Marketing tips
Are you all in or teetering on the edge?
Are you all in or teetering?
Some are tinkering around the edges. Some are poised to go deeper but not quite there.
This is to encourage you to jump and 'go all in'...
I'm talking about focusing on something - in this case a target market - and really doing everything you can to be as strong as you can in that area. There are great revenue benefits when you do. And it makes marketing much easier.
A few examples:
Is your business dog-tolerant, or dog-friendly? Do you just provide the basi…
Five essential photos to take right now
We're in a trust recession - people are hesitating to spend money and make plans.
This is partly down to economic insecurity but it's also about credibility and believing what we're told. There's so much b******* about, we don't always trust what we're told or read.
We ask our visitors to trust that the services we offer will be as good as we say. They have to trust us to deliver something in the future that they can't yet see. That's tricky.
Images and videos have never been as powerful or i…
Back to school...
Have you got the ‘back to school’ fresh feeling? That sense of purpose, of settling down to a different rhythm once the summer is over?
I haven’t bought a new pencil case like I used to, but I’m definitely ready to be the swot, ultra-prepared for the months to come!
Here’s a quick taster of what I’ll be doing, and how I hope it can help you.
I see Autumn and Winter as key times for tourism businesses, important in two ways:
- Firstly, any extra income you can earn in these shoulder seasons i…
A quick powerful change
Here's a quick easy change you can make to your website and social media: it's surprisingly effective to boost engagement and adds a little power to your search engine optimisation.
Change an image.
Yes, that's it!
It should ideally be a header image or a more prominent photo.
It signals to the algorithm that you're actively engaging, that you're freshening up the site/social media channel.
Search engine and social media algorithms love fresh content.
Followers notice the fresh look, es…
Stop scaring your visitors
Stop scaring visitors!
If you’re not getting enough business, this is for you.
OK, so you might not be actively scaring your potential visitors, but they are scared. And that’s stopping them from spending money with you, booking, or visiting.
We’re all scared. Not necessarily terrified-scared, but at least mildly anxious and unsure. We're nervous of making bad decisions, of spending money or time unwisely.
When we buy something physical, whether it’s chocolate or a car, we can see it, touch …
Reasons you might not be getting enough visitors - no 1
Are you 100% happy with the level of bookings/visitors you're getting? Is there room for improvement and increased revenue?
There are four main reasons you might be failing to generate the level of income you want. I'll cover each of the four reasons over the next few blogs. Here's the first one.
You might think you're doing all these but it's always worth looking back at recent marketing to double-check, and to do more of this.
1. Give the right information/inspiration to the right peo…
Stop the scroll - use more impactful social media messages
We want people to scroll - to find our posts and information.
But then we want them to stop!
We need visitors to stop scrolling long enough to take in the reasons why our areas and businesses are worth visiting. We need them to stop scrolling so they can choose us.
We need visitors to absorb essential information on our websites, and visitors don't always have the patience to scroll all the way down your pages to find what they're looking for.
The answer: use really compelling informat…
Word of mouth recommendations
Could you use this approach somehow in your business?
Word of mouth recommendations are the best form of promotion: you need to make sure they happen.
It’s easier if you do something, even small, to make people feel better than they expect.
I watched the owner of the old-fashioned sweet shop as they served the queue of children.
Each child asked for a quantity of their favourite sweet. Betty took the large jar off the shelf and poured a little into the old weighing machine.
Th…
The marketing power of the delete button
How much patience do you have? How busy are you? Do you have a lot of free time?
If your answers to those questions were 'not much, very and no', join the club. It's how most people will answer.
So if we want to help people book or visit our businesses, we need to make it very easy for them.
I often make suggestions for the kind of information and inspiration you should ideally have on your website.
But there's a caveat: you can't just keep adding to your website without removi…
Repeat yourself
What's the best thing you've ever done to promote your tourism business?
What worked well?
Or perhaps there's something small you did that was moderately successful?
It could have been a social media post that got plenty of engagement. Or a blog post that's still driving traffic to your website? A photo that people have said they like? Or something you say to guests that seems to resonate?
Whatever it is, don't just do it once.
Repeat whatever works, again, again and again.
We…