travel Agents Forum, and we had been chatting on a number of different projects and consulting and he asked if I'd come down and speak there.

[00:02:51.470] - Mary Charleson

And that really launched things. And I call it finding opportunity at the intersection of my two brands, 5MinuteMarketing.com and CarryOnQueen.com.

[00:02:59.470] - Mark Lapidus

So I could probably guess, but I'm not going to do that. What is Five Minute Marketing?

[00:03:03.670] - Mary Charleson

I'd like to think I could get it done really quickly, Mark, but the reality is that's a big fat lie. Five minute marketing, I mean, it's back in 2008, right? And that was all around those Five Minute Manager, Five Minute- you remember that whole craze kind of thing. And I thought it was kind of a catchy thing, and it was back in this day when I could get the URL, right, so it was a pretty awesome URL.

[00:03:22.740] - Mark Lapidus

Win, win, win.

[00:03:23.530] - Mary Charleson

Exactly. And so it's about trying to simplify the process of marketing for people who aren't immersed in it all the time, and just getting back to the basics of your target audience, your segment, your media choices, your messaging. And Five Minute Marketing was a website where I put all of my consulting, my speaking stuff on, but I created content there regularly. I do on my e-newsletter as well, called Five Minute Marketing Tips. And it was all about giving without expectation of return. And that is kind of my motto in that helping people, and then that's where I then get known and then asked to speak, you know, to contribute, to write, to consult. And so I guess that's a bit of a long version.

[00:04:03.550] - Mark Lapidus

Didn't take quite five minutes.

[00:04:04.800] - Mary Charleson

Not quite five minutes. Okay.

[00:04:06.450] - Mark Lapidus

So it's kind of the pay-it-forward philosophy.

[00:04:08.590] - Mary Charleson

You know what, somebody - and it was in the speaking industry up in Canada, here at Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, they're associated with NSA in the States - and somebody used that phrase, that "giving without expectation of return." And I thought, "that really resonates with me." My e-newsletter is probably one of the best pieces of marketing that I do, is that I send it out regularly. It's not a sales piece. It's simply, here's some trends, here's some things that I'm monitoring. Here's how it can be meaningful in your business. And I get people who refer it, they call me up, or somebody who's been lurking for months, sometimes years, and they connect with me and like, they're an old friend. And I'm like, who are you? And then, of course, then we have this great rapport. And some people will exchange an email back and forth. It comes out every Sunday morning.

[00:04:50.150] - Mark Lapidus

Is it free? Because my listeners love free things.

[00:04:52.390] - Mary Charleson

Yes, it is free. If you go on 5minutemarketing.com you can sign up, it's super easy.

[00:04:56.510] - Mark Lapidus

So what was in last week's newsletter? Just give us a little taste.

[00:04:59.600] - Mary Charleson

Well, it's just about developing your personal brand and your personal identity in the age of AI, and why that's so important. Around the thought leadership, around being known as a person, kind of the "know, like, trust." We're seeing a deluge of content being produced by businesses and by individuals, and I think as this kind of hits its critical mass, we realize that we trust relationships, we trust people that we know. And I think that also plays into the whole branding identity of businesses, even DMOs, having a person who is putting out content on behalf of the organization. So you get to know that person, you get to know the story through their lens. That really resonates, and it really does help you stand out against what I call, you know, the AI slop. I'm a big fan of AI, but there's a lot of content out there that you know it when you see it, especially when it says, "what do you think?" at the end of the comment.

[00:05:51.010] - Mark Lapidus

Let's stay on relationships for a second, since you brought it up. Conferences are a great place for relationships, and goodness knows we have a lot of them in the travel industry. And I know the one that you're at every year is ESTO, because you've been a lead judge there for a couple years in a row. What do you think it takes to create a standout destination marketing campaign? Let's try to get people that are entering this year a little bit of help.

[00:06:11.910] - Mary Charleson

There's a number of things. I know, with U.S. Travel, it's got the Destiny Awards and they've got the Mercury Awards, and I think they've actually kind of renamed the categories a bit this year. Now it's the destination, which is the Destiny, and then the Mercury Awards are the state awards. So there's kind of the two categories. But in terms of things that make them stand out, obviously, strategy - understanding the target audience, the media, how they've picked all of those things well - but also capitalizing on trends. An example there would be the shift in the social media algorithms to discovery, and how it's not so much about follower counts, it's about entertainment; it's about things that will get their attention, the top end of that funnel, so you can kind of bring them down. Strategy, making sure that they are capitalizing on some trends. Adaptability to the market; we saw that early on in Covid, you know, needing to change to that audience. We'll see how things sort of play out with inbound, outbound traffic in the U.S. and so there's some adaptability there. And then just creativity. Honestly, creativity is the stuff that makes things stand out.

[00:07:08.990] - Mary Charleson

I remember there was one campaign for Seattle, and it was all about promoting the shoulder and the winter season, which is notoriously the rain season. And what they did is, they took like a booth, an installation, and it was a whole thing around kissing in the rain or singing in the rain. It was a booth that they took all around southern U.S. states in the summer. Hot, parched. And you could stand in this booth and be part of a movie scene, where there was scene where somebody was kissing in the rain, they were dancing in the rain. It was an installation, it got a lot of free media publicity, it got a ton of social media, user-generated content. Because everyone's gonna take a picture of that and share it, you know, show your friends how you're kissing in the rain. And just the fact that you were getting this, like, misty shower, it was kind of like walking down the street in Vegas, right? You know how they, in the summer when they're just like blasting you with a bit of water? Similar kind of thing, it was just sort of dripping down. And that was a real hit in the southern U.S. states where they did it.

[00:08:00.160] - Mary Charleson

But more than anything, yes, it's creative. It's kind of zigging where everybody else was zagging. And there's ROI there. So I guess those are adaptability, strategic thinking, demonstratable ROI, tapping into trends, however we might interpret that right now, and then just creativity is the piece that takes it over the board.

[00:08:34.100] - Mark Lapidus

So let's jump to the thing I've really actually been holding in my pocket here, because it's something I really want to know more about, and that of course is your platform, CarryOnQueen.com Tell me about how it got started, how it's evolved, and what it's about.

[00:09:07.700] - Mary Charleson

As you say, CarryOnQueen. It's a little self-serving in the name, because that's what my friends, relatives, family have always called me, because I refuse to check a bag. There has been the odd occasion where I've been forced to, and it usually ends up badly. And that was before Covid, Mark. I love to pack light, and so that just seemed the natural evolution: if I was going to have a travel blog, it should be called CarryOnQueen. The reality is, I've been writing, contributing to Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Huffington Post, Zoomer Magazine, Globe and Mail, you know, a number of publications in the U.S. online for years. But it was in 2018 that I decided to put it into what I called the passion project, which was get the website up, get some nice branding identity looking, I've got really cool cards, they look like little baggage tags. It's always a hit at a conference. And put that out there and just started producing content, and then challenged myself to learn about affiliate marketing. I knew quite a bit about it, but I hadn't actually been doing a lot, so started to learn things around that, and it was kind of this passion project. Rolled along, 2019.

[00:10:04.290] - Mary Charleson

You know, everyone knows what happened in 2020, when things kind of changed around. And continued to produce content. And it was this opportunity to, yes, I've got the paid media in terms of outreach, traditional publications and print and online. But I have a platform that I could build and that I could put my own content on and do collaborations with DMOs, or just write stuff that I wanted to write about when I'm doing traveling. And so I tried to combine travel for travel's sake or travel for work, and I build on something on the back end of it. Zion, Bryce Canyon, whenever I go to Vegas, I've done trips out there. This spring, I'm going to be tacking on Arches and Canyonlands and sort of round out the last of the five U.S. Utah parks. And I try to do that in addition to doing, like, the big mega trips. It sounds kind of glamorous, but I do actually do some work along the way.

[00:10:51.820] - Mark Lapidus

I love your saying here, it says "Explore, share, and travel light." That encapsulates it all, right?

[00:10:56.990] - Mary Charleson

Yes, exactly.

[00:10:58.160] - Mark Lapidus

My oldest son, actually, when he goes backpacking sometimes, he does this thing called ultralight. Have you ever heard of that?

[00:11:03.550] - Mary Charleson

Tell me more of how he interprets it.

[00:11:05.160] - Mark Lapidus

It's when you go camping and you take everything with you that is as light as possible - to the degree that you cut your toothbrush in half, because that weighs too much.

[00:11:13.070] - Mary Charleson

Oh, my God. Okay.

[00:11:14.050] - Mark Lapidus

It's really a thing. Look it up.

[00:11:15.630] - Mary Charleson

That's crazy.

[00:11:16.290] - Mark Lapidus

What kind of questions do you get from your website?

[00:11:18.440] - Mary Charleson

It's interesting how, I mean, I built the content out, I call it, for adventure travel 50-plus. I am a female; I assume that my readership would skew female. And it does, but not to the extent that I would have thought. I think because I tend to sort of live adventurous and a younger lifestyle, again, I pull in readers that are younger than that fifty, for sure. And guys as well. So it is quite interesting. I find often in the travel sector, you can have couples maybe traveling together, but it's that female decision maker, the female researcher. That's often a place. And so the content that I produce, I try to go as detailed as I can in terms of, you're going to go do this experience, here's everything another woman would want to know, kind of thing.

[00:11:57.950] - Mark Lapidus

I always pack too much. How can I stop myself from doing it?

[00:12:01.640] - Mary Charleson

It's all about colors, honestly. It's all about coordinating, right?

[00:12:05.110] - Mark Lapidus

Is that it?

[00:12:05.670] - Mary Charleson

I'm a big fan of - you have your accent colors, sure, and it's just like the beige, black, the white. And having items that can fold and don't wrinkle. Merino wool. I mean, not trying to plug them, but, I mean, that's... and Bluffworks jackets. I actually quite like the Bluffworks men's jackets.

[00:12:19.600] - Mark Lapidus

I'll have to check it out. I'm not familiar.

[00:12:21.500] - Mary Charleson

They can scrunch up into next to nothing, and they look like a really nice jacket. But, yeah, just coordinating. I mean, packing cubes, it's not so much about compression, it's about making smart choices. Honestly, the biggest challenge is footwear, especially if you're doing multiple different activities. Say you're going to a conference, you need some decent closed-toed dress shoes, but you need your flip flops, and you want a pair of running shoes. And it's like, okay, do I take the hikers or not? Like, that's the fourth pair. That's the old rule of three. And if you add in there the fact that I've got size 11 feet, you know, they're kind of big.

[00:12:52.560] - Mark Lapidus

As you mentioned a few minutes ago, you were recently a keynote speaker of the Las Vegas Travel Agents Forum. What did you cover?

[00:12:58.800] - Mary Charleson

Unpacking Marketing Strategy is the name.

[00:13:01.330] - Mark Lapidus

How cute.

[00:13:01.900] - Mary Charleson

I did two things for them. So there's the keynote, which is the Unpacking Marketing Strategy, and I was also moderating an industry panel on social media. But the Unpacking Marketing Strategy, I kind of divided it into two pieces. The first half was kind of looking at five, I call it five unpacking tips. Look at things around knowing your audience, picking your platform, having an objective for your message, the rule of three - in terms of choosing your media - and then building your brand. And so that was that part of it. And then I went into marketing trends and dove into five trends there, and why they're important and what you should do about it. That's where we got into the stuff around AI and its time saving, the real human content also being super important. Shifts in SEO that AI and ChatGPT are causing, and what that means in terms of discovery with websites. Private groups, or I call them "digital campfires," right, the conversations that are happening in closed groups, not necessarily open space online. And I think that's becoming a bigger thing, like Facebook groups, chat groups.

[00:14:01.830] - Mark Lapidus

And lots of LinkedIn groups.

[00:14:03.090] - Mary Charleson

Yes, also that as well. And also then just social media discovery algorithms. It started with TikTok, you know the "for you," then Instagram got in on it, Facebook. It's no longer about your followers, I think I mentioned that in the opening. I mean yes it is, it kind of gives you validity, but it's kind of vanity metrics these days, because then your content is going out to an audience beyond just the people that follow you. And so understanding that, and how do you produce content that brings people into the the top part of that funnel in terms of exposure, then generating content that gets engagement and then through to purchase and loyalty. And so there's different types of content interaction, engagement that happens to bring them through that funnel.

[00:14:42.600] - Mark Lapidus

So one of the biggest barriers to travel for women is actually safety. What are some ways destinations can address this concern while still encouraging that adventure happen?

[00:14:51.920] - Mary Charleson

Well, the obvious ones up front in terms of, when do the flights arrive? Nobody really likes to arrive late at night, but women in particular, especially if it's a foreign city or foreign country. Having arranged for pickup, being mindful accommodation, not being at the end of the hall, you know, somewhere where it feels unsafe, all of those things. But women enjoy group travel. Many women do anyway, perhaps more so. And that's one way that some brands, I know there's a number of brands that are catering more to women and older women travel. There's safety in groups, especially if you're a single female traveling. And when I say single, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are single people; it just means that they may have a spouse that doesn't want to travel, or they wish to travel with other women. And so I think companies that understand that maybe don't just have, you know, the single supplement, that's always a bit of an axe to grind, or have a way to match people up. I know G Adventures, UTracks, Active Adventures, Intrepid, those are promoting group travel. Not necessarily always to women, but that's another way to make people feel safe.

[00:15:47.550] - Mary Charleson

And that goes for men as well as women. But I know that women in particular enjoy new experiences and hanging around with other women, often, and that can create camaraderie, but also safety.

[00:15:57.700] - Mark Lapidus

Are there specific platforms that you prefer for women?

[00:16:00.350] - Mary Charleson

I mean, obviously the Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram, are going to cover 80% of your target audience. But I think there's a couple sleeper platforms in there, Mark, that maybe not all travel marketers are thinking about, especially for women. One of them would be Pinterest. I call it "visual search." It is one of the few platforms that actually encourages and allows you to link off-platform. And women notoriously love pinning; mums, once the kids are in bed at night, will go on and research a trip. So Pinterest is one of those ones where you can get, maybe not so much of the huge hits, but it's the quality hits. People aren't scrolling, they're there with purpose. They're going in and researching. The other platform I'd say is LinkedIn. For professional, especially female decision makers who have money, LinkedIn is, I've seen, you know, some upper, more exclusive kind of travel brands on there, and I know for a fact in talking to some of the travel advisors that they're getting traction. And so that's another one that maybe is not thought of as much.

[00:16:53.740] - Mark Lapidus

Mary, before we go, can you help me with something?

[00:16:56.300] - Mary Charleson

What's that?

[00:16:56.890] - Mark Lapidus

It's a question I try to ask a lot of people. Why is it that marketing folks have such trouble planning? You know, a lot of folks will say, "Oh, we need a three year plan, we need a four year plan." And then they're not ready for something to happen six weeks later. It's like, is it the creative side of the brain in marketing people that is holding us back? What is it?

[00:17:16.120] - Mary Charleson

You work from both sides of the brain. There is that creative side for sure, and then there's the strategist side, the one that just gets excited about spreadsheets. You know, you've got to be able to tap both of those things. And if it feels like business is moving at a fast pace, it's because it is. And I think that prevents us from making, you know, a marketing plan is a year down the road. And if you're planning for anything more than a year down the road, it's like it's really hard. Even a year. It used to sound short, now it's an eternity to plan for. So I think, yes, you do have to have your overall strategic thinking forward, but then you've got to be super responsive to the now. And that gives you creative opportunity.

[00:17:51.920] - Mark Lapidus

And it's about responsibility too, right? Owning it.

[00:17:54.480] - Mary Charleson

Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:55.420] - Mark Lapidus

One thing's for sure, Mary - I'm going to be spending more time on CarryOnQueen.com. There's a lot for me to learn.

[00:18:00.800] - Mary Charleson

I'd encourage you to dive deep. If you're interested in going cycling in Corsica, there is an article there that will tell you everything you need to know that. I think that's one of the more recent ones.

[00:18:08.950] - Mark Lapidus

Thanks again, Mary. And that's it for Brand USA Talks Travel. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening.

[00:18:13.850] - Mary Charleson

Thanks for having me, Mark. It's been my pleasure.

[00:18:16.200] - Outro

Your feedback is welcome. Email us at [email protected] or call 202-793-6256. Brand USA Talks Travel is produced by Asher Meerovich, who also composes music and sound. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins and Kat Pommer. Art by Mimi Jung. Please share this podcast with your friends in the travel industry. You may also enjoy many of our archived episodes, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. Safe travels!

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