I talk a lot about the idea that people need to make online content that’s professional yet personable. Videos, photos, and websites that aren’t necessarily theatrical productions, but resonate with the brand and aren’t sloppy. What’s the difference?
It’s ok to be an amateur. We’re all learning, all the time, right? But to be amateurish? That’s just plain lazy.
To Learn More…
Is your online presence amateur or amateurish? Take our no-fluff, no-stress, no-obligation small business assessment to find out.
Want to build online community around your brand? Today’s travel marketing idea is a fantastic example of exactly that: Club Med Insider
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Two pieces of online technology news has grabbed the attention of small businesses worldwide in the last few days:
- the first is that Google is willing to acquire Yelp (a massive business ratings and reviews website, if you aren’t familiar with it), although the site has just rejected an offer of $500.000.000 dollars.
- the second is that the Mountain View Giant will re-launch Google Answers (which was shut down about 3 years ago) and rename the service “Google Guru”!
These events may be tagged as being just another of the huge amount of acquisitions that Google has pursued in the last few years, which, interestingly enough, have followed the market trends: 16 in 2007 (an incredibly vibrant year for the web) and only 2 in 2008, the year of the recession.
It may be looked at as the launch of another service, but in fact there’s something very interesting behind this business deal.
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Welcome to this week’s installment of Steal This Travel Marketing Idea. Today’s great concept? Threadless Loves Travel.
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I wanted to mention a new free eBook that’s out if you’ve got some Christmas downtime and want some big-picture reading to do. It’s another book by Seth Godin – and I know he’s one of those people that you either love or hate, but you’re going to want to take a look at this book. Seth put it together and coordinated the whole thing, but it’s actually a collection of thoughts of several very well known people. Each person got one page, and that’s about all the direction they got. So it’s one of those books that is a jumble of thoughts which somehow come together perfectly.
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I was catching up on some reading over the weekend, and in one of the books (not a marketing or business book, I might add), the persistence effect was mentioned. It’s called other names in other places, but what it means essentially is:
Keep showing up. There is a parallel relationship between the size of your network and the size of your profits. Keep showing up and you’ll see that prospects will find you (although not always in the ways you imagined).
Sales and Marketing classes are full of stories from businesses who finally closed a deal on the 19th or 20th attempt or their 15th time to a networking session. But what does all of this old school marketing stuff have to do with social media?
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It’s our favourite time of the week – when we highlight another great online marketing idea in the travel industry. This week’s idea? 24Nola, a 24 Hour Guide to a 24 Hour City.
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I’ve just finished reading Trendwatching.com’s December 2009 briefing, which includes amongst other things a few consumer trends that they envision for the year 2010. What I found the most interesting is the overarching theme of this year’s briefing, which is wrapped up nicely from this quote on their site:
Opportunities aplenty in 2010 for those obsessed with satisfying consumer needs in new ways
Here at TOP we’re obsessed with satisfying customer needs, and I actually think we can translate several of these key trends directly into inspiration for small businesses in travel and tourism. So let’s explore…
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There’s one “to do” item from our 7 Common Mistakes Businesses Make online that many people have a hard time with:
Think of three fun and crazy things you could do to promote your business online. Now pick one.
What’s the worst thing that could happen if you tried it out?
Why It’s Hard
I think the reason people struggle with this is because the online world adds such a different dimension to the small business marketing process, in two ways:
- online presence offers a way to enhance and extend traditional marketing techniques (example: e-brochures)
- entirely new campaigns that either weren’t cost effective or just not possible (example: content marketing, like Metrotwin)
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You’ll be probably aware of the fact that all the major search engines are making it increasingly easier for small tourism business owners to take a proactive approach toward online marketing.
In the last few years, the growing importance of local search and the integration into search results (in Google especially) has created an increasingly fundamental avenue for small tourism businesses to promote awareness about their businesses and gain additional traffic to their website. However, many business owners simply aren’t aware of the impact that their local listings can have on their site’s traffic.
We would like to introduce you to the concept and importance of local search and provide you with some tips in order to get your tourism business listed inside the major search engines local results with no fluff and no stress!
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