Tools

When your marketing budget is limited, there's an easy way to add power to your promotions: piggyback. Piggyback marketing essentially means using someone else's marketing budget to benefit your business. 

Obviously I don't mean actually using their money, but rather harnessing the power of their activity and piggybacking on the awareness they're able to create. It's a bit like riding in the slipstream of a more powerful vehicle. 

Read on for some ideas for current trends you can easily piggyb…

There's a Japanese expression and approach that many Western business leaders have started to use: Kaizen*. I think it's also invaluable for small tourism business, especially those with tiny marketing budgets and no time.

The Kaizen approach is based on the idea that small continuous steps and tweaks build up to more substantial improvements over time.

Kaizen is good news for all of us for three reasons:

1. Small steps are easier, especially when you don't have a lot of time;

2. It costs practicall…

Instagram has recently made two changes which are likely to make a big difference to users.

Firstly, you can now log in to your account and post to Instagram directly from your computer so Instagram is no-longer mobile-only.

The second change is that now everyone can add links in Stories. This used to be something only available on verified accounts or those with a given number of followers but is now being rolled out everywhere.

To add links to your Stories, you need to use the Link sticker …

I love twitter for the variety of topics  on there and the many useful links I often find, but I rarely suggest businesses use it to promote their businesses. Whenever I look at Google Analytics for tourism business websites, twitter seems to refer very little business.

Twitter is brilliant for one thing though: generating free media coverage.

Journalists love twitter. They use it to gather stories, spot trends, find new contacts and – most importantly and useful for you – to ask for informati…

One easy thing you might have forgotten to do…

I get a LOT of emails from tourism businesses. Many small businesses use gmail, hotmail and other email addresses instead of using their domain name (e.g. susan@tourismnetwork.co.uk).

While there’s nothing wrong with doing this, it could be having a small impact on your business. It’s not always obvious which business you’re writing from because the email address doesn’t mention the business name. Quite a lot of non-domain name email addresses get…

Ever feel some things are just too big to deal with?

You know it’s important but it just feels too big to tackle? Sometimes it’s something like redecorating – you know it needs doing but can’t face all the upheaval. Or you’ve got a new phone and know it’s got all kinds of clever functions but there’s never a good time to learn what to do. Climate change is a whole other level of daunting. What can one person do that’s ever going to make any difference?

Whatever the daunting challenge you’re f…

Would you like visitors to recommend your business? To write positive reviews about it? To really spread the word about what you do? 

If you do a good job, there's a strong chance people will tell others. They may even do so on social media, potentially informing hundreds or even thousands more people. 

But there's only a chance they'll do that. it's likely, but not guaranteed. 

What if you could increase the chance? To make it more likely that people will remember you and actively want to te…

I’ve been asked several questions this week, all with a common theme: comparisons.

What’s a normal level of direct bookings for an accommodation provider?

What sort of level of repeat bookings should I aim for? 

What would be a usual bounce rate on Google?

How are bookings looking for everyone else over the next few months?

Are others experiencing a higher than usual level of cancellations?

How good is my social media compared to others?

I’ll answer each of these in a little more detail l…

I very rarely recommend paying for advertising. It's worth getting every other aspect of your marketing right before you start paying for ad space, particularly as it's so hard to judge how effective it is. But sometimes you need results quickly.

Google Adwords is different to traditional advertising. It's a really useful and cost-effective tool, whether you want to raise your profile or attract some last-minute bookings. 

Most advertising costs a lot, and you won't have a clue whether some on…