This document provides guidance on developing an effective online marketing strategy for businesses in the tourism industry. It emphasizes the importance of having an online presence and using it for both marketing and management. It offers tips for defining products and services, identifying target audiences, creating engaging website and social media content, optimizing for search engines, and monitoring analytics. The overall recommendation is to develop an online strategy, allocate budgets to it, focus on engaging content, interact with customers, and continually adapt to trends.

1. #ETEA14

2. An Online Toolbox

3. eMarketing Strategy

4. Take it Seriously
• Online has ceased to be an interesting
extra activity for a business
• It needs to be a central strategic tool for
your business on two fronts:
• Marketing
• Management
• These two need to work together

5. Know what you are
selling
• How do your define your product?
• What is the experience you offer?
• What choice do you offer?
• What makes you unique?
• What is your value?

6. Key Messages
• These definitions will help you:
• Structure your content
• Create messages to communicate
• Identify terms your potential customers
will be searching for online
• Identify conversation about similar content
in social media groups that you can join and
engage with

7. REMOTE
wilderness
luxury
FAMILY FRIENDLY
spa
extreme
RELAXING
ROMANTIC health
ADVENTURE
active
all inclusive

8. Know who you are
selling to...
• Can you describe and profile your typical
client- or the one you’d like to have?
• Are you selling to more than one type of
client?
• Are you using a single marketing technique to
sell to all types of clients?

9. Profiling
• Where do they live?
• What is their family like?
• Where do they work?
• How do they have fun?
• What media do they consume?
• What are they likely to be searching for or
talking about and how do they express it?

10. Conversion Points

11. Bringing them together

12. 3 Means of Conversion

13. (A) BOOKING

14. (B) ENQUIRY

15. (C) FAN/FOLLOW

16. Sample Strategy
• We are a family friendly safari camp in our
area with luxury tented accommodation and
frequent wild dog sightings and we will target
families from Europe before their school
vacation period by promoting a special family
offer that includes free kids ranger activities
and a camp spa package, which we will be
promoting through a video testimonial from a
family who recently stayed with us. This will be
posted on our YouTube channel, Tweeted and
embedded on affiliate websites and
Facebook, combined with Facebook ads and
some key word ads for family breaks in our
region, all of which will drive traffic to a special
landing page we have created for bookings.

18. WEBSITES THAT
WORK

19. Tourism Websites have 6 seconds to
capture their customers or risk them
getting bored and going elsewhere
-Travelmole 2013

20. A Site that Works
• Gives the user what they want
• Doesn’t send them to a dead end
• Never frustrates the user
• Converts to sales
• Socially Integrated

21. Content
Management
• Dynamic Websites are driven by Content Management
Systems (CMS) which run on top of database repositories
• They provide easy to use and intuitive tools to help you
manage your own website
• CMS systems let you update your website reliably and
quickly
• They provide ‘Room for Growth’ – as your organization
grows, your website can be easily expanded to cater to
new requirements, services and needs
• Most use a simple WYSIWYG system

22. Word Press
• WordPress has gone from a blogging system to the most
popular Web CMS in use now
• Estimated 60% of working websites
• Extremely easy to use
• Template driven with thousands of themes
• Responsive designs for mobile
• Cost per widget and feature from a free base
• Easily transferrable to new developers

23. Management
• Traditionally IT departments managed
websites – but they don’t know your
product or have business, marketing or PR
skills- why are they managing it?
• A CMS can involve marketing personnel in
the whole website management loop
• A CMS can delegate and manage
responsibility

25. Sourcing Content
• Outsource Professionally
• Gather from trade partners
• Use the Media
• Use Syndicated content
• Use content from your clients
• Product knowledge is essential

27. Live Content
• Incorporate a blog into your site
• Create and seed fresh dynamic content
• Share across platforms
• Host the blog externally (depending on
your CMS)

28. Visitor Experience
HELPING TO GUIDE THEM
EASY TO UNDERSTAND OPTIONS
CHANGING THEIR MIND
EDUCATION THROUGH OPTIONS
ASKING FOR HELP

29. Site Map

30. Copy Writing
• People read differently online
• Make the key message for each page very
clear
• Use Bold to highlight those messages
• Break the Blocks
• Bulleted Lists
• Hyperlink to more info to cut the waffle

31. Accuracy
• Check your content for spelling, grammar and
appropriate language
• Make sure you check every part of the page

33. Context

37. Test Drive
• Never Edit your own work
• Find a native speaker
• Ask someone to ‘test drive’
• Don’t rely on automation
• Never automate Translations

39. Use Google Analytics

44. SEO- Popular Myths &
Unpopular Realities

45. Search Matters
• Search drives the internet
• Search drives commerce
• 50% of all online purchases originate from
Search and 99% from a search process
• BOBOs still search
• SEO is vital

46. SEARCH IS COMPLEX
AND EVER
CHANGING

47. 67%
30%

48. Meet the Spider
• He’s looking for:
• Text Matches
• Relevance
• Recent Updates
• Popularity
• Inbound Links

50. URLs are Important
• The Spider has no idea what this is:
• www.acmehotels.com/667hyt.htm
• But he likes this:
• www.acmehotels.com/luxury_rooms

51. Spider Can’t Read
Pictures
IMG_345.jpg elephants.jpg

52. !

53. Key Messages
• Remember Your Key
words and Key messages
• Blend 2 or 3 carefully
chosen key phrases into a
minimum of 250 words
on each page
• Meta tags
• Title tag
• Headings
• Alt tags
• Internal and inbound links
• Include the words inside
the link

54. Inbound Links are
Critical

56. You need a good
website that people visit
and link to...

57. Building Links
• Reciprocal link requests
• Directory/Portal Submissions
• Article writing
• WebPR Submissions
• Blog Links
• Social Media Links

58. Be Worth Linking
to
• Have great social media content
• Embed Social Content into your site
• Have Repositories of Content
• Downloads, E-Books, Media
• Videos to Watch

59. Worthy Content
• Try to keep the link building activity related
to your business and target audience
• “name” the activity around your targeted
keywords
• Ensure that the copy is communicating your
targeted keywords

60. there are excellent fishing charter services in
Mozambique

61. Create Your Own

62. Paying for It

63. What are your clients
searching for?

64. How Do They Express
It?

65. Organising our Holiday
Organizing our Vacation

66. victoria falls zimbabwe
zambia
south africa

67. If Key words are of
sufficient value to you in
a competitive market
then you may consider
paying for them

68. Cost per Click- you pay
for Conversions

69. Send Them to the Right
Place
• Don’t send them to your home pages
• Create Promotion specific landing pages
• Match the call to action in the ad to the
product page you deliver them to

71. Paid can strengthen your
presence but natural will
sustain and build your
business

72. Social Media- Links,
Content & Traffic

73. A Social Media Toolbox

74. Choose your Tools

75. Try and Test

76. Face Book & Tourism

77. Would You Market Your
Destination to a
Country with a
population of over One
Billion?

78. Well, that’s Facebook

79. A Fan Page is now an
essential business
resource

86. LIKE OBESSION
AN AVERAGE NUMBER
OF ENGAGED FANS IS
BETTER THAN A MASSIVE
NUMBER OF
UNENGAGED FANS

87. HOW PEOPLE USE
FACEBOOK

88. WHO SEES YOUR
STUFF

89. YOU HAVE TO
ENCOURAGE
ENGAGEMENT

92. IMPROVING
ENGAGEMENT

93. NOT JUST THE LIKE

94. ENGAGEMENT
•SHARE
•COMMENT
•LIKE

95. POSTING

96. FIVE GOLDEN RULES

97. (1)
Short and to the Point

98. (2)
Show your Knowledge

99. (3)
Engage

100. (4)
Be Human

101. (5)
Be Current

104. HOW OFTEN?
But do not overdo it...

105. WHEN?
• Consider your target audience
• Look at overlapping time zones
• Consider lifestyles
• Find your optimum times

107. Have conversations-don’t
give lectures

108. Be Timely...

112. Create Interest beyond
the Usual...

115. Play with Them...

118. Thanks Matilda for your kind
words, rest assured we will pass on
our compliments to the chef...
Answer Comments with their
NAME
so they are notified of your
reply...

119. Ask Questions to get
answers...

120. Thinking of changing our
menu- what would you like to
see?

121. CROWDSOURCE

124. Don’t Like your own
posts...

126. PHOTOS

128. POSTING LINKS

133. BEWARE OF
NEGATIVE
ENGAGEMENT

137. CLAIM YOUR PLACE

139. The Value of a Checkin

148. #

149. #
• Hashtags are a means of categorizing
subjects and speeding up search
• They create more realtime access to
multiple sources of information
• #Country #Topic #Content

152. PAY FOR
ENGAGEMENT

155. Insights...

163. Twitter for Tourism

165. A Media Tool
• Twitter is unlikely to win you a first time
customer
• More than anything it is amedia channel
• Keep past customers loyal
• Use it as a Press Release Tool
• Often used a ‘wire service’
• Great for B2B networking

166. #spiritualsunday
#musicmonday
#traveltuesday
#weddingwednesday
#throwbackthursday
#followfriday
#socialsaturday

167. MAKE FRIENDS AND
INFLUENCE PEOPLE

168. Get Tweeting
• It’s easy to do and very addictive
• Excellent realtime promotional tool
• Get direct realtime feedback
• Get new ideas, products and meet new
people

169. Ensure You Follow
• Your local/regional tourism office
• Travel Media
• Complimentary tourism products in your
destination or region
• Travel publications or blogs
• Local Media

170. Post:
• Photos and Video
• Links to new content and blog posts
• Latest Reviews
• Commentary of Current Events
• Appropriate #hashtags

171. Don’t Post:
• Politics, Religion, Sex
• Negative content about your competition
• Uncredited Retweets or links
• Excessive #hashtags
• DMs to new followers

172. Don’t Pester People

173. Too Many to Follow?
• Use HootSuite
• Tweet from multiple accounts
• Schedule your tweets
• Keep a tally of questions answered, customer
problems resolved and positive exchanges
held
• Embed twitter widgets in your website
• Track your tweet statistics
• …and much more… for free!

177. How can a business use
Instagram?

179. Doing Business Online

183. Groups, Discussions,
Questions

196. 94% Female

197. Being Mobile Ready

198. Your Site on Mobile
• A mobile version of your website as a
separate entity can confuse and stratify
your search results
• A responsive designed website will
reformat itself regardless of platform
• Keeps a professional look across mobile
and tablet

200. Mobile Ready
• Ensure your own site is mobile accessible
and ready
• Take advantage of local layers and mapping
• Work with intermediaries to ensure your
inventory is available via apps

201. Mobile Management

202. WhatsApp
• Management
• Group Communication
• Event coordination
• Live Chat & Service

203. Social Media
Management
• Who is going to manage it all?
• Try and have everyone contribute
• Create a basic social media policy- sticking
to key messages, who says what etc
• Bring in some young people- students,
interns etc

205. Make the Change
• Begin to shift business online- increasing
allocations to online bookings
• Begin a progressive marketing shift with
25% of budgets, human resource and time
• As you grow- appoint a social media and
marketing manager

206. 10 Steps to Success

207. 1. Strategize for Change:
-Develop an eMarketing strategy
-Start reallocating traditional budgets
-Reinvest 25% in online at first
-Set realistic time goals

208. 2. Build Internal Resources
-Read, learn and join communities
-Don’t be scared off by geeks and gurus
-Bring in some Interns or hire some
students

209. 3. Re-Develop your website
-Plan it strategically
-Focus on room for growth
-Make it social driven

210. 4. Go Social
-Use Social Media in all you do
-Make it part of standard procedure
-Update, Update, Update
-Build relationships and links

211. 5. Be Content Driven
-Focus on Content
-Your own and users
-Publish, gather and share
-Strive for Quality and Quantity

212. 6. Engage
-Talk to your users
-Interact, ask and discuss
-Don’t deny, challenge or fight them
-Ask them to collaborate as you grow

213. 7. Have Fun
-Social Media is still “infotainment”
-Be yourself
-Be personal and personable
-Encourage sharing

214. 8. Don’t Forget to make Money
-Don’t get carried away with the fun
-Focus on conversion
-Invest in promotions/ SEO where needed

215. 9. Keep Changing
-Use new technology and innovation
-Be visual and use multimedia
-React and respond to trends, feedback and
data

216. 10. Keep an Open Mind
-The Future may not be what you or I think
-Keep retraining, studying and engaging
-Stay social and keep talking

217. WILD SEMINARS
damian@e-tourismfrontiers.com

218. Presentations at
www.slideshare.net/
DCookEFT/

219. #ETEA14

220. SEE YOU AT OUR
NEXT #ETEA