A few years ago, a business owner, we’ll call him John, came to see me. He was desperate and needed my help. Up to then, he had a good running tourism business which he had grown nicely over the years. He had a steady stream of customers and he wasn’t too worried as it all seemed to happen quite easily. Suddenly – shock, horror! - John’s business dropped by 40%. What happened? Well, his biggest supplier of customers stopped using him. And as he received over 40% of his business through this supplier, he suddenly had a big problem. This supplier decided to start competing with them. John had never looked at his distribution strategically, i.e. analyse where his bookings were coming from and how he could work smarter. It was time he did. Distributing your product more strategically could include the following;
Till next week, Marijke
0 Comments
Most businesses operate in a competitive environment. With review sites such as Tripadvisor and Google Reviews giving customers an opportunity to share their experiences, it has become more and more important to focus on delivering an exceptional experience.
Set some time aside to work on this and your customer experience will improve considerably! (Along with great reviews!) Here are some ideas:
Till next week, Marijke Tip 6: Send regular emails but don't send too many as this will result in people unsubscribing. Ask your customers how often they'd like to receive a message from you to ensure you don't overload them! Tip 7: A message is 5x more likely to be seen in an email than on Facebook!! Tip 8: 91% of people use their smartphone to check their emails. Ensure your email campaign is optimised for mobile viewing. Tip 9: Segmented campaigns (more tailored to your audience) get 60% more clicks. So start building segmented databases and send messages tailored to your different customer groups. Don't forget that databases are an asset to your business! Tip 10: It takes commitment to write a regular e-newsletter. I see many businesses starting to write email newsletters and then give up after a few months. If you struggle with writing regular newsletters, set a couple of hours aside and plan a year's worth of monthly newsletters, including topics, specials etc. If you’re using email marketing regularly, you will know that it’s a highly effective tool to keep in touch with your customers. In this 2-part series about email marketing, you’ll find out some great tips that will help you increase your open and click through rates. Here we go: Tip 1: Red click through links draw more clicks than blue links. Tip 2: A call to action button draws more clicks than a text link. Use a button for your most important call to action. Tip 3: Make it easy for people to subscribe – just first name and email address is usually enough. If you want more information so you can segment your list in a better way to provide a more personalised message, do keep the info you request of your subscribers to a minimum. Add subscription buttons to your website and on social media. Tip 4: Personalised subject lines result in higher click through rates. Hi John, ... Tip 5: Images and videos increase open and click through rates considerably. Do use a great pic to draw people in! Make a habit of taking photos yourself – easily done on your smartphone – and use these original pics! See my pic of Jessi above :)! Registrations closing soon! Are you ready to take your business to the next level and upskill? Then don't miss the 1-day NEW: "Tourism Marketing Bootcamp - Grow your business" 26 July 2017 in Queenstown, NZ. (NOTE: 50% NZTE funding for qualifying businesses!) Broken links on your website are annoying and bad for your website visitors' experience. Trying to check them yourself would be a huge job if you have a lot of links on your website. But don't despair! There are free tools that can do this for you. Go to the website below and enter your website address. It checks all your links it gives you a list with the broken links. Go to: www.brokenlinkcheck.com Now just fix the links and you're done! Till next week, Marijke COMING UP: Tourism Marketing Bootcamp-Grow your Tourism Business Join us for this accelerated 1-day course on the 26th of July 2017 in Queenstown. Approved by NZTE and 50% funding available for qualifying business. Go to www.smartraining.co.nz for more info. Ha, the title sounds a bit confusing, doesn't it. You'll understand what I mean after reading the following.
Two of the current marketing trends in tourism are:
I found this great (free!) little tool: Clipchamp. Clipchamp lets users convert, compress, edit and record videos in the browser. It's a free service that doesn't require installing software or uploading files to an online video converter or compressor. I have just used it for a client's website, and it is fantastic! I reduced a 300MB file to 30MB and it's still super sharp! And SO much faster! There are no input file size restrictions (it has been successfully tested with videos of up to 20GB). Our output format options are MP4, WebM, WMV, FLV and GIF. Clipchamp is also very easy to use! I have also verified that it's a safe site to use. So, give it a go and upload some great videos to your site! Go to: www.clipchamp.com Till next week, Marijke Local results appear for people who search for businesses and places near their location. They're shown in a number of places across Maps and Search. For example, you’ll probably see local results if you search for “Italian restaurant” from your mobile device. Google will try to show you the kind of nearby restaurant that you’d like to visit. Google uses local results to suggest some options.
You can improve your business’s local ranking by using Google My Business. Can’t find your business? Improve your info. You may find that your business doesn’t appear for relevant searches in your area. To maximize how often your customers see your business in local search results, complete the following tasks in Google My Business. Providing and updating business information in Google My Business can help your business’s local ranking on Google and enhance your presence in Search and Maps. Enter complete data Local results favor the most relevant results for each search, and businesses with complete and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches. Make sure that you’ve entered all of your business information in Google My Business, so customers know more about what you do, where you are, and when they can visit you. Provide information like (but not limited to) your physical address, phone number, and category. Make sure to keep this information updated as your business changes. Learn how to edit your business information Verify your location(s) Verify your business locations to give them the best opportunity to appear for users across Google products, like Maps and Search. Learn more about verification Keep your hours accurate Entering and updating your opening hours, including special hours for holidays and special events, lets potential customers know when you’re available and gives them confidence that when they travel to your location, it will be open. Learn how to edit your hours Manage and respond to reviews Interact with customers by responding to reviews that they leave about your business. Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location. Encourage customers to leave feedback by creating a link they can click to write reviews. Learn more Add photos Adding photos to your listings shows people your goods and services, and can help you tell the story of your business. Accurate and appealing pictures may also show potential customers that your business offers what they’re searching for. Learn more How Google determines local ranking Local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. These factors are combined to help find the best match for your search. For example, Google algorithms might decide that a business that's farther away from your location is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer, and therefore rank it higher in local results. Relevance Relevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches. Distance Just like it sounds–how far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn't specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what’s known about their location. Prominence Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels, or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories). Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business's local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization. There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google. We do our best to keep the details of the search algorithm confidential to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone. Source of this article: Google. When clients ask me what social media platforms they should use for their business, I always encourage them to survey their customers to see what social media platforms their customers use. And not just that, but do they use that platform to find businesses like yours?
You can also have a look at social media generational statistics. The infographic below provides a useful overview and, along with your own customer research, could help you decide what platform(s) to use. NOTE: There are a few spaces left on the "Grow your Tourism Business" 1-day course. Learn how to grow your business by developing new products, using new distribution methods, targeting new markets and apply the latest marketing trends. This course is approved by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise and 50% NZTE funding is available for businesses with up to 50 employees. 7 June 2017: Cromwell & 15 June: Queenstown, NZ. Click here for more info on the Grow your Tourism Business course! Recently, I’ve been on the receiving end of several acts of kindness. The first one was last week. On the way to the airport, the taxi I was in broke down. The driver radioed and a few minutes later another taxi (from another company) stopped. Bags were transferred and soon our journey to the airport continued. Arriving at the airport, we got ready to pay the fare. To our very pleasant surprise, our ‘rescue taxi driver’ said: “No need to pay, all good!”
Wow, we were absolutely delighted at this act of kindness and fantastic customer service. How good does this look on this taxi company! Another little story... Close to my house, they’re building a new bridge. This has been a painfully slow process and has taken one and a half year already. There are several ‘stop/go’ people, the ones that regulate traffic. One is a woman that has worked there since the start. When she’s on, she waves and smiles at every car going past. I smile and wave back and it makes me happy! This woman makes the company look too and makes waiting to go across the single-lane bridge a lot more pleasant. Random acts of kindness are unexpected displays of great customer service. It’s about going the extra mile. Sounds like a cliché? Maybe, but do discuss with your team how they can delight your customers more and make it part of what you do, a habit, a system. It will affect your business in a positive way! It’s these little things that make you stand out and get customers to come back. NOTE: interested in growing your tourism business? Click on the link below! www.smartraining.co.nz/grow-your-tourism-business-course-2017.html Till next week, Marijke Do you have a blog on your website to provide quality information to your customers? If not, you should! Blogs are important for your search engine optimisation as Google places websites with original, regularly updated content higher on search results. To increase the chance of people opening and reading what you have to say, a great headline is vitally important. I've just discovered a little tool that can help you find catchy headlines. Go to: www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator . You simply fill in a few nouns (keywords!), and it generates some catchy headlines! Don't forget that a relevant image at the top of your blog will encourage people to read on. Till next week, Marijke
The other day I received an email from a tourism wholesaler. His email signature was personal, fun and memorable, so I thought I'd share this idea with you. With the number of emails we send and receive, you want to stand out so people remember you, right? Your email signature can be a great little marketing tool! I've changed the actual details, but you get the idea: Adding your company logo and a photo of yourself are also ways to make your email signature more personal.
So, have a think about the "ABOUT ME" section that could be fun and of interest to your contacts! Till next week, Marijke COMING UP: Grow your tourism business - 1 day course 7 June 2017: Alexandra, NZ 15 June 2017: Queenstown, NZ Click here for more info! As mentioned in previous posts, images (with keywords in the file name, small file size and alt-tags and captions added) are a great way to get a better ranking on Google. Reducing image sizes can be a bit of a hassle, so I'd like to share this simple little tool with you: Pix Resizer. It's a very simple to use tool to reduce either one image at a time or a whole folder of images. They can be converter to a number of file formats (such as jpg, gif, png etc). The default is set on jpg (or jpeg) as this format condenses the file the most. Here's the link to download this great little tool: Pix Resizer: http://bluefive.pairsite.com/pixresizer.htm So, have a look at the size of your files and start replacing your images with smaller sized images (around 100kb). Tourism Marketing Courses coming up: (click on links below) Starting in Tourism: 3 May 2017 Invercargill REGISTRATIONS CLOSING SOON! Growing your Tourism Business - Marketing Bootcamp: 15 June 2017 in Queenstown Till next week, Marijke Do you use Google Images? I do! All the time.
As you know, images are a very powerful way to get your message across, especially if you sell a physical product or work in the tourism industry. Great images and fresh new images will keep your website or social media posts interesting to your audience. Here are 3 ways to improve your Google ranking through images: 1. Optimise images for your website by:
In the last tip, I wrote about "How to get more great photos for your website and social media". There are also certain types of photos you should avoid having on your website. Here are nine examples (including my PET HATE one!). Till next week, Marijke A picture is worth 1,000 words: How to get more great photos for your website & social media!22/3/2017 Photos are the easiest and best way to promote your business whether you’re in tourism or sell a physical product. People are ‘visual’; if it looks good, they more likely to buy or book it! In fact, 92% of communication is visual.. I see many businesses struggling to update photos (and video) on their website and social media. It’s easy if you like taking photos yourself (I do!), but can be a hassle if you don’t. Here are 6 ways and ideas to obtain good photos:
So, plan how you're going to have fresh photo content on your website on a regular basis.
Till next week, Marijke Thanks if you've taken the time to fill in my brief survey (if you haven't click here to do so - it'll help me provide you with the tips you want!). One of the topics you were interested in most, was how to grow your business. I've developed a simple diagram: Grow your business by identifying ways to:
Write down all options and then prioritise the actions that will bring you the best results. When you do your business and marketing planning, you can use this diagram to help you grow your business! Have a great weekend! Till next week, Marijke NOTE: Registrations are open for the "Starting a Tourism Business - Hit the ground running" course in Dunedin on 30 March 2017 - see below!
Surveys can be a powerful way to learn more about your customers and business. Surveymonkey (www.surveymonkey.com) is a user-friendly programme that enables you to create great online surveys. There is a basic free membership, or paid memberships more sophisticated features.
There are several ways to collect responses:
I need your help! I have developed a 2 minute survey in Surveymonkey to find out what marketing topics you're interested in for the Weekly Marketing Tip. Please fill in this brief survey and go in the draw for a mystery prize! It's also a good way to see how Surveymonkey works. Thank you so much! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MGBPGPT PS You can also fill out the survey below - it's the same one! Till next week! Marijke
Innovative marketing ideas for your business
2017 is well underway and I hope you've had a chance to set some time aside to work on your business, or at least plan when you're going to do this. Below is an infographic with some innovative marketing ideas for 2017. Note the ones that apply to you in your marketing plan! Till next week, Marijke If you run a busy business, you can sometimes be overwhelmed by emails from customers, and may not have time to provide great service. Here are 6 tips that will help you automate a few things that will make your life easier and provide a better customer experience.
So, have a look what you can implement in your business to improve the customer experience and make your life easier! Till next week, Marijke
Two weeks ago, I posted the Top 2017 Marketing Trends. The most mentioned trend in posts about 2017 Marketing Trends is Video (see last week's article). The second largest trend is Content. This is not really a new trend as creating fresh content for your website has been an important factor for improving your website's SEO for years. But it doesn't hurt talking about content for a bit. The easiest way to update your website and social media is visual content. Videos, stunning photos and infographics. Above is an example of an infographic. It's a great way to display content in a visual way. We are faced with so much information on a daily basis, that we've become a bit lazy when it comes to reading text. If information can be displayed in a more visual way, we are more likely to absorb it. So, include updating your website and social media weekly in your marketing planning with information that is relevant and interesting to your audience. Till next week, Marijke
Video as a marketing tool was big in 2016, it's going to be even bigger in 2017! The main issue for businesses is to find the time, budget and skills to make videos.
Below are a few video trends to ponder. Check out the video stats at the end of this article! So, should I try to create videos in-house or outsource? I'd say, preferably a bit of both! Professional videos look great and are always a good idea. But if you want more video content and your budget doesn’t allow that, just do it in-house! Today's buyers want short, easily consumed, informal content. Attention spans are short. Consumers want videos that feel as if they were created by real people, and they want more of them. So have a go! Most smartphones take great videos! How about a call to action at the end? Videos are becoming more and more interactive. Rather than just explaining a product, a testimonial, promoting an event or an instructional video, you should always have a call to action at the end of the video (or where it applies). You can easily add links in the video that people can click for more info. Should I customise my video for my different audiences? Yes! If you have several types of customer groups, develop a few videos aimed at each of these groups. Videos will appeal more if your customers can relate to it. How do I actually get this done? I am sooo busy! Set a goal of producing say two short (90 seconds is enough – people have short attention spans) videos yourself this summer! Learn to make videos yourself – it’s a great creative and fun skill to have! Or get one of your staff that is interested to do it. The next time you employ a new team member – you could make this skill a requirement. Till next week, Marijke This week, I've been doing research on this year's marketing trends. I am always reading marketing books, blogs, work with clients and present marketing training programmes. It's interesting trying to find out what's the new trends are for the future.
I just found the infographic above. It compiles trends from 151 articles, so I thought you would find this interesting! Over the next few weeks, I'll discuss several of these trends more in-depth - the ones that I think are relevant to your business. Till next week, Marijke First of all, I’d like to wish you a very happy, successful and healthy 2017! I hope you’ve had a great Christmas and New Year’s with friends and family. Many of you will be flat out with the tourist season and little time to do anything about marketing or planning for the new year, that will come a bit later. For me, the start of the year is always about reviewing the past year and set my business and personal goals for the new year. I love doing this as it gives me direction for what I want to achieve. In my opinion New Year’s resolutions are very much about changing your habits. Once something becomes a habit, it’s easy to stick to it. My yearly planning week at the start of the year has been a habit for years now and it works for me and my business. It makes me feel in control about what I want to do this year and excited too! I’m currently developing two new courses: ‘Starting your tourism business’ and ‘Growing your tourism business’. More info about these soon! If you work in tourism, have a great summer season and take a little break every now and then! Here’s this week’s tip: Improve your search engine rankings by linking – and a nifty little tool! Inbound links -these are other sites linking to your website- remain important your search engine optimisation. It’s important that these links are relevant. In other words, they need to be on websites that are relevant to your audience. Ideas for relevant websites: - Reciprocal links with related businesses (such as other tourism operators) - Industry directories - www.newzealand.com - Regional Tourism Organisation etc. Do you want to know which sites link to yours? You will probably know of most of them, but not all. Here’s a nifty little tool that will tell you exactly which websites link to yours: go to: https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/ Till next week and enjoy summer! (if you live in the Southern Hemisphere :), Marijke |
Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
AuthorMarijke Dunselman. Click here to read more about us! |