The tour operator´s guide to online marketing tells how to win customers on a low budget. In the guide there is three part. The first one tells how creating a winning marketing strategy using
customer data. The second one tells how to reach your customers online for free and the last one tells the best marketing tools for tours and activities. In my opinion this is very important and topical theme and that’s why i chose this article.
PART ONE
How to conduct market research in 4 easy steps. Yes,tour and activity companies can perform market research using traditional methods like SWOT and PEST analyses. While useful, these techniques originated from the 1960 sand, well, a lot has changed since then.To bring things up to speed, we’ll borrow some concepts from the technology industry which are applicable to physical businesses too. (REGIONDO. Tour Operator’s Guide to Online Marketing)
SWOT-analyse is also familiar to me. It is useful but sometimes it’s not always the best option.
In article mention four easy step. The first one is define your hypotheses. The article brought up three tools for that; Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas and Hub Spot’s Buyer Persona Generator. Only Business Model Canvas was familiar to me. We use that our earlier courses. In my opinion it is very good tool to define company’s hypotheses and it is very easy to use.
The second one is collect data to validate your assumptions. There is two types of data what to collect, qualitative and quantitative. Making various inquiries to customers is the way to get this data. Luckily nowadays there is websites which help you collect customers reviews.
The third one is analyze information that is the easy part.
The last one summarize, report and act.
PART TWO
10 ways to get free advertising for your tour or activity business. As people increasingly ignore online ads, looking at free alternatives seems like a good idea. If you’re prepared to spend a little extra time and effort on promotion, you might as well take advantage of the many free advertising opportunities for your tour or activity business. (REGIONDO. Tour Operator’s Guide to Online Marketing)
10 ways to get free advertising for your tour or activity business
1. Free classified ads sites.
2. Online directories
3. Get featured on
4. Google My Business
5. Guest blogging
6. Post in niche communities
7. Give interviews on podcasts or articles
8. Giveaways and contests
9. Speaking engagements
10. Partner with other businesses
I definitely agree most of these ways although I am not sure how these works if you have smaller company. Then you have to apply these ways. This gives me new ideas to use these in my workplace.
PART 3
Online marketing can be tough and expensive. But with a good structure and the right tools, it can be easy, fun, and cheap. In this section, we’ll look at free or cheap marketing tools that help you gain traffic to your site, convert that traffic to sales, and drive repeat business. (REGIONDO. Tour Operator’s Guide to Online Marketing)
12 free and cheap marketing tools to boost your online sales
1. WordPress
2. Google Analytics
3. Hotjar
4. MailChimp
5. Gmass
6. Google Search Console
7. Ryte (free SEO analysis)
8. Ahrefs
9. Buffer
10. Hootsuite
11. Canva
12. Typeform
I have only used Canva for these tools and I like it very much. I think that Canva is very good tool to create advertisements. I also have heard about Hootsuite and WordPress but i am not used them earlier. The others is new for me and I think that they aren’t so used in Finland.
LASTLY
I think that the article was interesting. There was familiar thing but I also learn new things which I can utilize in future. Online marketing is growing all the time so it is good to learn the cheapest and easiest way and tools to do it.
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