I’ve been telling everyone and anyone who will listen to me for about 3 years now, that Followupthen is an absolute must if you want to be the most productive version of yourself. I’ve been a massive fan-boy for years […]
How to Use Facebook Ads to Reach Visitors Nearby, Without Wasting a Dollar. How to Get Started on Google Ads, with Less than $7 a Day, and No Idea What You Are Doing. How to Target Your Newsletter, To Different […]
In mid-2018 my wife and I finally made a decision 6 years in the making; to prepare our lives to sell up and tour Australia with our two girls in a caravan. When Covid hit in early 2020 it really […]
This blog heading just got your attention, right? Now imagine the open rate if you used it in your next newsletter as the subject line. I dare you to try it (just once…). Your mission is to do a bit […]
The language East Coast Tasmania use; ‘Images’, ‘Logo Pack’, ‘Marketing Opportunities’. You don’t need clever language to be clever. Clever is connecting your members with what they need, adding value to their business, and guess what – retaining them next […]
If I said to you; the status quo is far riskier, than innovating, I think you would likely agree with me. We don’t have to dig too deep to remember brands like Blockbuster who failed to innovate and died. Why […]
In 2019 I used the messaging framework I talk about in this post to develop the marketing messaging to help attract event attendees to this workshop session I ran for Tourism Geelong Bellarine. For that session, we attracted nearly 90 […]
Depending on what statistic you see, you’ll find that about 40-60% of all traffic to websites hits the homepage as a starting point (landing page). Furthermore, you have about 5 seconds to grab the user’s attention. For these reasons it is […]
I appreciate that you are not a web developer, nor I’m guessing have you yourself managed too many website projects. So it probably feels quite intimidating attempting to successfully navigate your organization through the process of a new industry website […]
Goals and objectives are often confused but both are very important ideas that need to be used and integrated to have a clear picture and plan, of where you are trying to take an organization or business. I’ve been working […]
Yesterday I posted a short tactical article with a suggestion on how to engage your members via your Facebook business page audience. Today I want to jump into the Delorean with you and go back to before I wrote that […]
On Facebook or LinkedIn ask your members to choose a reaction in response to this question; ‘How long has your business been established?’ Show a graphic (or text) that people can use to understand reactions (choices for the audience) available. […]
So, as recommended in the previous article, you’ve decided to try and acquire more images from your members to build up an asset bank of images. How do you approach it from a technical and communication perspective? I’d say, keep […]
A big bank of images is crucial for your region, for both your DMO and tourism operators to showcase your collective stories. Operators are out there taking 100s (possibly 1000s) of images every week but have no easy way to […]
I was involved in the development of an Industry Vision and Industry Development Plan for a small coastal Borough, Queenscliff (Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale), in Victoria. During the insights gathering process we interviewed businesses throughout the towns. We asked the […]
If I were (and I have been) a tourism operator, here is what I’d have on my wishlist; Membership Make it easy to understand what’s involved, the benefits, and the costs. Gold Coast do this well. Do this every year, […]
Would you agree that building capability, enabling collaboration, and improving your members’ bottom line are three key metrics members are expecting you to impact? Yes? Then why aren’t you measuring how you are doing? I’m not talking about a survey […]
We are often so romanced by Facebook Ads, websites, social media, and photography, that we forget to address this one critical marketing channel to grow a tourism business. Reviews. Consumers rely on them more than ever. Yet, most businesses I’ve […]
1. You are not experts (and never will be) and when you rely on them many come in looking to sell what they do and fail to deliver members’ needs. 2. Your training content doesn’t have a common thread running […]
We’re all subscribed up to our eyeballs on various products and services. Netflix. Stan. Quickbooks. Xero. Dropbox. Office. Adobe. The list goes on. It’s in our personal life and at work. Subscription overwhelm is coming. There’s going to be a […]
The answer is the front end is mostly for potential new members. There are of course other stakeholders. Media. Local government departments. However, it’s the biggest job the website has is to sell the value of collaboration and membership to […]
You have been running in-person training for years. For the past 12 months, you have added webinars and online courses. Yet you continue to keep finding yourself asking, ‘What can we offer to members, that they will value?’ ….Or some […]
It’s late 2020. My wife, kids and myself have been travelling for the last 8 months in our caravan around Eastern Australia. Bumping in and out of locations every couple of days. We do a little research before we hit […]
What if all businesses that served your visitor, automatically qualified to be a member? How would that change your organization? I have always found it interesting this push and pull between the need for Destination Marketing Organisations to represent the […]
How many times have we been in a meeting and someone has said, ‘I don’t really like it’. Maybe a social post… A new logo, or sub-brand. A colour scheme. An idea for the website. A campaign idea. A membership […]
Have you ever had a guest presenter speaking to your industry operators, who have just really missed the mark? Perhaps they made it all about themselves and forgot that the businesses represented in the audience are the real heroes in […]
Consumerism has made us addicted to our devices and to acquiring material possessions to prove to other people, who let us be honest, are often not important to us, that we are succeeding. This pursuit of ‘perception or success’, is […]
PART 1 (covered in this previous post) Define the aspirational identity of your members. Define what your members (and potential members) want. Define their problems, as they relate to your service. PART 2 (we’re covering in this post) Demonstrate empathy […]
If you’re big enough, you might have someone in a membership officer role. This however doesn’t mean there’s not a single member of your team who isn’t responsible for sales. Not if you want a strong member base and a […]
If I’m a tourism operator running a business in your region, what you (the DMO) want is not important to me. For the most part, the majority of your members don’t care that you need a strong membership base to […]
Whether your a tourism business or a destination marketing organisation, projects arise. A new website. A refresh of the marketing material. A re-brand. A campaign. Reviewing the visitor experience. The list could as infinite as the jobs seem to be. […]
We were travelling through Outback Queensland eagerly anticipating hitting the towns connected by the Dinosaur Trail. Talked up online and in brochures as a journey to prehistoric times and Australia’s story. Well, two out the three towns we got to […]
If there’s one thing good that came out of 2020 it will go down as the year that Tourism Boards & Destination Marketing Organisations started to pay more attention to the needs of their operators. Pre 2020, DMOs were the […]
“For brand knowledge to become imbedded throughout the organization, it has to be protected against “evaporation,” the tendency for decisional wisdom to disappear as experienced people leave the company. The long-term success of any brand depends on the constant regeneration […]
To become ‘irresistible’ requires alignment of Brand, Product, and Marketing. You can have a great product but if you don’t have the language to sell it, you never will. If people don’t know you exist, they can never turn up. […]
They’re not wearing ‘I heart Melbourne’ much. It’d also feel a little reaching and disingenuous too, right? So why are they? It’s not because the restaurants are great. They probably are, but there are great restaurants everywhere. It’s not public […]
As in, worthy of remark. Thy hallowed five-star Review is so important today, more so than ever. Why? Because what people say about our brand is far more important than what we say about it. So why are so many […]
1. Know your mid and long-term objectives and why you are in business in the first place. Why does the business exist in the first place? If it is just about the money, you are going to have to search […]
A Brand Strategy is a statement and set of guiding principles that clearly articulate who and what the organization stands for, and an aspirational brand position. When communicated and adopted in the organization (or destination) the Brand Strategy should facilitate […]