Marketing Strategy

MMGY

Traveler intelligence nobody else has. A story nobody else can tell. And a market that's never heard it.

"Connecting people to places."
"The leader in marketing places."
"We Inspire Travel."
"Inspire people to go places."
"We are travel. Travel changes everything."

MMGY has the deepest traveler intelligence in the industry — but positions itself like every other travel agency

What We Considered

  • Industry & Competitive Landscape
  • Current Positioning & Messaging
  • Target Audience & Buyer Journey Analysis
  • Channel Performance & Opportunities
Competitive Landscape

Everyone claims travel. Nobody owns traveler intelligence.

"Travel-exclusive" is a commodity claim
Miles, Madden, and MMGY all lead with variations of the same message. A CMO scanning these sites would struggle to articulate the difference.
The DMO specialists are staying in their lane
Miles and Madden speak almost entirely to DMOs. Neither is making a serious play for private-sector CMOs. This creates space for MMGY's growth ambitions.
The upstream agencies are converging on your territory
Shipyard acquired Fahlgren Mortine and TURNER to build integrated travel + creative capabilities. They're assembling what MMGY already has — from the opposite direction.
Research is becoming a competitive battleground
Miles invested in Downs & St. Germain Research. Madden launched Voyage. BVK leads with proprietary methodology. MMGY's research advantage is real — but the window during which it's unchallenged is narrowing.
Target Audience Analysis

The Buyer Journey Has a New Stage

The Shortlist Is Formed Before the First Call

AI knows who MMGY is. It doesn't know what MMGY knows.

94% of B2B buyers
AI Use
94% of B2B buyers now use AI tools during evaluation
60% use LLMs to build initial vendor lists — query AI first, validate through Google, then build the shortlist.
Vendor-selection queries 80% Problem-solving queries 0% GEO visibility score 40/100
GEO Visibility
MMGY's GEO visibility score: 40 out of 100
Found when buyers search for agencies — invisible when they search for answers to their problems.
Marketing lead Procurement Finance & Executive
Buying Committees
Buying committees have expanded to 10–13 stakeholders
Every stakeholder needs a reason to say yes — CMO, procurement, finance, and executive leadership.

Every agency in your competitive set claims to know travel.

Nobody else can claim to know the traveler.

Differentiation

Three differentiators — buried or absent

Visibility
Both sides of every booking

Working across DMOs, hotels, cruise lines, airlines, and hospitality groups means MMGY sees the traveler from every angle — where they dream, how they decide, what they book, and how they experience.

Miles leans into the DMO side. Tambourine leans into the hotel side. Shipyard leans into the creative side.

MMGY sees the whole traveler.

Insight
34 years of proprietary traveler research

The longest-running research portfolio in travel marketing — Portrait of American Travelers, accessible travel studies, neurodiverse families research. This is what "knowing the traveler" actually means: longitudinal data nobody else has.

Miles just invested in a research firm to try to build it.

This asset lives on a subdomain. It should be the centerpiece.

Impact
The performance marketing evolution

MMGY doesn't just understand what travelers want — they can prove what moves them to book.

Measurable revenue impact for Windstar Cruises, Six Flags, Choice Hotels, Hyatt. This closes the loop from traveler insight to traveler action. The site doesn't reflect any of it.

The Window is Narrowing

Competitors are investing millions to build what you already have

The traveler intelligence advantage is real and defensible — 34 years of proprietary data can't be replicated overnight. But the positioning territory is available today. It won't be available indefinitely. Claiming it starts with a focused workshop.

What the positioning workshop will establish

  • Your defensible territory
    The specific positioning claim no competitor can credibly make
  • A new tagline
    Language that captures the traveler intelligence distinction in a single line
  • Messaging framework
    The four pillars and how they translate across audiences and channels
  • Website strategy alignment
    How the new positioning informs site architecture, content, and conversion
Messaging Architecture

The content is strong. It just isn't building toward anything.

  • 100+ articles on the insights blog
    The MMGY Intelligence platform and insights blog represent a sustained investment in original research and perspective — published consistently, covering topics that matter to travel marketers.
  • Bi-weekly newsletter with 30-43% open rates
    Open rates that would make most B2B publishers envious. The audience is engaged, the format has found its rhythm, and the content is clearly resonating.
  • 38 hours of conference speaking
    A conference presence that took years to build — keynotes, panels, and sessions at the industry's most important gatherings. This is credibility that can't be manufactured quickly.
  • 2B+ earned media impressions
    Research that gets picked up, cited, and amplified. The Portrait of American Travelers alone drives recurring media coverage every year.
✳
Connecting to Positioning

The research has genuine substance. The newsletter has found its format. The conference presence took years to build.

None of it is disposable — the question is whether it's connected to a positioning narrative.

Three Structural Gaps

What's missing from today's messaging

  • The site speaks to MMGY's identity, not the client's problem
    "We are travel" is an identity claim. "Travel changes everything" is a philosophy. Neither tells a CMO under pressure how MMGY will help them grow revenue or navigate a turbulent market. This maps directly to the GEO audit's 0% on problem-solving queries.
  • The content taxonomy reflects internal structure, not prospect needs
    Services organized by department: Data & Insights, Marketing & Paid Media, PR. Blog filtered by MICE, Integrated Marketing, Media and Analytics. A prospect doesn't think "I need Integrated Marketing." They think "I need to grow bookings" or "I need to prove ROI to my board."
  • The private-sector story is invisible
    Case studies lean DMO. Language leans destination. The performance marketing capabilities that matter most to a hotel chain CMO — measurable revenue impact, full-funnel accountability — aren't reflected on the site.
✳
Positioning Uniformity

Every piece of content — blog post, keynote, newsletter, case study — should reinforce the core positioning: we know the traveler better than anyone.

That's the shift.

Messaging Architecture

Four pillars that build the case for choosing you

Full Visibility
We See the Whole Traveler
The anchor pillar. Nobody knows travelers like MMGY — through decades of research, work spanning destinations and brands, global teams that understand every stage of the journey.
Content Examples
  • Traveler motivation analysis
  • Accessible travel market opportunity
  • Traveler segmentation methodology
Both Sides
We See Both Sides of the Booking
DMOs create demand but don't own the cash register. Private-sector brands capture bookings but can't create demand. MMGY connects both.
Content Examples
  • Private sector case study
  • Incrementality in travel marketing
  • Traveler intent analysis
Complexity
Complexity Is Our Arena
Multi-market, multi-stakeholder, multi-channel challenges with real accountability. MMGY's scale and integration are the value proposition.
Content Examples
  • Multi-market campaign breakdown
  • Geopolitical volatility and travel marketing strategy
  • Why integrated teams deliver better outcomes
Future
The Future of Travel Discovery
AI is reshaping how travelers find destinations and how CMOs find agencies. MMGY is building the playbook with Trailblazer and EurekA!
Content Examples
  • Research on LLMs and destination search
  • Structuring content for AI discoverability
  • Trailblazer: AI tools showcase
Prospect Experience Priorities

The website is the foundational investment

Rebuild mmgy.com as a prospect qualification engine
Engineered for the modern buyer journey — serving both DMO directors and private-sector CMOs from a single, credible experience.
Bring research insights into the flagship site
MMGY Travel Intelligence is a powerful asset — rolling key insights and proof points into mmgy.com would reinforce the positioning without replacing the dedicated research platform.
Replace content organization with problems prospects are trying to solve
The current structure (Data & Insights, Marketing & Paid Media, PR & Representation) reflects internal departments, not buyer needs.
Build for the expanded buying committee
Strategic depth for the marketing lead, credentials and scale for procurement, clarity and proof for the executive who signs off.
AEO/GEO technical implementation
Schema markup, structured content, and problem-solving pages that close the gap between brand recognition and thought leadership in AI search.

Top Marketing Priorities

  • Reposition around traveler intelligence
  • Rebuild messaging architecture around four strategic pillars
  • Rebuild the website as a prospect qualification engine
  • Activate a connected multichannel strategy
Channel Strategy

Every channel works. None of them talk to each other.

6.4% engagement rate
LinkedIn
LinkedIn engagement
6.4% vs 3.9% industry average
38 hours of speaking in 2025
Conferences
38 hours
38 hours of conference thought leadership in 2025
Industry average ~20% MMGY — low end 31% MMGY — high end 43%
Email
Newsletter open rates consistently 31-43%
Consistent, engaged audience with above-benchmark open rates.

Each channel works — none are connected into a compounding system

Recommended Investments

Six connected channels

Conference-to-content system
Every keynote generates 6-8 derivative pieces across channels.
LinkedIn organic + Thought Leader Ads
$5K/mo initial paid media budget → scale based on data.
Video/podcast program
Biweekly videocast, account-based guest strategy, in-house production.
YouTube
The world's 2nd largest search engine — no competitor in MMGY's space is using it for thought leadership.
Email list growth
Target 12-15K subscribers in 12 months, organic only.
Quarterly CMO roundtables
8-12 invited CMOs, facilitated conversation — no pitch, no slides.
Example: One Keynote → 6-8 Pieces

"Why Traveler Intelligence Beats Travel Expertise" — Mojo Summit keynote

3-minute client interview clip
A client sharing results on camera — filmed at the event, edited for LinkedIn and YouTube
LinkedIn post from the speaker
Personal take on the core argument — Thought Leader Ad candidate
Blog post expanding the thesis
With supporting data from Portrait of American Travelers
Newsletter feature in Quick Takes
Key takeaways + link to the full blog post
2-3 pull-quote graphics
Designed for LinkedIn and Instagram — shareable data points
Structured FAQ article
"How does traveler intelligence differ from market research?" — optimized for AI discoverability
One event. Six pieces. Four channels. Months of positioning reinforcement.

Next Steps with Newfangled

Tier 1
Foundation
Foundation
  • Positioning workshop & messaging
  • Website redesign, content & build
  • AEO/GEO technical implementation
Advisory
  • Quarterly strategic advisory
Recommended initial paid budget: $5K/mo
$12,000 / month
9 Month Engagement
Tier 2
Momentum
Everything in Tier 1, plus:
  • Monthly advisory
  • Content strategy & editorial planning
  • Email strategy & list growth
  • Ongoing AEO/GEO monitoring
Recommended initial paid budget: $5K/mo
$15,000 / month
9 Month Engagement
Tier 3
Acceleration
Everything in Tiers 1 & 2, plus:
  • Content production
  • LinkedIn paid media strategy
  • Conference-to-content framework
  • GEO monitoring dashboard
Recommended initial paid budget: $5K/mo
$18,000 / month
9 Month Engagement
Tier 4
Full Partnership
Everything in Tiers 1–3, plus:
  • Podcast/videocast strategy & launch
  • CMO roundtable program
Recommended initial paid budget: $5K/mo
$22,000 / month
9 Month Engagement
Newfangled

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