How Solo Travel in Italy Has Made Me a Better Marketer
Even when I’m strolling through a beautiful city like Rome or Florence, I still wear the hat of a marketer-slash-copywriter. It’s invisible, thankfully, but it’s there and just as real as my pickpocket-proof travel bag that TripAdvisor warned me I’d need (and that marks me squarely as a tourist on every cobblestone street I stumble down).
I often spend time traveling alone through beautiful Italia, and I weirdly find myself in several situations where basic marketing principles came in handy. Thankfully I have sensible shoes to match that marketing hat, and my marketing prowess often serves me well, even when it seems like the situation has nothing to do with marketing.
Sometimes connections happen where you least expect them. And there are connections, I swear.
Five things I’ve learned as a solo traveler, that have also helped me be a better marketer:
You need a solid message—and sometimes you have to repeat it ad nauseum before your audience gets it. That’s Marketing 101, but it’s a principle that’s easy to forget, especially when you get tired of saying the same thing. The thing is, when you get sick of delivering your message one more time, that’s when your audience is just beginning to get it. Persistence is key. As a single woman traveler, I stand out in a country full of honeymooning couples and touristy families. That makes me an easy target for friendly Italian men. I created a message early on and stuck with it: “I’m here for a much-needed vacation—thanks, but I’m happy dining solo.” Or having this cup of coffee solo. Or eating my gelato solo. Sometimes I have to say the same thing to the same person—several times. You get what I’m puttin’ down.
Key marketing principle: A consistent message is the most effective, even when you’ve gotten bored of it yourself.
When in Rome . . . Come on, you knew that was coming, right? When I first started traveling in Italy, I’d go find a lovely trattoria for dinner around 7:00 p.m.—typical for American standards, but practically mid-afternoon for Europeans. These restaurants were off the beaten tourist path, frequented by locals, and at 7:00, they were practically empty. My bad, because one of my favorite things about traveling is meeting the people who actually live in that city. That’s tough to do when you plan according to your own agenda, not theirs.
Key marketing principle: Know your audience—where they are, what they like and how to connect with them. If you think you want to speak to your target audience on Facebook, do your research first. Are they even there anymore? There’s nothing lonelier than showing up, but just hearing crickets (or the guy playing the accordion to a crowd of three outside the restaurant).
Sometimes a risk is so worth it. When I first started visiting Italy, I stayed mostly in Tuscany and Rome because it was familiar and it felt safe. Eventually I wanted to see the Amalfi coast, namely Positano. Pictures I’d seen were magical. But Positano is a three-hour trip from Rome, so I would need to spend at least six hours in a van or car. Plus, the roads along the coast are winding and stomach-churning—not the best option for a carsick-prone traveler. The only day trip I could find to Positano was pricey. And to top it all off, the night before the tour, I got sick and lost my voice.
I went anyway. And that day turned out to be the most perfect day of my trip. The car ride was smooth, the views were stunning, the locals were charming, and the limoncello was to die for. Why did I go in spite of the negatives? My gut told me to. And in the end, every negative paled in comparison to the rewards.
Key marketing principle: Sometimes we weigh marketing decisions with our heads, and we certainly need to pay attention to data, analytics, and facts. But once in a while, our gut tells us to try something new, in spite of the numbers—and sometimes, the risks we take offer the biggest paybacks.
You make friends quicker when you’re them-focused rather than me-focused. One of many benefits of solo travel is that you get good at talking to strangers. I mean, I guess you could travel solo and not really talk to anyone, but that’s not really my style (I’m an extroverted extrovert), and several days without any conversation would be a particular kind of hell for me. At first, I developed this little “elevator pitch,” if you will: “Hi, I’m Lisa! I’m a writer from San Francisco, traveling through Italy after my divorce—kinda like Julia Roberts in “Eat, Pray, Love” or Diane Lane in “Under a Tuscan Sun.” I figure if it worked for them, it might work for me.” I usually followed that with an awkward, “ha ha.”
I thought I was really being clever at first . . . until I noticed that this was, basically, a conversation stopper, not a starter. Sometimes I’d get an awkward “ha ha” back, other times it would be a look of confusion, and once in a while I’d get a, “Nice to meet you, I’m so-and-so, I love Julie Roberts!” And hmmm . . . where do we go from here? Finally, I ditched my elevator pitch and started with statements like, “I love your scarf! Did you get that somewhere in Italy?” “I noticed your accent, you must be from the states . . . somewhere in the south. North Carolina?” “Is this your first time in <name of city>? I’m looking for a dinner rec, have you been to any restaurants here that you love?” When I switched up my approach by asking questions rather than talking about myself, this great thing happened: I started conversations rather than stifling them. Not everyone always wants to engage, but most people are way more interested in conversing when you’re not just dumping information about yourself at their feet and expecting them to pick it up and run with it.
Key marketing principle: Keep your messaging focused on your audience, not your brand.
Packing “content” that you can reuse and repurpose is most efficient. I’m not lying when I say that the first time I went to Rome I packed 8 pairs of shoes. For a 6-day trip. I had 8 solidly different outfits, along with accessories, 23 pairs of underwear (why do we do that?), 2 coats, a pair of tall boots, bulky sweaters—lugging that heavy suitcase on uneven cobblestone streets was a walking shit show. I quickly learned, after a trip or two, that packing a handful of basic items that I could repurpose and turn into several different outfits was way easier than creating 8-10 completely different and unique outfits. A black pair of pants, a nice pair of jeans, a few pairs of leggings, and a skirt—those combined with a few tops/sweaters that all match, and boom—my packing time was cut in half, my suitcase was lighter, and my wardrobe still presented me with several options.
Key marketing principle: When you create a solid piece of content that you can repurpose for several channels and platforms in a variety of ways (blog, social, video, etc.), you work more efficiently, your workload is lighter, and you can still make a solid impact.
And one last note: A little wine can make you more creative, but too much will make you sloppy. That’s it—that’s the key marketing principle. I learned that from experience, wine-tasting in a medieval castle in Chianti, where I was (thankfully) part of a larger group touring around Tuscany with a lovely guide named Massimiliano. In my defense, the pours were heavy, and Massi kept secretly filling everyone’s glasses.
And now I know the line between creative and sloppy.
-Lisa
