Newbie needs help with a niche B2B service startup

apdeu

Hello all,

I have recently become the business development manager for a trade only b2b site for Airport Transfers. (Private Hire Taxis)

The ideal target market for this product would be a small to medium sized independent Travel Agency or Tour Operator, who would like to provide this service either as an added value extra or as part of a package deal.

The basic premise of this service is to offer a barebones service, whereby clients book online exclusively and pay in advance on a company credit card. In this way, we as a company cut right down on overheads of call agents and admin/billing/credit control staff.

The benefits for clients would be very very attractive pricing (especially compared to market leaders such as Holiday Taxis et al) and the fact that we have the capacity to cater for pretty much anything they could ask for.

Having a pre-payment service is our USP, and it's felt that as a client would be padding our rates, and guaranteeing a profit, payment up front would not be an issue for them.

We have had some success, notably with a large travel agent in the far east, who offers a London transfer as an optional extra. We feel that the service we offer is especially attractive to international clients, but we would like to be able to more effectively target them.

We would also like to capture more of the domestic market, especially as a "Door 2 Door" transfer/chauffeur service seems to be an increasingly popular option for package deals (eg: Saga, Virgin etc just starting to offer this service)

Our site airportdirect.eu has a custom built CMS (content management system) and can take and confirm bookings 24/7.

We have put our London pricing online today in order to try and generate some interest, and show just how competitive our pricing is.

We also have setup a Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc account and this is proving that we can drive traffic to the site. But we would really appreciate any specific advice on how to set up more business to business accounts.

Does anyone have any advice, suggestions or feedback for us? - I'm new to the role, and a little out of my depth in all honesty, but I'm really determined to make a success of this.

Thanks for your time. This is a great site :money: