|
1. Have a computer and internet access for anyone in your company dealing with tourists: Don't laugh, there are still companies out there without a computer. Let's assume you do have a computer which is connected to the internet, but do your key personnel have access to it? If not, it would be time to consider getting them a computer too and linking your PCs into a little network. Why? Because every staff member who deals with marketing, inquiries, reservations and customer care needs to be able to communicate with your clients via email. That's the least any traveller expects form your organisation. And linking your computers to a little network saves you money as all people can share the same internet connection.
2. Have an internet domain: Here we are talking about your own domain name, which should be your business name, and if this is not available, anything as close as possible to your business name. These days, domain registration costs as little as R 99 per year, so money can't be the excuse of not having your own domain.
If you need a reliable partner for hosting - click here >>
3. Have a website: The fact is that a website costs you less than printing 5000 A5 flyers, not to mention the distribution of your brochures. I know the argument of brochure versus website. Have both, but if you can't, do NOT scrap the website from your budget, rather the brochure.
4. Have email and the right email address: Email is for now, the preferred means of communication of travellers. It's fast, cheap, easy to use and available even in the remotest of places. (Remember, there is wireless and cell phone connectivity these days!) But what do I mean with having the right email address?
Have you ever seen internet contact details of a company similar to this:
- Internet: www.yourname.co.za
- Email: yourname@provider.co.za
Real life example of what not to do:
- Internet: www.parkesmanor.co.za
- Email: parkesmanor@mweb.co.za
Real life example of what to do:
- Internet: www.grootbos.co.za
- Email: info@grootbos.co.za
Can you see with the latter example of Grootbos, how you promote your own website just by means of your own email address? Can you see the benefit of giving everyone the opportunity of visiting your website by just having your email address?
Why do I stress this point so much? Because every lost visitor to your website is a lost client. Every email sent out identifying the domain of your service provider in your email address is a lost visitor to your website..... And if you do have an own domain, it does not cost you anything to use it for your email address too!
5. Have a mailing list or more: Having a number of email addresses in the address book of your email program is NOT a mailing list.
And please, don't use the cc or bcc function in your email program to send one email to all your address book contacts. It is not only unprofessional, but the recipient also sees everyone else to whom you have sent your email. And more important, the chances are rather high that your mail will be classified as spam.
So what is a mailing list? A mailing list is an organised database sorting your contacts into groups. You need a few groups to begin with such as clients, inquiries, suppliers, trade partners, etc. Each mailing list needs to have the contact person's name and email address. Do not confuse your mailing list with your contact database where you keep everything from address to birthdays and all details relating to one contact. A mailing list is meant for email contact only! There are however contact databases from which you can extract the information you need into a simple email mailing list. Lets look of the purpose of your different mailing lists:
- Client mailing list: This mailing list contains only your existing / past clients. You use it to send customised emails to all your clients offering them repeat visit specials, giving them information about new facilities or new tours you offer etc.
- Inquiry mailing list: In this mailing list you collect contacts / inquiries which did not make any reservations. You use it for customsed emails to this group to motivate them to make use of your services for sample with a once-off introductory offer.
- Supplier mailing list: This mailing list you use to communicate changes / updates to your suppliers.
- Trade partner mailing list: Again, this mailing list you use to communicate changes / updates to your trade partners, inform them of any specials you offer and what programmes you have, should they send clients your way.
There might be more mailing lists, depending on the nature of your business. Then there is the mailing list that contains all your contacts - a so-called merged mailing list.
Get the software Africa Adventure uses - click here >>
6. Have a regular email campaign to your mailing lists: You need to stay in touch with your contacts to encourage them to visit you / come back to you. So find a reason, or rather a good reason, at least four times a year, to send a customised email to all your mailing lists. Don't rattle on with the same old story of how comfy your beds are or how " home away from home" your establishment is. Write something the people want to read, something catchy, something funny, something to make them respond either via email, or with a visit to your website or with a reservation of your service.
Get the software Africa Adventure uses - click here >>
7. Have a rapid response system in place: Yes, response time is everything, not just for the armed response team watching your property. Everyone appreciates a quick response to their query, and if you take too long, the person who has sent an inquiry to you might have already booked with someone else. Work on 12 hours maximum response time and you should be catching the worm, but quicker is better!
8. Have your website updated regularly. Just changing your rates every year doesn't mean you are updating your website. Make your website interesting, give information not only about your rooms and the tea and coffee facility everyone goes on about, but make the people want to use your website. What is the benefit for them to browse your website and eventually do a booking with you? Give them reasons to visit you, especially your town, your area, your country!
9. Have your website advertised in traditional media. Everything written on advertising could easily fill a library and can cost you more than your establishment would bring if you were to sell it, but without advertising the wheels will eventually stop. I'm not talking about the R 25 000 advertisements in certain booklets, I'm talking about smartly placed classified advertisements promoting your website instead of giving the whole spiel. Lets play with the example above:
- Holidays along the Whale Coast, South Africa - visit www.grootbos.co.za
What do you think this classified advertisement will cost you in a South African newspaper. My guess is anything between nothing and R 200. Now let's say you place this classified advertisement in an overseas publication. It would cost you about R 200 to R 600 per insertion, no more! And you advertise directly overseas. A word of caution though, do not overdo it as many small sums quickly add up to a large one. Also be sure to measure the success of every advertisement you place.
10. Measure your advertising results. With e-marketing everything you do is measurable. Your hosting provider should have some sort of site statistics available where you can monitor every movement on your website. So imagine that Grootbos (our sample from above) wants to attract holiday makers for the winter season from Johannesburg and would place following advertisement in the classified section of Sunday Times on the 1st weekend of August:
"It's whale season along the Southern Cape Coast - visit www.grootbos.co.za for a whale of a holiday"
This advertisement would be short lived as it is a newspaper that normally gets read on the weekend and disposed of on Monday, at the latest. So, on Monday already, Grootbos could check the success of their advertisement by logging onto their website statistics to see what happened there over the weekend. If the advertising media was any good for the offer advertised, there should be visible movement on the website e.g. more visitors to the website during the weekend than previous days / after, and weekends before. If so, the advertisement could be repeated, if not, Grootbos could try a different publication to find the one that does produce results.
This TRY and SEE kind of advertising takes time, but will be most beneficial and cost effective for you to find your ideal advertising media (don't even think you can do with only one medium)
11. Have your website listed in search engines. By now, I believe there is even more written about advertising online, than on advertising the more traditional way. But one thing is sure - if you are not listed in search engines you will not get any results from e-marketing. It's like having a brochure printed and leaving it in your storeroom, not displayed anywhere. You do have it but no one looks at it!
There are many people out there wanting to make a quick buck out of you offering rather questionable search engine results. The funny thing is, that you actually can't bribe a search engine, at least not the organic search results (the ones you don't pay for!). Even funnier, is that you can do it all by yourself! You don't have to pay anyone to do it for you.
Now lets look at which search engines are important to begin with. Start with Google, why? Because it is the most widely used search engine in the world and actually helps you to get your site listed in a few easy steps.
First you need to create an online account with www.google.co.za and once you are logged in, you select the link to webmaster tools.
These webmaster tools are most helpful making it easy to understand how Google works and how to get your site listed on Google. Once this is done you need to look at the ranking of your pages and how to improve the ranking. All of it is explained in much detail and there for you to use. Like with so many things in life, you just have to do it!
Once you've done this and your site is listed on Google, go and apply for your free listing on different search engines, such as Yahoo and the like. Important is, that there are only about 50 really important search engines.
There is however so much more that can be done, and so much easier too, by using specialized software programs. We have tried quite a few of them and we are now using Dynamic Mail Communicator and SEO Suite for the best and easiest results.
Get the software Africa Adventure uses - click here >>
12. Do all the above and you have laid the basic foundation for successful e-marketing. The next would be to understand how the world is changing and with it, the internet. There are so many things you can do to stay on top but again, you just have to do it.
For inspiration and loads of good information, try to read Japie Swanepoel's "the e of marketing" booklet published by Juta, Cape Town, ISBN-13:978 0 7021 7226 7 |
