Owning a Tourism Business is awesome

11 Jan 2007

Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution

The marketing revolution is here, so get on the right side of the barricade and become a part of it! Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their little Consumerlings who have seized power from the corporations and are now firmly in control.

In Punk Marketing, Laermer and Simmons take an irreverent, penetrating look at the seismic change in the relationship between the people who sell stuff—products, services, entertainment—and those who purchase it. They demonstrate that to survive in business, a revolutionary approach is needed—one they have branded “Punk Marketing”—and it's one we all need to understand, for the traditional divisions among commerce, content, and consumers are continuing to blur ever more rapidly.

Never dull, sometimes controversial, but always a helluva lot of fun, Punk Marketing presents a manifesto for any businessperson needing to engage consumers—or any consumer seeking to understand and employ their newfound power. And here's the good news: It's based on principles that have existed forever. In an age of digital video recorders, “branded” entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking, a coherent approach to marketing has never been more vital. With Punk Marketing, there's a built-in plan to equip you with tools to make all this change work out just fine, thanks.

Punk Marketing is the first shot—soon to be heard 'round the world—of a long-awaited and breathless uprising that businesses want, deserve, and desperately need.




4 Jan 2007

Blog Marketing

It shouldn't be a secret anymore that blog marketing is more powerful than static site marketing for all products including, especially, the tourism industry.

Both models have been tested heavily in 2006 and found that the rankings come far easier with a blog as your alternate content management system as opposed to any other form of web publishing.

Here are some tips to make sure you are taking advantage of all there is to offer in the Web 2.0 world of traffic, links, and easy search engine listings for both your blog, and if you've made the jump, your dynamic tourism website too.

1. Tag/label your posts. If you are using Wordpress use a plugin called Ultimate Tag Warrior to tag posts and put together keyword dense archives. You can find this plugin at wp-plugins.net. In Blogger make sure all posts show the labels!

2. Syndicate with RSS. Not just the feed that comes with your blog (normally a wee ATOM one at the bottom), but with custom feeds that specifically isolate keyword groups you develop content for regularly; such as scuba and fishing. The best free tool for this is PheedPress, available from Content Desk.

3. Get Involved online! Trackbacks and comment links are alive and well, despite reports you may have read to the contrary. Bloggers will grant your trackbacks and comments when they are on topic and useful. These are the easiest links available on the web today. In tourism it's easy to pass comments on all the travel blogs and get back links with every post (make sure you have your blog and website auto-signatured on all posts...)

4. Social Bookmarking. Public lists of bookmarks are easy spider food and will get you more traffic the more you use social bookmarking. Your entire site and blog should be bookmarked somewhere, and preferably in all the major bookmarking engines. You know where they are, get out there and do the legwork to drive the links.

5. Get Dugg. Digg.com and other social information networks take "stories" from sites that post them. Then they are ranked by members. You are either in or you're out. Dugg or buried.

6. MySpace Networking. There are social networks popping up all over the place that are like MySpace (even though the demographic doesn't look like yours, the networking is what we are looking for...). One notable network is called Care2.com and it is specifically for tourism business owners to network and get valuable links back to their sites with a dedication to the environmental angle.

7. Article Syndication. Not the old spammy version from a few years ago. In the new Web2.0 in 2007, the best results for article syndication will be for those of us who adhere to the holy grail of content syndication: Topical, Relevant, Well-Written Content! (and beware of duplication, it just doesn't work...)

Most of the above will also work for old-style static sites, like sites written in static html. But not nearly as well as when you publish on a blog platform or a new dynamic website.

Blogging doesn't mean pouring out your feelings or ranting about your problems anymore. It is serious business and the platform itself can be used for anything where information needs to be updated regularly. Ideal for a resort or tourism businesses with lots of new customers...

Properly marketing your blog site depends first and foremost on what you have to say. If it is boring, lame, or focused too much on blatant advertising of products and services, you will get slammed with extremely poor results. Keep it to the point, a little light and relevant to the audience you hope to attract.

The big secret is the content. Very good content will dominate a niche in any market. The platform you put it on will dictate how well it dominates. And how regularly you perform the tasks above will dictate how long you dominate.