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Creating A User-Friendly Website
In my last article, I stated several facts about the importance of having a developed search engine friendly website. The website would be visually pleasing and at the same time optimized for high search engine rankings. It stated the differences...
How to Create an Online Identity!
Remember High School? There were kids that stood out, the popular ones. Someone would speak their name and everyone would say "yea, I've heard about him/her". Popularity was everything. Well, the times may have changed but the basic concept is the...
How to Succeed with Yahoo!
Without a doubt, Yahoo is the single most important directory on the Internet. Not only is Yahoo the most popular portal on the Web, it is also one of the few large Internet companies to actually turn a profit. Since a real Yahoo employee carefully...
My Adsense Click Revenue Shot Up 12 Times When I Used Free legal Bulk Email Marketing
I stumbled on this Adsense money-making tip almost by accident
from a great affiliate program I joined that has the best online
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Using Drop Shipping for E-commerce
Thanks to the ubiquity of the internet, online virtual businesses have become very popular business opportunities. Online retail stores are gradually playing a more important role in our lives than the traditional ‘brick-and-mortar’ retail shops....
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Marketing Tourism Online, part one: The Basics
This is part one of an article series which will introduce some basic strategies, considerations, elements, and techniques for marketing tourism products online. We plan to update and refine these articles as situations change and when we have new knowledge to present. You can request to be notified when a new article in the series is available.
Opportunities and room to improve
While most tourism organizations are by now familiar with the Internet, far fewer have really gained an understanding of the technologies, new resources, new communication opportunities, and the requirements that they represent. These tips and explanations should prove a useful introduction.
While new technologies provide new opportunities, they don't change the basics of marketing: people, product, price, promotion, and distribution. Know your target markets, understand their purchase decision processes, and offer them the right product, at the right time, for the right price—and correct your course continually.
Shaping the purchase decision process and the tourism experience
Your online communication with customers can be used to shape outcomes in the following circumstances and stages, in relation to a potential tourist's purchase decision and tourism experience. Good communication can:
Build awareness of a product or destination, and reshape existing perceptions;
Generate interest;
Provide information to turn interest into desire;
Transact the actual
purchase or series of purchases;
Provide reassurance of a good purchase and offer preparatory information for the actual tourism experience;
Continue to provide information, shape perception, and improve the experience during the tourist's journey;
Aid and deepen memories after the tourism experience;
Build upon your relationship to your customer, to add value for both you and the tourist; and
Encourage referrals and generate repeat business.
There are different goals to achieve and appropriate methods of communication for each of these circumstances. Adding further complexity is the fact that different people (family members, friends, co-workers, etc.) may be involved and have varying importance at different stages of one purchase decision!
In conclusion
Despite these complexities, there are some basic guidelines which will help you communicate and market effectively online. The next in this series of articles presents advice for attracting visitors to your website.
(Seattle, USA; August 2004)
About the Author
Bryan Wilson is a travel marketing consultant and partner in Leave Home Productions
Leave Home Productions (http://www.leave-home.com) provides marketing services and tools to tourism-related businesses and organizations. Our clients benefit from strategies, tools, and creative concepts developed to clarify their needs, make use of their resources, and help them achieve their goals.
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