Tourism Internet Marketing U

Make the Most of Your Direct Mail List Marketing

Direct mail list marketing is a great way to get your message to a significant number of people in your target market in a short period of time. Ideally, you would like to have each of these names on your private mailing list. If you’re smart about the content of the message you have the direct mail list company send out, you can go a long way toward converting the direct mail list recipients to your own private list subscribers.

Be sure to give the recipients of your mail list message a compelling reason to visit your web site The hypertext link in your direct mail message should take them to a page of your web site that not only gives them the content they are expecting, but also gives them a compelling reason to join your private mail list and an opportunity to easily sign up.

The key to getting your message opened and read is a dynamite subject line. You should consider personalizing the subject line with the recipient’s name and make sure the subject line copy does not read like an ad. Ads and junk mail are the first to be deleted.

Busy people do not read their email, they scan it. So it is important that your message follow suit and is written so it can be easily scanned. Be sure to grab the reader’s attention in the first sentence. If you don’t, he or she won’t read any further.

Your email is a reflection of the attention to detail you give everything in your business. So be sure your message is grammatically correct, that you are using the proper upper and lowercase letters and correct spelling.

Make sure you access and analyze any tracking information available from the direct mail list company. Notice what copy works best. Notice what subject lines give a better response rate. Notice the different responses from direct mail list companies.

Looking for even more on this topic? You’ll find this and much more inside the new edition of my book, 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site!

-Written by Susan Sweeney

Blogs: Simplifying the Writing Process

When you’re using a blog to keep information about your travel and tourism business up to date and to make sure that others are as able to stay on top of the information as possible, chances are good that you might have days where things get a bit chaotic. On those days, it’s great to know that there are a few things that you can do to simplify the process of writing to your blog.

First, have a sense of what you’re going to write before you sit down to write a post, then set a timer and free write for ten minutes (or 15 or 20 or whatever works for you). Keep in mind that your first draft can be written quickly and later edited; a draft is just that – something waiting for later revisions.

Similarly, if you know that you’re going to need to do some research for your travel and tourism related blogs, you might want to make an effort to do your research at a separate time than when you’re tackling the actual writing. The more that you’re looking at researching, the less you’re actually writing – this is also a good reason to close instant messaging services and your email; they can be distracting.

When you get rid of distractions, know what you’re planning to talk about and set limits for the amount of time you’re going to spend writing your blogs, you’ll find that you can simplify the process. By doing so, you’ll not only save time, but you’ll also be able to benefit from the marketing advantages and the publicity blogs give your web site.

Want more tips for blog writing? My book 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site has an entire chapter devoted to nothing but blogs!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Establishing Your Private Mail List: Promoting Your Private Mail List

Promote your private mail list wherever you can reach your target market: on your site, online through various online marketing techniques and offline. You will:

• Encourage your web site visitors to join your list by making sure you have “Join our e-club – click here” calls to action throughout your web site. You might enhance this with an incentive “Join our e-club to receive our bi-weekly tips, tools and techniques and to be included in our drawing for a weekend stay – click here.”
• Include a viral marketing element as previously described to encourage your subscribers to recommend your mail list to others.
• Invite your friends, colleagues, current clients and potential clients to join your list.
• Remember to mention your e-club in your email signature file. This is an easy way to promote your list.
• If you are looking for a large distribution list, you might even register your mailing list with Topica or other public mail lists.

I recently created an excellent webinar devoted to Private Mail List Marketing. If this blog leave you wanting more, I’m sure you’d find this even more useful!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Effective Promotion through Direct Mail Lists and Postcards

If direct mail were not still one of the best tools out there for reaching a target audience, fewer people would still be scrambling to get great direct mail lists and to find copywriters and desktop publishers who can get the word out for them. While it’s possible to market your business well with direct mail lists and postcards, one of the things that you’re likely to find is that it can be a lot easier to convert sales online. Ultimately, the answer – when you want to be sure that you’re attracting as much attention to your web site and business as possible – is to take advantage of direct mail for marketing your web site.

With your direct mail lists and postcards that you are already sending out for promotional purposes – whether you’re looking for a chance to get the word out about a new service you’re offering, a discounted price or a hot destination – you’ll find that you can get the best of both worlds. By including your web site address as a place to go for more information, and asking recipients to check it out, you’ll find that your results are two fold:

1. You’ll be able to continue to take advantage of direct mail and direct mail lists
2. You will be able to drive traffic to your web site – which means that recipients are likely to learn more about other offers that you have available.

Marketing your travel and tourism business is all about finding a balance: with effective direct mail promotion, you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to get the web traffic that you need and to convert more sales.

If you want to know just how to rocket your tourism business into the big time, consider my biggest and best package! My Internet Marketing Training Program covers 20 CDS! With audio and visual elements, it’ll make sure you know everything you need to get on top of the game!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

The Email Advantage: A Call to Action

When you give your readers a call to action, it’s amazing how often people will do as they’re told. I’ll give you an example of something we did. We ran a series of ten Internet marketing workshops for a large organization. Their staff and selected clients were invited to participate in any, some or all of the workshops. Their clients could include up to three employees. Because the workshops extended beyond noon, lunch was included.

Because we were responsible for organizing and managing the project, we needed to know the approximate number of people who would be attending each of the workshops to organize the luncheons. When we contacted each company’s representatives be e-mail looking for participation RSVPs, we conducted an experiment. We sent half the representatives one version of the message and the other half a slightly different version. The only difference between the two messages was that in one we included a call to action. In the message we asked: “RSVP before Wednesday at noon indicating if you will be attending as we must make arrangements for lunch,” and in the other, this same line read: “Please let us know if you are planning to attend as we must make arrangements for lunch.”

There was a 95 percent response rate from the group who received the first message. This is because we gave people a call to action and a deadline and they felt obligated to respond more promptly. Meanwhile, fewer than 50 percent of the people in the second group responded to our message. What does this tell us? To improve your response rate, give your readers a call to action when you sent them email. People respond when told to do something: the act with more urgency when there is a deadline.

Want even more ways to make your emails stand out and shout? Read through the email chapter of my book, 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site! It’s got everything you need to know!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Consumer Generated Media: What Can You Do to Get Past Clients to Add Content

When it comes to marketing your travel and tourism web site, having user-generated content is important. Ultimately, there are a number of different things that you can do to encourage your site visitors to participate.

For example, you can encourage consumer generated content by encouraging participation in your blog. When you write a daily blog, make sure that your current customers and clients know about it and let them know that they can participate.

You can encourage consumer generated media by encouraging your past clients to add their opinions about a location, the experience that they had working with you. Similarly, you can encourage them to send photos or videos that they took during their trip – and, to make sure that there’s participation, you can look into making it a sort of contest.

In order to get your past clients to add content to your web site, you need to be sure that you make it possible for them to do so and that there’s something in it for them. By doing so, you’ll find that the amount of consumer generated media on your site increases at a consistent pace.

Still worried you’re missing some information? You’ll find more on consumer generated media in my book just for tourism business, 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business.

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Developing Your Pay-to-Play Strategy: Geo-Targeting Your Campaign

Implementing a PPC strategy enables you to advertise to a mass audience, or to target internet users in a specific geographic region. Both Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing PPC campaigns provide you with the opportunity to target customers not only on a state or provincial level, but also on a local level, by displaying advertisements only to the potential customers conducting searches in your business’ area or in the area of your destination.

With AdWords alone, you can choose to target over 250 different countries in up to 14 different languages. You can also choose to advertise within over 200 different regions throughout the United States. Geo-targeting provides you with an increased level of control over where your ads are displayed and how they figure into your advertising budget. By targeting only those locations where you wish your ads to appear, you can maximize your online advertising dollars whether you are working with a small or a large budget.

By developing your pay to play strategy – and especially by developing a geo-targeted pay to play strategy – you will find that you are able to:

• Maximize exposure
• Expand your reach
• Better communicate with your target market

If this is a topic you’d like to know more of, you’ll be thrilled to know that it’s also one of mywebinars! Check out this CD of my last webinar all about Pay-Per-Click and Sponsored Listings!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Planning Your Web Site: Getting it Right

When you are planning your travel and tourism web site, one of the things that you are going to quickly discover is that it’s important to look at all of your options. After all, when you are planning your web site, you are in the best possible position to move forward and to make the choices that will be best for your site.

Getting your travel and tourism web site right means:

• Understanding who you are going to be reaching out to
• Recognizing that different demographics are going to be looking for different content
• Understanding the importance of choosing the right colors and images
• Focusing on creating a site that revolves around your customers and what’s in it for them and not just about you or your product or services
• Having a custom designed site rather than one that looks like it came out of a box.

When you’re planning your travel and tourism web site, one of the things that you’re going to want to do is to be sure that you create a site that looks right and feels right – a site that conveys exactly what you want it to.

When you’re able to focus on creating a web site that covers all the bases and sets you apart from your competition, simply put, you will find that you are in a great position to spread the word and to market your business effectively.

Ready to start on your own Web site? Don’t forget one of the most important steps, Search Engine Optimziation! Not sure what that is? Well, allow my popular training program to show you exactly what I mean…

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Search Engine and Directory Submissions: Preparing Your Directory Sub

Before submitting to the directories, you should go to each one you are interested in submitting to and print the submission forms. Then develop a Word file with all the required fields for all the submission forms you will be completing. Take the time up front to develop the submission material carefully. Organize the information in a logical order in a text file. Then, when you go to submit, you can copy and paste the content into the appropriate fields on each of the submission forms.

This approach gives you a starting point and will save you time when submitting your web site. You may need to adjust your information for each directory submission though, because they all have unique submission requirements. You need to be careful to follow them to the letter to reduce the risk that a directory editor might change your submission entry. You want your listing to appear in your words, with no editing.

Be sure to spell check, check and recheck everything before you start. Spell checkers won’t pick up misspelled “works” if the word is also in the dictionary.

After you print the submission forms, you’ll find that there are many common elements requested by the different directories. The information prepared for each page on the site to be indexed should include:

• URL
• Page title
• Ten word, 25-word, 50-word and 100-word descriptions for the page
• List of keywords for each page
• Descriptions of the ideal audience for the site
• Categories and subcategories you should be listed under for the different directories you plan to submit to
• Contact information

For more information, check out my webinar devoted just to this one topic! That’s my Search Engine and Directory Submission webinar!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Productive Online Advertising Makes You Available 24/7

One of the best things about establishing an online presence for your travel and tourism business is that it will make it so that your message gets out even to those who are looking for information about a destination you service in the middle of the night while you are home. Of course, just because your web site is up and running doesn’t mean that you are immediately available 24/7.

Productive online advertising makes it so that your clients or customers – both those who have worked with you in the past and those who are looking for services but haven’t yet chosen an agent or supplier – can get the information that they are looking for when they’re looking for it.

An auto-responder can fall into the category of productive online advertising because, regardless of when someone requests information, they will receive an immediate response. You will find that this is a great thing for two reasons:

1. Your prospects will get the right information while they are looking for it and planning to act; and
2. You won’t go into the office in the morning only to discover that you have a number of requests for information to sort through and prioritize – which means making them wait even longer to get a response.

Blogs are also a form of productive online advertising in that they link up to your web site and give readers a chance to participate – to leave comments about and to ask questions relating to your post. That way, they won’t just be able to get your answer, but they will also be able to get advice from other readers – some of whom will have used your services for years.

When you want to be sure that your online advertising is productive, think about availability; make sure that your current and prospective clients are able to get their needs met regardless of when they are looking for more information.

Looking to hold on to the new visitors to your site? Learn how to keep those visitor coming back for more with my Generating Repeat Traffic webinar!

-Written by Susan Sweeney