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John Willard, president of Wilderness Expeditions
agrees, "Tracking advertising saves money." John found that by
monitoring their advertising and promotions monthly and making changes
as necessary; his advertising and promotions was far more effective
without spending more money.
E-Marketing - The Most Trackable Marketing
Savvy businesses effectively use staff and technology
to capture useful information about their prospects who visit their
website.
"It's important to have log reports that are
detailed and give you good marketing information. This is something you
should insist on from your Internet service provider", Laurel King
of Adventure Sports Online stated. The software they use is called Web
trends and tracks the top ten URL's used to access your site, top key
words used, pages most often hit, average time stayed, etc.
Marketing with the internet (E-marketing) is one of
the best strategies to track exactly what key word phrases are getting
traffic and what ads yield the best return on investment. Google Adwords
allows you rotate two different ads for the same group of key word
phrases. What this means is the market will tell you, based on your
click through rate (CTR) what offer has the highest response, i.e.
demand.
It gets even better. Google, unlike Yahoo Overture,
Google will even LOWER your cost per click (CPC) for your ads with
higher CTR. More web traffic for less money. Plus Google has free
conversion tracking to determine your return on investment for
e-newsletter sign-ups, brochure requests and reservations. This is place
to start your travel advertising.
A Word of Caution
Google does have some subtle nuances that if not done
right, will cost you a bunch of money with little return. But with a
little guidance and some tips, you can out market your competition
easily.
According to Dan Austin, Co-Director of Austin-Lehman,
“The source of the inquiry is the most important. How did they hear
about us?" Every lead, whether it's from the phone, internet,
in-house mailing or from a trade show gets a "source code" on
their computer. These source codes allow you to run reports about your
prospects. Additional important monitoring methods include the clients
geographic area, are they a repeat guest, when they want to travel, what
offer they responded to, who were they refereed by, etc.
It's important to remember that profitable advertising
and promotion is a blend of what your offer looks like and communicates
as well as where it is placed. Often clients run an ad that their friend
designed, for only an issue or two to "try it out". Because
they may not have gotten immediate response, advertisers often blame the
medium. It may be the ad was not compelling, lacked a good offer, placed
in the wrong media or all the above.
Travel Advertising Tips: Re-assess quarterly
with print and weekly on Google Adwords to make sure your advertising
money is working for you. Use your website log report to determine your
source of visitors, path of traffic on your site. If your log reports
show that most prospects are leaving after less then 1 minute – your
website needs major work to enhance retention which will lead to more
sales.
Your success is gauged by cost effectively converting
prospects into paying clients. Prospects do not pay the bills, only
sales.
Converting Prospect Into Sales
What experience are prospects and clients having of
your company when they want to reach you?
Staff
I liked what Eric at OARS said, "Marketing makes
the phone ring. Staff really makes the difference in converting them
into a sale". Your staff should be knowledgeable on all the
products or services you offer. If your staff is sold on the company,
they will transfer their enthusiasm to the client.
Follow-Up
Make a commitment to process literature requests and
get questions answered on a timely basis. Establishing rapport and
credibility with your prospect is key.
Persistence
Your prospect should have your company or destination
name at the top of their mental list. Postcards, brochures, newsletters,
E-mail newsletters, testimonials, display ads, yellow pages,
association, etc. can all perform well if there is continuity in the
message and you are persistent.
Travel Advertising Tip:
Remember to ask on your outgoing answering machine
message, questionnaires, etc. how people found out about your company.
Do you want free
travel marketing tips, resources and tele-seminars to increase
your sales, arrivals and profits? Go to http://www.AdventureBizSuccess.com
and get our E-newsletter and new Podcast, Tourism Business
Success.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com
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