Helping You to Succeed Online
The role of technology, specifically the internet, e-commerce and social media, has completely revolutionized the way travel is marketed, researched and distributed globally- and to succeed in this space requires an entirely new approach to product, marketing and management. We will work with you to gain an understanding of your current business and marketing model and work together to identify the critical areas of development to begin a progressive shift online.
The following is a typical training programme we will implement with a tourism business:
eMarketing Strategy
We’ll help you rethink your approach to both management and marketing- and we will assist with the development of a business plan that will strategically and appropriately implement progressice change, re-investment and human resource development- as well as targeting and structuring e-marketing.
Online Bookings and Sales
We will use your current booking and distribution models as a basis for a plan to introduce and/or increase your allocations of online bookings and sales and identify locally available solutions for online reservations, bookings and payments.
Online Clinic
We will conduct an initial complete audit of your online presence (both web and social media) including search rankings and results and progressive clinic around each elemnet recommending areas of change and suggested development.
Web Design, Content and Management
Your website remains an important tool for at tourism business, but its role is changing dramatically. Working page by page through your site we will identify key ingredients for a successful site- addressing quality and usability, accessibility, ease of use and visibility in search terms. We will also discuss who should manage the website and how.
Analytics and Conversion Optimization
We will run through your web and social analytics and how best to track and analyse your user data. We will run through some analytics tools- and show how to measure monitor and manage user data- and to utilize the results to adapt and evolve business and marketing strategies.
Search Engine Marketing
Search parameters are changing rapidly with the increasing influence of social media and the focus can no longer be on just search engines . We’ll explain the inner workings of search engines and how search engine optimization (SEO) works. We explain the pitfalls and dangers of some popular SEO ‘tricks’ and look at the pros and cons of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and the newer opportunities offered by social search.
Relationship Marketing
Direct e-marketing means engaging with individual users and groups of users- and this presents a real challenge for a business in terms of capacity. We will discuss your development and management of client databases (both online and social) and how to market directly through them. We will look at the changing dynamics and challenges of Client Relationship Management (CRM)- and how to identify active users and to manage permission based marketing, promotional offers and direct communication effectively and avoid becoming a spammer while increasing your levels of engagement.
The Generation Gap- Encouraging User Generated Content
User Generated Content (UGC) is a popular buzzword in online marketing-particularly in tourism, where user generated reviews, blogs, images and video play a crucial role in the referral and marketing chain. But what happens when your users don’t generate any useful content?
We will address this fundamental issue- how to encourage your clients to generate useful content, write reviews, publish and share their experiences, pictures and video- and how you can best access and assist them to be sure that this content works for you and drives traffic, business and conversions. Practical examples will be given of appropriate, simple ways you can encourage clients to generate and share content and increase your likelihood of positive Trip Advisor reviews and referrals.
Much of our focus will be on your Facebook pages as your most important corporate presence and how they can be used to develop business and consumer relations, publicize your business, special events and special deals and offers. We will also show you how to best develop content and share and publish it via Facebook, and how to be sure that you develop and manage the right network of fans and to increase and measure engagement.
Twitter is an often overlooked or misunderstood resource. We will help you to use it for access to networking, partnerships and publication of content and demonstrate how to measure and monitor online discussions of destinations and products. We’ll look at how to use lists, retweets, hash tags, trends, mini-URLs and follower groups to make Tweeting an effective promotional tool.
YouTube
A YouTube channel with video content is an essential business tool today- allowing you to own and control a powerful cross platform media channel. We will assist with the development, key elements and management of a YouTube channel, including how to increase your visibility and profile and to syndicate, share and publicize videos.
Managing Multimedia
Many people are daunted by the idea of producing, managing and publishing multimedia- yet a wide array of low cost, easy to use practical tools are available to allow you to do just this. We’ll run though these and discuss how to create, edit, manage and publish images and video in web-optimized formats- all in a matter of minutes.
Mobile and Location Based Services
Mobile is one of the fastest growing areas in online travel and as more and more travellers arrive with SMART phones and access to the Internet they are a critical part of your marketing and a key source of UGC. We will look at your mobile presence and explain how to use location-based services, checkins and apps to enable effective mobile marketing.
Online Security
Doing business online creates new risks and challenges. We will provide advice for ensuring your online business is secured and safe from fraud, and looks at the legal requirements and recommendations for capturing and managing personal data. Advice will be given for avoiding fraud and securing your business environment and we will provide advice for avoiding phishing, SPAM traps and new dangers from social media.
Strategy and Policy for the Future
We will wrap up with assisting you to develop a set online strategy for marketing and management, including budgets for content production, advertising and development, and a policy in place for in-house management. We’ll also look at how to best ‘future proof’ the business in such a dynamically changing environment.
