There are a lot of conversations going on these days about tracking online ROI.  It’s a difficult thing to measure, for sure, but small business owners seem to get hung up on one important must-do point: monitoring the performance of their website.  Flickr profiles, Twitter links, and Facebook status updates always end up pointing to sales pages and reservations tools on your website.  It’s a no brainer then that statistics on how your website is performing have a direct correlation to return on investment and your overall online revenue.

But there is a problem.  Specifically, two.

The Two Types of Problems

I see almost every day one or two problems:

• The Website with No Analytics:  When I ask, I typically get the response: “We looked at analytics and it looked kind of complicated.  Plus we didn’t really understand the value.”  I believe faith can go a long way, but… If that’s you, keep reading.
• The Website with Analytics and No Action: This story starts out as “We installed analytics and then didn’t really understand the output.  We don’t really look at it.”  This is, by far, the most common scenario. If that’s you, keep reading.

In Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin, he states that 79% of businesses obsess about their analytics data, yet less than 3% actually do anything with that data.  Are you obsessing, or doing?

Analytics Is Simpler & More Important Than you Think

I think the problem is that small business owners tend to overcomplicate analytics – which is understandable.  A/B testing?  Pageviews, events, funnels?  Yikes.  Sounds scary?  Perhaps.  But the thing is that if you tie the reports and scary technical terms to business events and business effect, it ends up being pretty simple.

You can even have Google Analytics, a free tool that we and many small businesses like ourselves prefer, send you an email every week with your most important website figures.  It’s kind of like having your own assistant, free of charge!

Wouldn’t it be nice to know about:

• the content  on your website nobody likes
• the most popular words that people type into Google to find you
• the marketing campaigns that send you the most (or least) traffic
• the percentage of visitors that end up making a purchase, and at what points the most people “abandon” their transaction?

All sounds like good information to me – but you can only track this stuff if you have an analytics package installed and you use the data to implement changes.

If you have one, do you use it?  A member of our community, Trisha Miller, says:  “Information that you look at but don’t act on is no different than having no information at all.”     Enough said.

Our Solution

Given that analytics is an all-too-often question, we’ve added a new guide to our DIY library of resources to help folks take more advantage of the free online tools out there.  The latest guide, Understanding Success with Google Analytics, takes our traditional no non-sense approach and applies it to the scary world of analytics.

There are a few technical tasks, but at the end of the day, even the busiest and the most harried business owner can easily flip through these 50 pages of screenshots and helpful tips to make the most of a free Google Analytics account, a best-in-class analytics package provided by Google.

Download Your Copy of Our Guide Today!

Tired of running your online campaigns without the information you need?  Want to know how well your website is performing?  Then click here to download a copy of our guide immediately and start implementing the tips and tricks we’ve learned to make your website more successful.

Make analytics work for you – get the guide and get yourself sorted.

Initial image by kevindooley.

We’ve talked about remarkable is the new tourism and we’ve talked about good marketing is about good hospitality.  And I’d like to talk about where these two principles come together:  in an old school idea called the law of reciprocity.

Simply, it means: long after people forget what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.

How do your customers feel after enjoying your products and services?

Have you ever asked?

To Learn More

Don’t miss our most popular feature, our do-it-yourself guides.  They come with a money-back guarantee because we’re sure you’ll feel great after using them!

Photo by Hamed

This article is part of our series on Lessons Learned at South by Southwest 2010, a popular technology conference.

So, I was talking at SXSW with Chris Guillebeau and Pace Smith, two of my favourite entrepreneurs.  We got to talk about email newsletters and why small businesses really should have a list.  As you already probably know, I’m a huge fan of email newsletters, and statistically they convert far higher than many other forms of promotion.

The Big Picture on Why Email Works

I always knew email worked, but I didn’t hone in on the real reason why until Chris Guillebeau made it clear as day: it puts you in same spot as the big boys.  Amazon sends their email news and you can do the same – you’re right there with them in the consumer’s Inbox!

A few people who were sitting there with us mentioned that this is also a problem, in that everyone’s signed up to too many email newsletters and it will never get read.

Not exactly.

Pace is an expert in communications (and a lot of marketing actually is about communications), and quickly jumped into point out the incorrect logic in this thinking.  You’re assuming that person has too many email newsletters because you probably have too many of them.  You just don’t know if someone has email overload or not.

As long as you’re not annoying your customers via email, you’re fine.  So Just Do it.  It works.

Building a list takes time, so the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.

To Learn More

Want to work on building your own list?  Then be sure to check out our email marketing and email newsletter resources. They’re popular, effective, and good value for money!

Photo by Steve

This article is part of our series on Lessons Learned at South by Southwest 2010, a popular technology conference.

The Idea of a Sustainable Community

The idea presented was about how sustainability should be part of your business – almost the ultimate goal.  It is a hard concept to describe, but it’s crystal clear by example:  Harley Davidson.  The panelist pointed out that if Harley Davidson closed tomorrow and no longer made motorcycles, the biking community would continue to exist.

It’s a great example, but I can’t figure out if this works for travel communities or not.  A couple of examples:

• Tour Operators:  Sure, all that local info or niche information will still be valuable and relevant for some time, but would people still want to gather in a place where the tour providers have gone?
• Travel Blogs:  Without that fresh content and discussion to trigger new thoughts and ideas, would the community die?

Perhaps I’m trying to compare apples and oranges, but it seems like this might be a difficult one if you haven’t planned it out well.

Ideas for Sustainability

Some thoughts I had on making a travel community more sustainable:

• Creating community embassadors (and highlighting them) – the smaller your team the more important this is.  Get as many of your staff as possible involved.
• Relentless focus on community members themselves.  Yes, you must talk about the company as you’re here for business not just pleasure, but when community members know they’re valued they’ll be prepared for the long haul.
• Make sure you’re focused on the big picture.  The community isn’t just about buying your stuff.  It’s about sharing ideas and enthusiasm for the particular topic or niche you cover.

To Learn More

If you’re worried about how sustainable your community is, we can help.  Why not take our free business assessment and get back on track.

Photo by mindfulness

This article is part of our series on Lessons Learned at South by Southwest 2010, a popular technology conference.

The thing I loved about SXSW was that it was a conference of like minded people, not aligned to any particular vertical or industry, but just a group of people who liked new and exciting ideas.  So imagine my chagrin when I learned a powerful lesson for the world of tourism (or any business area that matter) during a conversation with Reese and Carl Nelson.

Carl is deep into the world of dance, and he was telling us about the power of dance – it was a great story and was one of those moments where you felt like jumping up and shaking out a little jive, just for fun.  But the point that really blew me away was when we were talking about getting people up onto the dance floor.

Everyone knows the story.  The DJ is cranking up the tunes and things are really getting into a groove, but the dance floor is empty.  It takes someone to start the momentum.  But the problem is, the first guy takes all the risk.

Here’s a great example.  Is this guy a total idiot, or is he where all of the action is?

The overview also mentions other people that take on some risk.

Your challenge is to go out and do great things.  Know what you are afraid of, then take the plunge and do it.  Be first. The first guy takes all the risk, but (s)he also gets the reward!

To Learn More

Want some help getting organised and focused so you can be first?  Then check out our TOP Travel Business Toolkit.  It’s the perfect tool to get your priorities in order and make sure you’re doing great things with the right amount of risk.

Photo by Parksy

This article is part of our series on Lessons Learned at South by Southwest 2010, a popular technology conference.

At SXSW, some of the most amazing conversations one can have isn’t in a panel or a keynote, but it’s in a hallway or over dinner with those people you’ve made connections with.  One of the connections I made was with my good friends Deb Ng and Chris Garrett, two people I’ve known for a long time but never managed to meet in person until now.  We had an excellent conversation over burritos about building and maintaining an online community, and I wanted to share three of those points here.

They Don’t Owe You Anything

The topic came up of a particular small business owner that said, regarding their community, “they never did anything for me.”  If you’re trying to build something around your brand and you go into it expecting them to do something for you just because you setup this community, you’re in for a hash reality.  Your community doesn’t owe you anything – so don’t be ungrateful.  Give them so much value you they can’t help but give you something back.

Cultivate, Don’t Churn

You know what they say about customers:  it’s easier and cheaper to make more money from an existing/previous customer than to try to find a new one.  It’s true about building a community too; it really is easier and less expensive to cultivate the people you already have, rather than just churn through people as quickly as possible.

You aren’t running a fast food restaurant (I hope).  Give people a reason to stick around and come back for more.

You Have to Give to Get

The lesson that I shared in our learning from pop music came up again:  you have to give if you want to get.  That’s just how the universe works.  Give, give, and give some more.  No matter what you get back, give more.  Sooner or later, you’ll be rewarded.  I promise.

To Learn More

Building a community is fun and  rewarding, but it’s also hard work.  Be sure to visit our resources area to learn about other products and services that can help you help your community.

photo by daveness

This article is part of our series on Lessons Learned at South by Southwest 2010, a popular technology conference.

One of the better panels I saw at SXSW 2010 was the “Is Too Much Math Killing Marketing” panel.  While the topic of marketing was a generic one, the lessons still apply to tourism, whether that’s your website, your brochures if you have them, or any other marketing collateral.

The summary of this panel to me was in essence:  marketing is about math AND creativity.  Here’s why.

Marketing with Too Much Math

I paraphrase, but a panelist said that if we all over-refine our sales content and images over and over again to get the highest conversion rates possible, we’ll all start looking the same: a big pile of grey mush.  That’s not fun to do and the result for the consumer isn’t pretty either.

For small businesses, the problem is worse:  we often don’t have the time or money to do extensive testing.  And the unfortunate reality is that  the data isn’t always great.   Another great point that came out of the panel is that we can’t test all of the variables.  For example, your ice cream sales at your storefront shop might be down because of the weather, not because you changed the sales price.  But you wouldn’t know unless you weren’t measuring the weather too!

Marketing with Too Much Creativity

I believe the quote from one of the panelists was “creativity without conversions equals zero.”  And he’s right:  we all have seen those fancy, out of this world website designs and thought, hmm – looks nice.  But what is it?

You have to tie great designs back to the bottom line.  But you also have to make sure that your designs are creative enough to stand out from the crowd.

It’s All About Balance

As with many things in life and business, balance goes a long way.

• Get some math.  Make sure you are tracking the variables that are important.
• Get creative.  How are you going to be different?

To Learn More

Did you have know we have a whole page full of eMarketing for tourism resources?  Check it out and make sure that your online (and offline) marketing strategies are in balance.

photo by di

If you’ve ready our guide, Twitter is Just a Personality Contest, then you’ll know that the numbers that count on Twitter aren’t the ones listed on your profile.  People keep forgetting that, so as a friendly reminder, we’ve got a new example:  Anil Dash.

You see, Anil was added to Twitter’s “suggested user” list – which means when new users join Twitter, he’s one of the guys the system suggests you follow.  Pretty cool huh?

No, Not Really

As Anil states on the article linked to above:

“Being on Twitter’s suggested user list makes no appreciable difference in the amount of retweets, replies, or clicks that I get….for the most part [new followers] don’t interact with me at all.”

And then comes the punchline.  Wait for it…

“Being on the list just adds followers, not real connections.”

Bingo!

What are you building on Twitter?

Are you trying to work on increasing that meaningless number on the upper right hand side of your profile?

Or, are you trying to reach out and make real connections with people who:

• are existing customers you can get feedback from
• are potentially new customers to meet and greet
• are media and PR folk who are great to know and network with
• are other small businesses in your niche or geography that can provide support and guidance

I’m not sure about you, but to me it’s pretty clear which strategy is going to be more effective for the long term.

To Learn More

Feeling like Twitter is the next big step for you?  Or already there and not feeling effective in making real connections?  No worries – have a look at any of our Twitter resources to see if something might be just what you’re looking for.

As you may know, I’m all about old school marketing tricks – some little nuggets of wisdom are timeless.  And there’s a little something about building trust and credibility that is very true online, although not as much as offline.  Tim Sanders calls it the Likeability Factor, which is is a nice way to describe it.  It goes something like this:

• All things being equal, consumers will give their business to a friend or a friend of a friend.
• All things being not-so-equal, consumers will give their business to a friend or a friend of a friend.

See the catch?  People like doing business with people they know.

So what does this have to do with online stuff?

A lot actually – just because we’re all hiding behind our computer screens now doesn’t mean that Tim’s likeability factorn has changed at all.  Consider:

• Social media gives you an opportunity to build a connection with your customers.  That means top of mind.  That means you get to be more like a friend.  And people like doing business with friends!
• Social media gives you transparency.  When people can see who is running the ship and understand what your values are and see things from your perspective, you increase trust and visibility.  You become more likeable.

The thing about marketing that nobody tells you is that a lot of it has to do with getting people to like you being likeable.

It seems pretty obvious when you think about it:

• Businesses who aren’t friendly have to deal with the onslaught of bad reviews.
• Businesses who don’t have remarkable products and services get left behind for those who do.
• In a world full of too much choice, why pick anyone that isn’t…likeable?

What does it mean to be likeable?

That’s kind of asking what a delicious entrée tastes like – it depends on your individual business.  But consider:

• Are you putting hospitality at the top of your menu? (apologies for the terrible pun)
• Are you meeting then exceeding customer demands?
• Are you giving it 100%, all the while the while being you?

Be true to yourself.  What kind of tourism business do you want to be?  Make sure that, whatever it might be, it is easy for people to see.  If it’s exactly the kind of business you want it to be, what’s not to like?

To Learn More

If you’re struggling with your likeability (or building trust and credibility), we can help.  Why not take our free business assessment and get back on track.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Duke University

If you stop to think about it, having a blog is kind of like being married.  If you’re not married (disclosure: I’m not), you can ask your married friends or just watch any number of the dating and relationship orientated programs on television to find out what it’s like.  So, what exactly are the similarities?

Read the rest of this article »