Set aside that the world is changing and digital experiences are and will come more to the fore, by creating a self-guided option you are catering to the largest untapped market in travel. When any of us travel we self-guide for a large proportion of that time. We visit places and look for things to do on our own without booking anything with an operator or an OTA. The opportunities here are quite frankly endless.

Self-guided experiences do not cannibalise your in-person experiences. They can provide…

1. A stepping stone for someone to take one of your in-person experiences
2. Help your brand awareness and highlight your expertise
3. Generate extra revenue while you sleep

For a little upfront work, you could create an audio experience, a digital experience through a app or a full multi-day experience that you create for your customers. Creating apps are very easy now with many options out there like Questo and Vidi Guides. Even gamifying your experiences is possible with these tools, providing your customers with even more reasons to buy from you.

Self-Guided Examples

Below are some self-guided examples from operators across the world that have taken advantage of this format…

Macs Adventure

Macs Adventure is a multi-million pound company that focuses solely on self-guided experiences… but that was not always the case. When Macs Adventure first started out, they provided both guided and self-guided options but they felt the guided option meant they could not grow the business to where they wanted it to be. It was a ‘never ended cycle’ of growth, and hiring guides that they wanted to break.

When they switched to self-guided, the company grew exponentially and are now one of the worlds largest adventure walking companies.

Their team organise and manage the trips for all their customers so that they have the confidence to take the experiences out themselves with the back up of the Macs Adventure team.

Overland Ireland

Overland Ireland provides multi-day trips across Ireland for a predominantly North American Market. When the pandemic reared its ugly head, we helped them develop a self-guided option of their tours so that their guides could still provide their expertise by providing all the necessary documentation and guidance so their customers could have a self-drive experience across Ireland.

Overland took this one step further but developing their own self-guided app called ‘Paddy, the Pocket Pilot’. This provided instant information as their customers travelled around the Emerald Isle while having an expert on hand if they ran into trouble.

This has opened up a new audience for Overland and much needed revenue post pandemic.

Clio Muse Tours

Clio Muse Tours are both a self-guided operator and a marketplace for other operators to create self-guided experiences.

These self-guided audio tours also combine with skip-the-line and entrance to various attractions across many destinations. It is a clever way to allow travellers to take a tour at their own pace while still providing access to the attractions they may visit. If you are a day tour operator, this is an ideal alternative you should consider. 

As an example, imagine a food tour operator providing something similar, where the traveller travels around a destination but a voucher on an app allows them to sample food on the go. 

Vox City Walks

Vox City Walks is a day tour operator providing self-guided walking tours across the world also with entry to attractions and other venues. By creating these partnerships, you not only create extra revenue for your business through the sale of the tours, but possible commission from these partners.

Grasshopper Adventures

Grasshopper Adventures provide self-guided cycling experiences supported by a self-guided App, featuring: GPS-guided route maps, dining recommendations, points of interest, and local insights. All of this information provides the consumer with all of your expertise and knowledge, but digitally.

The added element that Grasshopper add is that they meet all their guests at the start of the journey so they still provide that human element before they set off on their own.

Future Proof Your Tours

I will go on record to say that every operator must and should create versions of their experiences as a self-guided option. For me it is a no-brainer and one that could help open up your business to a whole new audience, ‘future proof’ you for the coming digital revolution… and create opportunities to increase your profit levels. 

Once you have created the content for an audio tour or app, then this could be used in self-drive tours and even autonomous vehicle tours which are not only fast approaching, but already here! The revenue options are endless.

Look out for a future podcast and Sprint on creating self-guided products on Tourpreneur.

Cheers

Chris

The post Self-Guided Experiences is a Must for ALL Tour Operators appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Being a marketing agency that focuses on tourism, I still get surprised looks when I say we are not only still in business but have come out the other end stronger than ever. That is not to say it was without its challenges.

As a business owner, it has been an extremely stressful time. Thinking about how I am going to pay staff, myself, support my family and still provide a level of service that my customers deserve, kept me up for many nights. However, on reflection, I am extremely proud of how, as a team, we managed to steer the business through the pandemic.

My team are the hardest working people I know and they have put in the hours to not only make sure TMA survived, but to make sure we supported our customers in every way we could. Not only that, they spent time helping the industry as a whole by helping me put together free help guides and research to the benefit of everyone.

Even at my lowest points they helped push me though any doubts I had – and I had many – and gave me the kick up the arse that I sometimes needed. It was also my job to support them as much as possible; part of that was me going back ‘on the tools’ and helping out with many day-to-day tasks across the board, while making sure I was still working on my sales duties to make sure I can keep the lights on.

You have to realise that when the pandemic first hit, TMA lost around 20 customers all within the space of a month. That is enough to put most out of business, but I decided to work every hour I could to make sure my team stayed together. I never furloughed, as doing so would mean the customers that stayed with us (I will be forever grateful to them) would not get the great level of service we are famous for. But, even still, deep down I knew we could do better with an expanded team… I just could not afford to grow during such uncertain times.

Like I said, an extremely stressful time for all concerned… but we got through it.

Now It’s Time for Some Changes at TMA

During the last two years, we steadily built TMA back up and have now surpassed the position we were in back in March 2020. We have grown our customer base, now serving over 50 operators (and counting), and the team has doubled from six to twelve. We are still in survival mode, but we are most certainly moving in the right direction.

I am super proud of what we have achieved during one of the worst, most challenging periods in my long working career. I am incredibly proud of my team for believing in TMA and for investing their time to not only make sure TMA survived, but to also personally invest so much effort into helping our clients. This has been a trying time for many operators and my team always acknowledges the challenges professionally and personally – they truly care about our TMA family.

And now, it is time to take TMA to the next level.

As of the 1st March, Amanda Walkins was promoted from Account Manager to my new Managing Director. Amanda will now take over the role that I have been doing for many years by becoming the main point of contact for anything business-related. Amanda has authority to make key decisions for TMA and our customers. If you are a customer of ours, your Account Manager is still your first point of contact, but if anything arises that they can’t advise on, Amanda is on hand to help.

You may also see a few changes in account management. I have hired an additional Account Manager, Yara Eldouky, to help with our ever-growing customer base. This could mean your current Account Manager may change but please rest assured that any change is to make sure we can deliver an even better service to our customers. Please bear with us as we manage these changes.

I have also hired a new content writer, Christina Watts, and a new Paid Media Manager, Amy McGibbon, as well as Nicola (Nikki) Hunter Page who supports our customers’ websites. Some of you may have met Nikki before in her role of supporting Touriosity operators. All of these appointments have been brought in so we can serve each and every customer better, but also relieve the workload of the existing team. 

And the good news is, I hope to continue to add to the team throughout the year.

So, what about my role?

To make sure TMA gets to where it needs to be, I have to focus on what I do best… driving sales and providing lots of educational content. I will no longer be available for general business-related tasks or meetings, but Amanda has this covered on my behalf. I will also not be involved in day-to-day tasks for our customers. My team is more than experienced to cover that side of things. It is the reason why any business owner hires staff!

This does not mean that I disappear however… far from it.

This now allows me to focus on, of course, growing TMA, but also how we can best serve our customers. I will be advising the team through strategy suggestions for all our customers, providing consultations as and when required, developing new products and services, and still producing all the free, educational content I have been doing for years. 

It will also give me the time I need to write my second book, Lookers Into Bookers: The Marketing Blueprint. In essence, I will now have more time to offer even more value to our customers and to the tourism sector as a whole.

I hope you can see why we need to make these necessary changes. They allow us to serve all our customers in more ways than we could have done over the last two years. They help TMA grow, which, in turn, will help our customers grow. If you have any questions or doubts, please do contact Amanda (amanda@tourismmarketing.agency).

Thanks to everyone who has helped support TMA over the last few years and as for Amanda… I apologise in advance as your inbox is about to get a lot busier!

The post Announcing Some Changes at TMA appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Throughout the pandemic, many tour operators and experience providers have been severely hit, both emotionally and financially. With things starting to open up again across the world, many are worried about how they can attract customers on limited budgets. 

Well today, to help the many operators in this situation, I am announcing something that no other marketing agency in our sector offers. TMA now provides a free WordPress website for your tourism business with every marketing package we offer… even our entry level package.

The Benefits of a WordPress Website for Tour Operators

While we are offering these websites for free, they do not use some second-rate template. 

On the contrary, the template we use provides a fantastic platform to better showcase your tours and activities, your brand, and your team, as well as providing a better platform for SEO. 

Not only that, it can either integrate with many widgets from existing reservation systems or you can use the website’s own internal booking and availability calendar for seamless sales.

We have seen many reservation and booking systems offer free websites, but you do not own them. If you decide to move to a new booking platform, you can’t take the site with you. We always want tour providers to maintain control over their businesses and to have more say in their own success.

With our solution, you fully own the website and we are happy to show you how everything works, giving you even more control over the aesthetics and functionality of your own business (if you’d like to learn).

And even if you decide to leave TMA — for whatever reason — the website is yours to keep. While you are with us, we can host, maintain, and provide support on an ongoing basis. If you ever leave, we can continue to host your site for a fee or you can choose to take your site and hosting elsewhere. It’s all in your control!

Example Websites

Why are we offering a free website?

On top of the financial situation many tour operators face due to the pandemic, we have noticed a troubling trend with many operators’ websites. We have had many operators come to us for help with marketing, but their websites are in such a sorry state that they are unfit to use as a platform from which to market tours and activities. 

We refuse to spend any operator’s hard earned cash on marketing if their website is not up to the task. However, many operators do not have the means to rebuild their site, so they are left in a state of limbo. They’re unable to effectively attract customers with the site they have and cannot capture the bookings they are looking for to increase their revenue.

Our ethos has always been to help the tours and activities industry grow, helping as many operators as possible. Today’s announcement is an extension of this ethos.

We have all been left devastated with the covid pandemic and we are all looking for ways to dust ourselves off and fight for the sector we love. With this shift in our marketing options, it is, in some small way, our way to offer additional help.

If you want more details or are interested in this offer, please do get in touch and we will be happy to help.

The post A Free Tour Operator Website Offering You Full Control appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The team at TMA is extremely excited to announce the launch of our new website!

This new website better highlights how we can help tour and activity providers market themselves more effectively. We also showcase many new case studies that highlight our successes, even during a global pandemic. So much has changed for us over the last few years, and this new site better represents who we are and what we are capable of. 

Complete Transparency

We have always been upfront and transparent with the operators we help, and today we are taking this one step further. Our new website now details the packages we offer and all our prices. Compared with many other agencies, we charge very competitive rates while providing a comprehensive list of services.

Success Stories

Our new success stories section better highlights some of the operators we have helped. We made a conscious decision to mostly highlight recent successes so that you can see how effective the Tourism Marketing Agency can be — even during the devastating effects of the last 18 months. Our recent success is a credit to the hard work and expertise of the team here at TMA. More stories to come shortly.

And to all the operators that stood by us during these uncertain times, we all thank you for your belief in us. It truly means a lot.

The Digital Tourism Show

With the new website comes a better platform to showcase The Digital Tourism Show, the podcast series created and run by our founder, Chris Torres. Up-to-date with all episodes, you can now filter these episodes to find the topic that best suits your needs. We also have a site search function that will help you find what you need.

New Content to Inspire and Educate

As some of you will already know, Chris has made it his personal mission to educate the tours and activities sector in all-things branding and marketing, often with free access to meaningful content, advice, and guides. Our new website will serve as the platform for lots of new articles, videos, and advice that Chris and the team at TMA are working on. Expect a huge library of content and research to be uploaded in the coming weeks and months.

If you have any questions or would like to become part of our family here at TMA, please do get in touch.

The post TMA’s New Site Launch appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Cara Dzivane, Corporate Traveller – How to Create and Optimise Your Products for the Corporate Traveller — Q&A

Cara is a Senior Business Development Manager for Corporate Traveller in Scotland. Based in the Glasgow office, she has overseen the implementation of over 50 partnerships with CT over the past 4 years.

With relationship as the key element for partnerships, Cara philosophy of ‘getting like minded people together’ has shone and she not only hosts the very popular Business Breakfast Connections in Chaophraya, Glasgow, but was named as a finalist in the Scottish Women in Business Collaborator category earlier this year.

In 2018, she was also nominated out of 350+ employees to front Corporate Travellers new media campaign. As Ambassador of Corporate Traveller UK – or ‘the Face of CT’ as it is now more commonly known – she has embodied the culture of Corporate Traveller and has flown the flag of why CT are the preferred Travel Management Company for small-medium spend businesses.

Cara will be discussing how tour operators and accommodation providers can create and optimise their products with the corporate traveller in mind.

The post How to Create and Optimise Your Products for the Corporate Traveller appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Lee MacGregor, Mitchell MacGregor PR, will be discussing how PR can help boost any tourism brand and the best ways to approach PR to grow your business.

Lee has a passion for culinary experiences has developed over more than two decades working in PR, marketing and hospitality.

She believes good public relations is at the heart of every great business as it allows you to nurture relationships and start conversations with good stories, helping to build loyalty and memories.

The post How You Can Use Public Relations to Grow Your Tourism Business appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

The opportunities for brand exposure are endless; so long as you build a strong presence across the board. 

Out of the bunch; however, there’s one that deserves your primary focus — Google My Business (GMB). That’s because, with a complete and optimized listing, you have the potential to gain visibility as you’ve never known before. And most importantly, cover every step in the traveller’s booking journey — from inspiration to conversion — in one sweep. 

We’ll go into more detail below about why GMB is great, and what you can do to get the most out of it. But first, if you aren’t familiar with this powerful tool, let’s start with:

What is Google My Business?

You’ve probably come across a Google My Business listing plenty of times already. Whenever you look for a business on Google Search and Maps, their Business Profile shows up as a box next to the results and location. It includes essential business information — such as hours of operation, address, contact details, website URL, and more.

Google often populates this data for business owners automatically. So go ahead and search for your tour company, you might see your own listing displayed. But even if you have one by default, it doesn’t mean the information is correct, nor is effective at attracting and converting Google users. 

As it happens, there’s a whole lot more you can do with your Google My Business listing. It comes with cool features that allow you to engage with guests, promote your tours and activities, accept bookings, view insights, and improve your Google ranking overall. You just have to claim it or create one first. 

Why is Google My Business important?

Think of your Business Profile as a bite-sized version of your website. You can use it to help travellers learn more about your tour business, but also strategically lead them through the path to purchase. For the most part, they have all they need to make a decision and follow through. 

Since in-destination bookings are more popular than ever, this can have a significant impact on your business growth. Most travellers who plan on-the-go roughly know what they want; they just have to find an operator that’s a close match. So they tend to seek a fast and seamless route, yet still a quality option.

By completing your GMB listing, you can make this possible for them. They simply have to scroll through your profile to look at reviews, photos, posts, and information. And if they like what they see, check availability, and complete booking and payment — thanks to Reserve with Google. 

Google My Business also plays a vital role in local search optimization. That is to say; your Business Profile can snag a spot in the Google snack pack — the top three local business listings above the organic search results. Or better yet, climb higher in ranking on Google Maps. 

Why does this matter? Because 46% of all searches have local intent— which is likely higher for travellers considering they frequently look for things to do in the area. So whenever they search for related tours and activities nearby, your business can be the first seen out of your competitors.

These factors combined mean your GMB listing is easy to discover and optimized for quick conversion. But of course, all of this comes down to verifying your business and upkeeping your profile. Because if it’s top-notch and detailed, then travellers won’t have to look any further.

Google My Business tips and tricks

As I mentioned, there’s a lot you can do with Google My Business — provided you take ownership of your listing. With access to every feature, you can enhance your Business Profile, and quickly turn online lookers into bookers.

Before diving into a few best practices, check to see if your GMB listing already exists. Just type your business name into Google Search, and if it pops up on the right, click claim this business. If it doesn’t, you can add your business by following these steps.

Enter business information 

The first thing for Google My Business optimization is to enter information wherever possible. It’s important not to skip over any steps because a complete listing is a top listing. Plus, the more details, the better — so travellers can find out everything they need to know in one place. 

Here’s what you should cover:

1. Basic information:this includes your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP), as well as your website URL. 
2. Category:there are over 2,000 categories for Google My Business. Make sure to be as specific as possible. For example, if you run boat tours, you could select Boat Tour Agency. 
3. Description: clearly describe your business and what you offer while using relevant keywords — like guided punting toursor whale-spotting cruise. Try to avoid keyword stuffing though as Google penalizes that. 
4. Attributes: list any unique perks included that set you apart from the competition and your guests frequently ask about — such as a free shuttle service, lunch, photos, etc.

Don’t forget to verify your business. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to add your NAP, and not the rest of the above. You can do this by mail, or for select businesses, phone and email. 

Add photos and videos

By far, sharing photos and videos of your tours and activities is the best way to inspire travellers to make a booking. That’s because it helps them picture having the experience, and in most cases, plays on the fear of missing out (FOMO). 

You can add a variety of photos and videos on Google My Business — including virtual video tours. Although high quality is better, it’s not necessary. As long as you’re putting up content, travellers will look. 

Keep in mind your guests can also upload images of their experiences to your GMB listing. To improve brand authenticity, it’s a good idea to encourage them to do so, along with leaving a review — which brings us to the next point. 

Ask for Google Reviews

Arguably Google is the best review platform for tour operators. Since Google Reviews improve search ranking, you can increase your odds of earning a higher position based on recency, frequency, and quality. Also, travellers are more likely to trust a tourism business with positive reviews on their GMB listing and an average rating of 4 stars and above. 

Google already does an excellent job of prompting users to write reviews. Some examples include push notifications on Android smartphones, showing the number of views they get for each review, and rewarding them with local guide badges. 

But you can also get more Google Reviews by mentioning it at the end of the tour or reminding guests in your thank-you email. Just treat it like you would when asking for TripAdvisor reviews. And remember to respond to reviews — both positive and negative — because it shows your commitment to customer satisfaction. 

Share on Google Posts

Although Posts on Google now sit at the bottom of your profile — a little out of sight — it’s still an important Google My Business feature. If you keep a blog that gives destination advice, this is where you could share that content and drive website traffic. Find out how to quickly create a Google Post here. 

Moreover, you can use Google Posts to promote special offers and discounts. Just think about it — travellers who make it down your listing are obviously interested in your business. Seeing a 15% bank holiday discountor an early bird season specialcould be the tipping point they need to make a booking.

Take bookings on Google

Reserve with Google is relatively new to Google My Business. First rolling out in 2016, it catered to fitness and beauty businesses, as well as restaurants. But now, the tours and activities industry is fortunate to have access to this amazing feature. 

As another sales channel, you can start taking bookings and payment right on your GMB listing. All you need is an account with a booking software provider — such as Checkfront — and Google My Business. It’s free for now, so it’s best to get this up and running as soon as possible.

With a Reserve with Google integration, travellers will see your real-time availability on your Business Profile, and can progress intuitively through the booking steps without navigating elsewhere. As for yourself, you can track these bookings in your reservation dashboard while your inventory updates automatically. 

View Google listing insights

For any digital marketing you do, it’s important to track and analyze your results. Regarding your listing, it’s easy to do this in the Insights panel on your GMB dashboard. There, you can see the following:

• Total searches
• How Google users find your listing
• Search queries they use
• Where they view your business 
• What actions they take 
• And so much more

Using this data, you can learn more about guest behaviour, figure out what you’re doing well, and how to continually optimize your Google My Business listing. There’s so much you can do with this marketing tool — we’ve barely scratched the surface. Just explore the possibilities, and you’ll start seeing good things come from it. 

About Checkfront

Checkfront is a booking management platform trusted by thousands of tour operators worldwide. Our platform empowers businesses to sell tours and activities on any website by providing live inventory management, dynamic pricing, customer notifications, and channel distribution. Get started with Checkfront today!

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post How to Optimize Google My Business for Tour Operators appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Not all stock images are as patently bad as the one above, but many of them are. With this blog post, we’d like to look at stock images and the importance of using authentic, original visual content. 

We’re not saying that people working in the tours & activities sector should never use stock images, just that they should always err on the side of caution. This blog will look at some of the problems that come with using stock images and it will try to convince readers to use original images wherever possible.

Why Are Images so Important in the Tours & Activities Sector?

Good images and video are important to most industries, and to most digital marketing best practices, but they are especially important to the tourism sector. This is because people really do buy a location, a tour, or an activity based on the images available to them. When planning a holiday, we are looking for something special, with a beautiful destination. This is especially true when a tour or activity is particularly expensive, as good images (along with reviews) increase your trustworthiness — especially if the images show your guests enjoying themselves.

Good images and video are important to most industries, and to most digital marketing best practices, but they are especially important to the tourism sector. This is because people really do buy a location, a tour, or an activity based on the images available to them. When planning a holiday, we are looking for something special, with a beautiful destination. This is especially true when a tour or activity is particularly expensive, as good images (along with reviews) increase your trustworthiness — especially if the images show your guests enjoying themselves.

This preference towards visual content in the tourism sector also carries over to social media, as platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are frequently cited as people’s favourite tools for researching and planning holiday destinations. Investing in great images will not only make your website convert better, but it will also entice people on your social media platforms to visit your website. You cannot achieve the same results with stock images and we’d like to go into a few reasons why.

Your Competitors May Use the Same Stock Images

Depending on the quantity and availability of stock images in your destination or travel niche, you may not have many good stock images to choose from. This could mean that your competitors are relying on the same stock images that you are. The result is a range of product pages, blog posts, and social media posts that make you indistinguishable from your competitors.

Your Competitors May Use Original Images

Alternatively — and much more likely — your competitors may use their own original images and videos. This will mean that overusing stock images probably will set you apart from your competitors, but not in a good way. Imagine it from your potential customer’s perspective: they are considering buying your product but they are shopping around. They see the non-specific stock images on your site and they see your competitor’s site, where the images detail exactly what they can expect to see and do, and they may even show guests enjoying the experience. If you were in this potential customer’s shoes, which product would you choose?

Is It Ever Okay to use Stock Images?

The quick answer to the question above is, ‘yes, absolutely’. The longer answer is that it’s fine to use stock images in moderation, but only genuinely good images that are clearly related to your products. This is particularly relevant to blog writing, as you will need several high-quality images for each blog post, and you may not have the budget or the time to source all of your own images every time. When this happens, you should not simply use the first pretty image you find that is roughly related to your blog topic. Instead, spend an extra few minutes to find a more fitting image. Relevance to the topic will always trump aesthetics, and readers will be put off if they feel they are looking at a stock image that has little to do with the blog or guide they’re reading. Take the image above from the Steiermarkdorf Styrian Spring Festival last month. The image shows real people enjoying themselves who clearly aren’t models, and it was only taken a month ago. If you’re writing about Vienna in April or something about its festivals, then this image is completely fine to use.

Not all stock images are bad. Lots of photographers take incredible photographs and they sell them to stock image companies. It’s your job to find the best stock images to use alongside your own original images. Stock images should be a supplement to your unique visual content — not the other way around.

That’s all we have time for today. We hope we’ve convinced a few readers to be a little more discerning when using stock images and to take lots and lots of their own photos and videos. Stock images do have a place, but it’s a very small place, and anyone in the tours and activities sector should be very wary of them! If you have any questions about this topic or you would like to talk to an expert about your tourism marketing needs, please feel free to get in touch; we’re always happy to work with new brands.

Need more free advice?

Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Guide to Using (and not using) Stock Images appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Rather than having the briefest interactions with customers, it’s more efficient to keep this customer for future transactions.

Keeping a customers’ attention is one of the key challenges of any online tourism marketer and the secret is to do this without repeating yourself too much… This blog will look at the differences between sales and marketing content, and it will explain some of the ways marketing content can encourage and keep customer attention. 

What’s the Difference Between Sales Content and Marketing Content

It’s useful to outline the difference between sales content and marketing content. While most good websites should have both kinds of content, it’s important to recognise that both forms of content serve different purposes.

Sales content is the information about the products or services you are actively trying to sell to the reader. It’s the prices, the specifications, and anything a potential customer might want to know before making a purchase on your site. Any content that explicitly asks customers to buy from you is sales content. Brochures, product pages, price lists, etc., are all examples of sales content.

Marketing content, on the other hand, is not necessarily asking customers to buy a product or service. It discusses a topic that might be of interest or of use to a reader and, in doing so, it initiates a conversation with them. Marketing content aids the sales process by being helpful and engaging for the reader. Good marketing content adds value to the reader and either encourages them to click through the site to make a purchase or it familiarises them with your brand so that they are more likely to return another day, when they are looking to make a purchase. 

Offer Useful Information

This is relevant to all marketing, but it’s especially pertinent to the tourism marketing sphere, as customers often spend a long period of time planning (and shopping around) before they book their next trip. This means that most people booking a holiday are likely to visit several sites, gathering all of the information they need, before they start booking tours, accommodation, flights, etc. 

Other than having the best product/service, good prices, and great sales content, the best way to engage with potential customers is to help them plan their next trip. You can do this by offering useful information. Write detailed guides to the cities and countries you operate in, providing potential customers with as much information as possible. If you put all of this information into several guides, you’re saving readers a lot of time, as they won’t have to scour the internet in search of everything they want to know. Not only will this grab potential customer’s attention, it will likely encourage them to return. In fact, if your travel guides are especially good, the potential customer will probably bookmark them and perhaps even share them with a friend. 

Write Content that is Relevant to Your Customer

The key to this kind of content marketing isn’t just to publish as much as possible as often as possible and hope something sticks. Instead, it’s a good idea to do a little research and figure out the exact questions people are asking about your particular travel niche and about any tourism products or services that are directly related to you. 

As it sounds a little vague to talk generally about this, it’s better to give a specific example of this. If you sell tours in Rome, you should write several guides about the best tours to take in Rome, but you should also write more generally about Rome, offering advice and tips for anyone planning to visit the city. Perhaps you could write a guide to Rome’s public transport, or a guide to the best places to stay in Rome. Perhaps you could just offer a top 10 list of the best places to visit in Rome. Even though a lot of this content will require you to talk about things are that aren’t strictly relevant to your service, they are relevant to your customer and they will be grateful and impressed that you have helped them plan their next trip.

Finding Out What Potential Customers What to Know

If you’re convinced by the previous section of this guide, you will probably want an easy way to figure out exactly what potential customers would like to know about your niche and adjacent topics. There are so many ways of researching this: you can do surveys with previous customers, you can read your competitors’ sites, you can scour tourism magazines to see what kinds of guides and helpful content they’re writing… However, there is a much easier way: find out what questions people are searching on Google.

If you begin to type a question into Google, it will fill in the rest of your query with a suggestion based on previous users’ searches. If your search query begins with an interrogative word (who, what, when, why, where, etc.) then Google will suggest a question many other users have entered in the past. 

For example, as I type ‘when is paris…’ Google suggests ‘When is paris fashion week 2018’ and ‘when is paris marathon 2018’. 

As another example, when I type in ‘where in paris…’ Google suggests the following:

• ‘where in paris is disneyland’
• ‘where in paris is moulin rouge’
• ‘where in paris is roland garros’
• ‘where in paris is the louvre’
• ‘where in paris to stay’

If you write content that answers these questions then you know you’re answering the questions people want the answers to. No only does this mean you’re tapping into relevant search volume, it also means you are establishing a relationship with warm leads, as most people typing these kinds of questions into Google are at least considering visiting the city or country you operate in. 

Rather than struggling with Google suggests, however, I’d recommend using Answer the Public. This site draws everything from Google Suggests and makes it much easier to digest and plan which blogs and guides you should write. The best part about Answer the Public is that its free service is very comprehensive as all you have to do is type in a keyword and it will carry out several different searches, all with different interrogative words. It will then list all the questions Google users have asked about your particular niche or area. The paid service offers ever more data and search volumes for each query, but the free service will probably be enough for most marketers. 

Don’t Repeat Yourself (too much)

In this blog, we’ve talked about how marketing content should offer something useful to the reader, but it’s also important to mention that you should avoid repeating yourself to anyone visiting your site. If you’re writing a series of guides across a wide range of topics, a little bit of repetition is inevitable — and few customers are likely to be bothered by this. However, if you write and rewrite the same content in various different ways each month, any loyal readers and potential customers are likely to get bored and even frustrated. If you do return to the same topic, make sure you have something new to say and even acknowledge (and link back to) your previous blog. 

Conclusion

If you put a lot of care and work into your content marketing strategy, you will be able to grab and keep your customer’s attention. Writing useful or engaging content adds value for any potential customer or returning customer visiting your site. Using Google Suggests and/or Answer the Public can help you easily identify which topics people want to know more about and you can base your content marketing strategy around answering these questions.

If you maintain this strategy, whilst avoiding repetition, you will keep your customer’s attention as long as possible. 

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Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.

The post Keeping Customer Attention Without Repetition appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.

Why Write Blogs?

Writing blogs has become one of the most important parts of any well-managed digital marketing strategy, and it’s especially important in the tourism marketing industry. Writing regular high-quality blogs is a kind of content marketing that started out as a combination of SEO and online PR but has become a legitimate strategy in its own right. 

In the travel industry, we find out the topics (with high search volume) people are interested in and we write helpful, information blogs about these topics. Of course, blogs can also be used to humanise larger brands and to convey your company’s personality to prospective customers. Not only can blogging drive relevant traffic to your site, it can also drive conversions, convincing people to book with your company. With so much to gain from blogging, many people in the tourism marketing world are trying to figure out how to structure the perfect blog and we’d like to help.

Remember That Not All Blogs are the Same

It’s useful to figure out general guidelines and standards for all blog posts, but it’s important to recognise that not all blog posts are attempting to do the same thing — and this is a good thing! One blog post may be a guide for people planning to visit Rome, another might be an informative piece about Roman cuisine, another might even go into the history the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the Vatican. All of these blogs are interesting and valuable, but for different reasons, and their structures can and should represent these differences. 

The main difference between various blogs will be their intended function. Are they simply providing information about the city, are they explaining your service, or are they offering practical information? Ask yourself what need your blog is meeting in your potential audience and you’ll have a good idea what kind of blog it is. Once you know this, you should allow this format to dictate the structure. For instance, a how-to guide should have very clear language and neatly set-out steps that are easy to follow. An informative piece can have a more relaxed structure and an aspirational piece can talk directly to the reader, even asking them questions. 

The Perfect Title for a Blog Post

The title of a blog is the most important element. While it’s important to draw people in with a good title, there’s no point in overselling your content. If you imply your blog post does more or is more helpful/interesting than it really is, you may frustrate readers, and many will bounce back as soon as they realise they’ve been misled.

Instead, try to make your titles as obvious as possible, with a little less razzle-dazzle and a little more clarity. Most people are using Google to find specific information, so using specific language to communicate exactly what your blog is about will encourage more people to click through from their search engine results page. 

The Intro or Hook to a Blog

Hopefully, the title has pulled a few people in, and the intro or hook should keep them there. In the hook, quickly and succinctly tell the reader what the blog is about, making it appealing without overselling it. Think of this as extension of the title, where clarity is still the highest priority. 

Blog Subheadings 

A well-organised blog, with orderly subheadings, helps some of the more impatient readers scan through for the information they’re looking for. It also reassures readers that they’re in good hands, reading a blog post written by someone who has taken the time to organise their thoughts and arrange them in a way that makes sense. However, subheadings are also a great way of including relevant keywords and optimising your content for search. 

It’s always better to include a keyword in your subheading — unless it’s wrenchingly awkward. For example, the subheading for this section could simply be ‘Subheadings’ and it would be fine. However, ‘Blog Subheadings’ is also fine and it taps into any search volume for people Googling about writing blog subheadings. The trick here is to find a balance and to always ask yourself if including the keyword too off-putting. However, most of the time you’ll probably find that it’s perfectly reasonable to include a keyword.

Linking in Blog Posts

Links are an important part of any blog. Chances are, you’re writing about something you’re trying to sell, or the blog’s topic is at least relevant to something you’re trying to sell, so it’s vital that you link carefully and tastefully to your service/product pages. Linking too much can put off readers as they’ve come to the page for information and it’s unpleasant if there are too many links within the body of content. Overlinking can also be penalised by Google, but only if it is incredibly unnatural — but hopefully your linking practice is nowhere near that level.

Internal links can improve your website’s ranking by spreading any authority through to the rest of your website. Internal links are also a great way to point readers to relevant pages on your website that they may be interested in — which is why the best practice is to always ensure your links are helpful to the reader.

External links are also beneficial. Not only will linking to other [helpful] websites massively improve the reader’s opinion of you, but it can encourage other websites to link to you — which improves your rankings and increases your website’s potential audience. There is also a lot of evidence to suggest that Google’s algorithm acknowledges and rewards a small amount of external links as this is viewed as natural and inherently useful for the reader.  

The Conclusion

We’ve covered a lot in this blog post, so it might help to provide a brief summary:

• Not all blog posts are the same, so it’s important to allow the type of blog you’re writing to dictate its own structure.
• The title should be as clear as possible, without misleading the reader at all.
• The hook is basically an extension of the title and should also be as clear as possible.
• You should use lots of subheadings to clearly signpost each section of the blog. And don’t be afraid to include keywords in each subheading.
• Your blog’s links should be helpful to the reader, pointing them to pages on your site they might genuinely like to visit. You should include at least one or two external links. 

The conclusion of a blog post should be as clear and concise as the introduction, summing up everything you covered in the blog. However, if you don’t think your blog post needs a conclusion, then it’s fine to leave it out.

The post How to Structure the Perfect Blog appeared first on Tourism Marketing Agency.