There so many ways to market your business to find and keep the customers you really want, but which ideas work best and where should you be investing your time, effort and budget. This practical training workshop for tourism operators covered more than 20 simple and effective ways you can be marketing your business and connecting with more of the right customers. This workshop was presented by Todd Wright of Threesides Marketing for Shellharbour Tourism. Threesides are well known operators in regional tourism and destination marketing, and the digital and social marketing scene. They have worked with individual operators, tourism destinations, local councils and state tourism marketing bodies.

1. Smarter Marketing for
your Tourism Business in
2014
Tourism Shellharbour
May 2104
Todd Wright – Threesides Marketing

2. We help these businesses with their marketing:
National Parks NSW – Wild about Whales
Capital Region Farmers Market @ EPIC
Yass Valley Tourism
Sapphire Coast Tourism
Old Bus Depot Markets
Campus Living Villages
(and more…)

3. www.threesides.com.au
www.Facebook.com/threesides
www.Twitter.com/threesides
www.slideshare.net/threesides

4. Overview
1. Go back to basics (briefly) and make sure you
have covered the fundamentals
2. Review your tactics and current activities
3. Identify new tactics and activities to add to
your marketing mix

5. What can we achieve today?
Inspire
Direct
Inform

6. Your name, your
business and one
thing on your
‘list’ to cover
today?

7. PLEASE
UNDERSTAND
THAT…

8. Marketing is not
Advertising

9. The process of
finding and
keeping
customers

10. What’s Harder?
(A) Finding customers
(B) Keeping customers

11. Solve a problem
Your marketing needs to show how
you will solve a problem.
What is your customers
real problem.

12. 1. Know your
target market
2.Create some
goals
3.Understand
your
marketing mix
4.Develop
your tactics
5.Set your
budget
6.Evaluate
Six simple Marketing
steps.

13. 1.KNOW YOUR
TARGET MARKET

14. The customer
you really want
• Highest
longterm value
• Low cost to
reach
• Highest chance
of repeat sale
The right customer

15. Customer Market Segments
VFRLeisure
Lunchtime
Dinner
Morning
Segment by type of customer, geography, time of day, habits, age, etc.

16. Develop a marketing persona
Name: Kevin
Age: 30s
Character: Authoritative and
Professional
Location: Sydney – Eastern
Suburbs
Time of Day: Lunchtime
Interests: Active
Employment: Public Service

17. The Marketing TO DO list
• Develop a written overview of your current
customers
• What is your current marketing doing to
target these people?
• Develop a set of personas (no more than
2-3) of your ideal customers
• What needs to change in your marketing
to meet the needs of these group?

18. 2.CREATE YOUR
MARKETING GOALS

22. Poor Goal example
Get sales in the door – NOW!

23. Good Goal example
Good
1. To create 10 qualified business leads / enquiries by the
end of April.
Better
2. To create 10 leads and 3 converted sales worth $2,000ea
within 60 days

24. The Marketing TO DO list
• Identify 3-4 SMART marketing goals
to achieve in the next 6 months.
• Consider the resources, tactics and
time you need to complete them?.

25. 3.UNDERSTAND
YOUR MARKETING
MIX

26. The 4 p’s of
marketing
Product, Price,
Place, Promotion

27. 4 P’s

28. Changing any
P will affect the
other P’s

29. 7 P’s?
+
+ +

30. 4. DEVELOP YOUR
PROMOTIONAL
TACTICS

31. Promotion
Public
Relations
Online
Marketing
Advertising
Direct
Marketing
Sponsorship
Trade
Marketing
Networking
Onsite
Marketing

32. There is no marketing ‘silver bullet’

33. The marketing kit must haves:
1. Business name / Logo / Visual Identity
2. Email address / web name
3. Database / List of your customers and permission to contact
them
4. A good quality website
5. A good selection of your own photos
6. Newsletter / communication with database
7. An easy to understand / ‘good’ offer
8. A membership
9. A partnership
10. A really good book keeper or accountant (so you can do more
marketing).

34. Who can I use to help
me?

35. Cowboys vs Ninjas

36. Who’s
Who in
Marketing
Creative
Agency
Marketing
Consultant
Graphic
Designer
Online
Marketing
Specialist
Copy Writer
Photographer
Market
Researcher
Printers
Advertising
Specialist
Public
Relations
Consultant

37. 5. SET YOUR
BUDGET

38. What should I spend
on marketing?

39. How much does it
cost to find and keep
one customer?

40. What are you paying for?
• Website – $4-7,000
• Domain name / email address - $50
• Flyer or brochure - $700 / design - $1,500 print +
distribution
• Radio / TV – from $2000 month
• Google adwords – from $100 month
• Signage - $500 for a pull up banner
• Direct mail - $400 to target 500 people + design
• Email direct mail - $50 to target 500 + design
• Photography - $500 / 2 hrs – 60 shots

41. How much is your
customers opinion of
your business and
product worth?

42. 6. EVALUATE

43. How can I tell if my
marketing is
working?

44. What ever works for
your business that
you’ve tested,
measured and proven
the result.

45. Simple things you can measure
 Website Visitors
 Phone call enquiries
 Email enquiries
 Sales Leads
 Converted sales
 New customers
 Returning customers
 Value per customer
 Referral sources
 Sales per product
 Returns
 Complaints

46. Write it down
Write down your
results and track
them over time.

47. 1. Know your
target market
2.Create some
goals
3.Understand
your
marketing mix
4.Develop
your tactics
5.Set your
budget
6.Evaluate
Six simple Marketing
steps.

48. The process of
finding and
keeping
customers

49. Your Tourism
Marketing Tactics

50. Aussies are now
spending on average
23.3 hours online each
week, 3.5 times more
than the 6.7 hours we
were spending online
back in 2003.

51. Digital Travel Lifecycle
•The Stages a
tourist goes
through and
their digital
touch points.
•(See handout)

53. 1. What does your
business look like
online right now?
2. Where can I find
you?
3. Where can’t I find
you?
4. What do I find
when I
get there?
Your business digital footprint

54. Almost three-quarters of Australian companies
are planning to increase digital spend this year,
with digital marketing budgets expected to
increase an average of 28%.
Responsys digital marketing report April 2013
(850 marketing managers surveyed)
Digital Budget

55. Budget
Questions:
1. What is your total marketing budget
2. What % is digital
3. Split digital into tactics – email, website,
social, advertising. other
4. Estimate ROI of each activity area
5. Can you increase / decrease budget
to affect results?

56. Reporting: What are you measuring online?
Is what you are doing working?
1. Website analytics - conversions
2. Social Media – Engagement + Reach+
Sentiment
3. Reviews – Sentiment + issues resolved
4. Search – SERP’s + Page views
5. SEM – Clicks + Conversion
6. Contact forms – leads
7. Ecommerce – direct sales
8. Budget – ROI of activities

57. Digital
Tactics
WEBSITE &
Content
LOCAL
Listings +
Content
Distribution
LINKS
connections
SEARCH
SEO/SEM
SALES &
Distribution
DIRECT
marketing -
EMAIL
SOCIAL
Media
REVIEW
Sites
ONLINE
MARKETING
PLAN+ TACTICS
Digital
Footprint
Target
market
Plan + Tactics
Budget
Reporting

58. Monitor the web with Google Alerts
www.google.com/alerts

59. http://www.google.com.au/business/placesforbusiness

60. Content Distribution Channels
• Australian Tourism Data
Warehouse
 Descriptions, Events, Photos,
Video
 Multiple distribution
Channels incl. Visit NSW
 Don’t underestimate the
value of low cost content
distribution channels

61. From desktop to mobile- why??
 Mobile sales have already
overtaken desktop sales, and
mobile internet usage is
predicted to overtake desktop
internet usage by 2014
 67% of users claim they are
more likely to purchase from a
mobile-friendly website
Source: http://searchenginewatch.com

62. Mobile what?
Fully Mobile Optimised +
Responsive website
• Can detect the size of the
viewing device and adapts to
suit
• Folds to suit screen size
Mobile friendly
• Website that functions correctly
on a mobile device
• Tiny scaled down version of a
site
• Doesn’t break on mobile
m. - Mobile website
• Completely separate website
designed specifically for use on
a small mobile device
• m.yourwebsite.com.au

63. GET STARTED