An Online Toolbox

Take it Seriously

• Online has ceased to be an interesting extra activity for a business

• It needs to be a central strategic tool for your business on two fronts:

• Marketing

• Management

• These two need to work together

Know what you are selling

• How do your define your product?

• What is the experience you offer?

• What choice do you offer?

• What makes you unique?

• What is your value?

CROWDED AND NOISY

In a market controlled by search and social media it is too crowded and noisy to

make bland generic statements

I’m THE BEST!!!!!No YOU’RE NOT

I’m EVERYTHING!!!!!No YOU’RE NOT

Know Yourself

• By identifying these points of difference you will start to develop key messages about your business and these are going to be used again and again in the content you use, the search terms you leverage and the social media you engage in.

Key Messages

• These definitions will help you:

• Structure your content

• Create messages to communicate

• Identify terms your potential customers will be searching for online

• Identify conversation about similar content in social media groups that you can join and engage with

REMOTE

wilderness

luxury

FAMILY FRIENDLY

spa

RELAXING

healthROMANTIC

ADVENTURE

extreme

active

all inclusive

Know who you are selling to...

• Can you describe and profile your typical client- or the one you’d like to have?

• Are you selling to more than one type of client?

• Are you using a single marketing technique to sell to all types of clients?

Profiling

• Where do they live?

• What is their family like?

• Where do they work?

• How do they have fun?

• What media do they consume?

• What are they likely to be searching for or talking about and how do they express it?

Bringing them together

Reverse Engineering

Start with your conversion points and work backwards to

your client

3 Means of Conversion

(A) BOOKING

(B) ENQUIRY

(C) FAN/FOLLOW

WEBSITES THAT WORK

Tourism Websites have 6 seconds to capture their customers or risk them

getting bored and going elsewhere

-Travelmole 2011

A Site that Works

• Gives the user what they want

• Doesn’t send them to a dead end

• Never frustrates the user

• Converts to sales

• Remembers it users

• Captures and uses data

Ideal Website Priorities

Does my site need an upgrade?

Has Your Website Grown substantially in size over the past year?

Is at least 25% of the content related to

current specific events, offers or new products?

Can your content be shared, sent published elsewhere on other

websites, media, social networks?

Does each page of your site have a specific

objective or purpose- and does it drive the

user towards a decision, action or sale?

Is the content on your site not just ‘one size fits

all’ for all your users? Do you have different content for different

people?

Is all of the content appealing, easy to use

and up to date?

Do you know how many people are using the site

(not just visiting- but using)?

A Social Media Toolbox

Choose your Tools

Try and Test

Face Book & Tourism

Would You Market Your Destination to a Country with a

population of over One Billion?

Well, that’s Facebook

A Fan Page is now an essential business

resource

HOW PEOPLE USE FACEBOOK

WHO SEES YOUR STUFF

YOU HAVE TO ENCOURAGE

ENGAGEMENT

POSTING

FIVE GOLDEN RULES

(1)Short and to the Point

(2)Show your Knowledge

(3)Engage

(4)Be Human

(5)Be Current

Posting

• Keep it short: Posts with less than 250 characters (less than 3 lines) receive 60% more engagement

• Be visual: Photos and video receive up to 180% more engagement

• Post often (4-5 times per week)... But not too often..

It’s a beautiful day at Acme Hotel8:06am

Having a great breakfast at Acme Hotel- we have cereal8:44am

A guest just said they love Acme Hotel! Woot! Woot!10:46am

What shall we have for lunch at Acme Hotel?12:25pm

Look at this picture of a Kitten- bet it wishes it was at Acme Hotel3:00pm

Here’s the sunset from the Acme Hotel5:30pm

It’s dark outside at Acme Hotel8:30pm

Have conversations- don’t give lectures

Don’t Like your own posts...

Ask Questions to get answers...

ENGAGEMENT BUILDING

• Experience driven posts

• Live Content

• Calls to action

• Contact Forms

• Video Channel

Boost Engagement by promoting posts and

advertising...

But target your Content direct to the

Right Audience...

Reporting Results

CLAIM YOUR PLACE

Incentivize Checkins...

FaceBook

• Be sure to include a clear FB link from your website and a Like Button

• FB address on all promo material, business cards and email signatures

• Make your customers fans

• Encourage them to be a fan in follow up mails

Twitter for Tourism

Isn’t Twitter just nonsense??

What is it?• It’s Microblogging

• An online chat room

• A mixture of banter, socialising and practical advice

• Users answer the question “What’s happening?”

In 140 characters or less...

Now a community of 500+ million people

With Global Reach

And huge influence...

In Realtime...

World’s fastest growing search engine...

How It Works

• Set up an account with your @name

• Compose 140 character sentences (including links via URL shorteners)

• Post them

• Other users can follow you- and you can choose who you want to follow

Tweet Terms• To follow somebody is to subscribe to their

messages

• A tweet is an individual message

• A DM or direct message is a private message on Twitter

• RT or retweet is to repost a valuable message from somebody else on Twitter and give them credit

• Trending topics are the most-discussed terms on Twitter at any given moment

Tweet Terms

• @username is a public message to or about an individual on Twitter

• A hashtag–the # symbol followed by a term and included in tweets–is a way of categorizing all the posts on a topic

• Shortened URLs. To fit links into the short messages, Twitter shrinks some URLs down automatically- but URL shortening sites can be used: bit.ly goo.gl

A Media Tool• Twitter is unlikely to win you a first time

customer

• More than anything it is a media channel

• Keep past customers loyal

• Use it as a Press Release Tool

• Often used a ‘wire service’

• Great for B2B networking

#traveltuesday

MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

Get Tweeting

• It’s easy to do and very addictive

• Excellent realtime promotional tool

• Get direct realtime feedback

• Get new ideas, products and meet new people

Too Many to Follow?• Use HootSuite or Tweetdeck

• Tweet from multiple accounts

• Schedule your tweets

• Keep a tally of questions answered, customer problems resolved and positive exchanges held

• Embed twitter widgets in your website

• Track your tweet statistics

• …and much more… for free!

VIDEO

HD MAKES A DIFFERENCE

VIDEO: PUBLICATION

Be Cross Channel...

Making Remote Presentations

www.slideshare.net

• Linked in is a Business Networking Community online

• 120 Million Users

• Excellent B2B tool for meeting, networking and sourcing information and advice from other professionals

• Fantastic SEO value for your name, website and links (blogs)

• Create and Manage your profile

Groups, Discussions, Questions

Social Media Management

• Who is going to manage it all?

• Try and have everyone contribute

• Create a basic social media policy- sticking to key messages, who says what etc

• Bring in some young people- students, interns etc

Make the Change

• Begin to shift business online- increasing allocations to online bookings

• Begin a progressive marketing shift with 25% of budgets, human resource and time

• As you grow- appoint a social media and marketing manager

THANK YOU