Archive for the ‘airline industry’ Category
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
Google+ is becoming an essential tool for the travel & tourism industry. Early adopters have shown us a path to success. Let’s explore some current best practices to maximize your presence.
Google + Best Practices
Share content about your business as well as other industry information. Research has shown that out of 9 or 10 posts 1 or 2 can be about your own business.
- Destinations can share information from hotels, restaurants and attractions to broaden their circle of influence.
- Hotels and attractions can share not only their in-house specials but local events, updates on local promotions and even video.
Comment other businesses to increase your own brands’ awareness.
- Tour Operators & Attractions can comment on a Destination update to draw attention to their own itineraries and new developments.
Photos in every post increase engagement and awareness. The space allocated to photos and videos in a post is large and clear. Focus on your Cover Photo and change it by season to highlight new events and group departures.
Profiles include clickable links and a variety of relevant sections to showcase your business. Key areas of impact are your blog, website, social sites, newsletter and on-line booking engine. Maximize the power of your key words by weaving them into all sections of your profile.
Customize the names of the Circles as well as your cover photo and logo. Stimulate reader attention to your blog, website and other social sites by creating links to each.
Icons! Add the +1 icon to your website so that people can more easily share your information.
Early adoption of new ways to socially reach more clients has been proven to uncover new business. When you harness the excitement you’ll join these companies who are already reaping the reward of early adoption. (Please note this is a brief list and I apologize if I missed your company.)
- Tour Operators: Tauck Tours, Globus Family of Brands, Explorica
- Hotels: Four Seasons, Hilton, RIU, Hyatt
- Cruiselines: Celebrity, Princess, Viking River Cruises, Fred Olsen Cruising, Carnival
- Attractions: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Callaway Gardens
- DMO’s: Visit Palm Springs, Destinations in Florida, Glacier Country Montana
What other best practices have you found helpful?
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Tags: blogging, Google+, marketing, marketingplan, Mobile marketing, Networking, sales, salestips, Selling, smallbusiness, social engagement, Social Media, tourism industry, tourismbusiness, tourismsalestips, touroperator, tourwholesaler, travelagent, travelindustry
Posted in airline industry, blogging, Branding, Facebook Marketing, Google +, marketing, Mobile marketing, promotion, sales, Social Media Marketing, strategy, tourism industry, Tourism Sales Tips, Travel Consultant, travel industry | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Are you interested in knowing more about when to Tweet? Do you wonder how many of your clients are using Twitter? Does it keep you awake at night analyzing what people are saying about your company or a preferred supplier.
Here are a couple of my favorite tips to manage, analyze and market.
- Set up a managing tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to manage, schedule and oversee your social sites. These tools let you pre-schedule your posts and will provide some analytics for you.
- Want to know what people are really saying about your company or a preferred supplier? Simply go to: Twitrratr or SocialMention. These tools are easy to use and provide up to the minute details.
- Check out services that analyze your Twitter following and assign the most productive time for you to Tweet. See TweetWhen
- Also check out When to Tweet for stats on when your followers are re-tweting. This service takes awhile to search your Twitter feed and followers.
- There are services that will search your client base and determine who is currently on Twitter. Check out Flowtown
- Try Twello! It’s the yellow pages of Twitter users. This is a great way to pick up the Twitter handles of specific people; clients, thought leaders or industry gurus who may have a unique Twitter handle.
- See this travel specific blog for additional Twitter strategies
These tools make it easier to manage your time and get the most from your social media experience. As you can see, this is only a brief list of my favorite Twitter tools. What are your favorites? Please use the comment section below and share with our travel colleagues.
Let’s keep the conversation going. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: marketing, sales, salestips, Social Media, tourismsalestips, touroperator, tourwholesaler, travelagent, travelindustry, Twitter
Posted in airline industry, hospitality, hotel industry, ITMI, NACTA, National Tour Association, NTA, Social Media Marketing, Time Management, tourism industry, Tourism Sales Tips, Travel Consultant, travel industry | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
LinkedIn Events + Twitter = Powerful event marketing for Travel pros.
Events applications on Facebook and LinkedIn are powerful ways to spread the word of your upcoming group tours, special events and training workshops. Choosing the right application for your specific event is critical. In an earlier post we worked thru the benefits of using Facebook Events as a marketing tool to bring you a greater critical mass of awareness and exposure. Here we’ll delve into the distinct advantages of LinkedIn Events when marketing on a B2B level. In a subsequent post we’ll explore proven ways to blend social and traditional media.
LinkedIn Events
Are you targeting professionals for your upcoming event? Is your next tour designed with history professors in mind? Does your city need to attract more architects to your new Skyscraper Museum? Yes? LinkedIn provides the answer to niche marketing.
Creating an event on LinkedIn starts in the ‘MORE’ tab. (for a step by step guide, please see the screen shots and advice at http://ow.ly/3Mumv)
Even if you’re not the event organizer you can still create an event and include the organizers contact information. Once created, you’ll see a URL that you can use in your e-mail blasts and blog posts. At this point you can also invite your connections who will then see the invite on their weekly update as will all of their connections. Think how this could spread.
Twitter
Twitter is fabulous for getting the message out quickly! Consider the hotel that’s hosting a gourmet wine pairing event or the tour company planning an exclusive demonstration of Thai music at their next consumer evening. How about tweeting small details to tempt and tease potential clients.
Tips:
- Include photos and links to your event pages and web site.
- Ask people to re-tweet to gain momentum immediately.
- Consider using a media calendar to plan your tweet strategy and timing
Twitter’s search capability grows infinitely when you include a # (hashtag). You can start your own # simply by beginning to use whatever word you’d like to describe your event and then using other common # to increase your visibility. Let’s use the Thai music example, you could create a hashtag #thailand, #thaimusic, #thaitourism. This idea will draw people passionate about this topic to your event page while garnering you new clients on your tour to Thailand.
Advanced tip: If your event is large enough you may want to start a new Twitter account just for the event. Think about the NTA Convention (#NTA2010). This will allow you to amass passionate followers and generate conversations. From here you may want to consider a live Twitter feed being shown on a large screen during your event.
What strategies have you used to market your tourism events?
Join the conversation….. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: Facebookmarketing, hospitality, hotelsales, LinkedIn, marketing, NTA, sales, salestips, smallbusiness, Social Media, tourism industry, tourismbusiness, tourismsalestips, tourwholesaler, travelagent, travelindustry, Twitter
Posted in airline industry, marketing, National Tour Association, Social Media Marketing, strategy, Tourism Sales Tips, Travel Consultant, travel industry, Twitter, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
How do I eliminate ads from my business page? This was a big question at the recent NTA Convention.
Many people are baffled why those ads always appear on the right-hand side of their Facebook business page. Many people are also baffled by why those ads only appear on some Facebook business pages.
I find there are always new baffling questions that arise and I love doing the research to learn the answers. (Hopefully I learn them before the questions change.)
The Solution:
The solution here is fairly simple if you’re just starting to create your business page. However, it becomes a bit more complicated if you’ve already started your page and have chosen the category “local business” and have since built up a substantial number of fans.
First, if your business is a ‘local business’—one that has the need to list hours of service, transit information and phone/web contact information—then your business page will always appear with ads on the right hand side of the page. This may apply to restaurants and attractions most frequently. If this is not the case you may want to consider the next option.
When you’re setting up your business page on Facebook you will have a choice of selecting “local business” or “brand, product or organization”. When you choose ‘brand, product or organization” you’ll have the opportunity to further select what type of business category you belong.
This choice is important when potential clients search out business types on Facebook, so ensure that you choose the category that most closely represents your business. Choices within the tourism industry include; airline, food & beverage, hotel/lodging, rental car or travel.
If you have a hotel with a restaurant that draws from the local community you may want to consider having a page for each sector of your business. If you run a tour operation business you may want to consider listing yourself as ‘Travel’.
The value of setting up your business as a ‘brand, product, organization’ is that you have the opportunity to include more detail in the Info tab. You can include your company overview, mission and products. Check out this example of the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
Now, the bottom line is that when you assign your business the category of ‘brand, product, organization’, ads will not appear on your viewers screen.
If you’ve originally selected ‘local business’ you have a choice of setting up a new page and enticing your fans to follow you (you cannot change your selection) or living with the fact that viewers will see ads that appeal specifically to them when they view your business page.
Tips:
If you choose to set up a new page and want to entice fans to join you there here are a couple of tips.
- Make a post on your current page advising viewers of your new page
- Provide some type of incentive for them to ‘like’ your new page
- Consider a contest or sweepstakes
- Let your Twitter followers know that you now have a new Facebook page
- Put the link to your new page in your newsletter and e-zine
- When sending out your next e-mail blast, provide a direct hyper- link to this new page
- Be sure to change your e-mail signature line to direct people to your new page
What other ideas do you have? I look forward to keeping the conversation alive as we all learn better from each other.
Let’s keep the conversation going. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Posted in airline industry, Facebook Marketing, hospitality, hotel industry, marketing, National Tour Association, NTA, Social Media Marketing, strategy, tourism industry | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
Ok, I know what you’re thinking! Nope, that F-word doesn’t figure into to this line-up.
In order to successfully sell and market yourself, your product or your destination you may want to consider these 3 tips to keep from failing:
- Don’t flub up!
- Don’t fritter away your time
- Don’t forget to have a bit of FUN!
We don’t wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “Today I’m going to consciously flub up.” Nope, if you’re like me you wake up and go thru the list of things you need to accomplish during the day. Flubbing up just happens!
In this day and age of Facebook, Blackberries and Twitter the need to be totally wired seems to take over. At times do you feel that there’s just too much going on that it’s hard to focus on any one thing? (There’s another F-word for us) Is this lack of focus is perhaps the cause of flubbing up?
At a recent convention I noticed that people were trying to Tweet during an educational session, they were downloading photos of the speaker to their Facebook page and they were surreptiously trying to answer e-mail on their Blackberry. How do you think their focus was on any of those tasks? How much less listening to the speaker and trying to absorb new ideas was happening?
On the flip side of the coin is the second point. Don’t fritter away your time. While we’ve become experts at multi-tasking to make better use of our time, do you at times find yourself staring at your email and reading one e-mail after another while an important task awaits. This type of time-suck is a method of procrastination! We look busy; we convince ourselves that this is important work. However, consider what’s really at the top of your To-Do list.
Lastly, in order to stay successful and not fail, we need to have some FUN!
Just think if you were able to play hooky at lunch? How about a full day of Fun! I’ve been known to take ‘executive retreat’ days and increase my Fun quotient coming back to the office refreshed and ready to take on a new project.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and success stories on the F’s in your work world.
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: Focus, hospitality, hotelsales, sales, Selling, tourism industry, travelagent, travelindustry
Posted in airline industry, hospitality, hotel industry, sales, Travel Consultant, travel industry | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Listening with our ears and with our heart/mind I believe is crucial to building remarkable client relationships. Actually, isn’t it crucial to building any relationship? Yet, do you sometimes feel no one is really listening anymore?
We’ve probably all been in a situation where we realize the other person just doesn’t get what we’re saying. Think about the last time you went shopping. Recently I was out looking for a dress to wear to a black tie event. At the first store no one even approached me. At the second store I explained the color and style that I was looking for; green or red and fitted. The clerk came back with grey! I left the store! Finally at the third store the clerk listened and I found a beautiful red and black cocktail dress that was perfect!
Hearing what our clients are saying takes not only our ears, but our hearts and minds too. If your clients are trying to explain the vacation of their dreams to you or the on-site meeting planner has come to you with a challenge here are a couple of tips to keep in mind:
- Listen for the underlying message. Good questions and a measure of patience will help uncover the full message
- Questions that begin with “Tell me more about…” “Help me understand more clearly….” “How do you feel about…”
- At times emotions will take over and a bit of empathy is needed to provide a solution
- Empathy may sound like “I can see that this is…, what can I do?”
- Other times the details can be overwhelming and it pays to take notes.
- Getting permission to take notes or letting the person know you’re going to take notes tells them that you are genuinely concerned.
What one thing can you do differently today that will genuinely show that you’re listening to your clients?
I am listening to you and would love to hear your feedback on this blog.
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: Customer Service, hospitality, Listening, sales, tourism industry, travelagent, travelindustry
Posted in airline industry, Customer Service, hospitality, hotel industry, marketing, Networking, sales, Travel Consultant, travel industry | No Comments »
Monday, April 12th, 2010
We all know the importance of listening to our clients. How often do we truly listen? Powerful listening creates loyal clients, nips any concerns before they get huge and inspires repeat and referral business.
There are a couple of on-line polls that make it really simple to listen to what your clients are thinking or needing.
LinkedIn has a simple and effective way to poll your connections. Simply go the “More” tab and click on “Polls” to create a short poll. I prefer to keep the number of questions to a maximum of 3 or 4 so that it’s easy for your connections to quickly provide you the benefit of their opinions. You can poll your first degree connections for free. In addition you can share your poll via e-mail, blog, website or within a group by using the URL provided.
Facebook also has a Polls application, “My Polls” as well as “Polls on Facebook” work well to create polls for your personal page as well as your business page.
Getting the word out about your poll:
1. add your poll to the discussion section of groups you belong to
2. tweet and lead your followers to the LinkedIn or Facebook poll
3. Send an e-mail to clients inviting them to join you on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and take the poll
4. Include the URL in your correspondence.
Results and stats:
LinkedIn provides a graphic analysis in the “My Polls” tab showing the percentage of responses to each answer. Full comments are shown on this same page.
This simple polling process can be a powerful tool to open conversations with clients and colleagues leading to more relevant products and services.
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: Customer Service, hospitality, Listening, marketing, Polling, Social Media, Survey, tourism industry
Posted in airline industry, Customer Service, hospitality, hotel industry, marketing, Networking, sales, Social Media Marketing, Travel Consultant, travel industry, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
I’ve been in many airplanes, hotels and restaurants lately traveling to conferences and commuting to Houston. It seems that the service I’ve been getting has taken a turn from mediocre to remarkable.
Picture this, a sedan car driver asking what type of music I’d like to listen to. Another driver that provided U.S. customs forms and a pen in the back seat. That’s remarkable!
Shopping at a major designer discount store in Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago I wasn’t expecting great service…only great prices. Well, I got both! As I was looking at a beautiful yellow sweater a clerk who was restocking the racks smiled and asked if I had seen that sweater on the Oprah show. She went on to enthusiastically explain how the show featured this exact sweater; she talked about the designer and then told me how this sweater has been flying off the shelves after that endorsement. Remarkable!
While dining at a restaurant recommended by a hotel concierge, the chef came out to chat and thank us for taking the time to experience his restaurant. Remarkable!
What are you doing to provide remarkable service for your clients? What things can you do to stand apart from the crowd?
Seth Godin, in his book “Purple Cow” provides enlightening insight on being remarkable in any industry. I believe that in the travel and tourism industry we have an exceptional number of opportunities to be remarkable. In this economic situation, what’s stopping us from being #1 in our clients minds?
If you’re interested in top branding and marketing tips, please email me and I’m happy to send you a list of proven techniques that will take your business to a new level.
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: Customer Service, hospitality, marketing, sales, tourism industry, travelagent, travelindustry
Posted in airline industry, Branding, Customer Service, hospitality, hotel industry, Niche Marketing, sales, Travel Consultant, travel industry | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Do you remember when everyone was talking about ‘learning to say NO’ in order to find more time to grow your business?
Times have changed. Now it takes more courage to say YES!
YES to an evolving method of keeping in touch with your clients. YES to offering unique destinations. YES to offering remarkable service in an unremarkable world.
Recently I had a conversation with my cousins’ daughter who’s in her freshman year at Yale. (Yes, I am proud) We talked about the courage to say yes to different opinions, yes to attempt to understand a unique perspective and yes to new experiences. Sometimes it’s so much easier (translation: more comfortable and less scary) to say no and move along the same path as we’ve always traveled.
In this new decade, I believe saying yes is vital.
What we say YES to today will not seem so uncomfortable and scary tomorrow. What can you say YES to today?
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: hospitality, marketing, Networking, sales, Selling, Social Media, tourism industry, travelagent, travelindustry
Posted in airline industry, hospitality, hotel industry, marketing, Networking, Niche Marketing, sales, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
