FACT

Most tourism destinations and companies spend lots of hard earned money on advertising and promotion to get clients to visit or take their trips, but rarely know what was effective. Or worse, what was a total loss.

This can be frustrating and potentially fatal if you don't get the results you need.

"The most important measure is financial return," stated Eric Grothwoll, former marketing director for successful multi-sport adventure company OARS. Eric generally receives better than 3 to 1 return on their promotional investment. "All promotions work in conjunction with each other. I am always looking at what's working and what's not."

John Willard, president of Wilderness Expeditions agrees, "Tracking advertising saves money." John found that by monitoring their advertising and promotions monthly and making changes as necessary; his advertising and promotions was far more effective without spending more money.

E-Marketing - The Most Trackable Marketing

Savvy businesses effectively use staff and technology to capture useful information about their prospects who visit their website.

"It's important to have log reports that are detailed and give you good marketing information. This is something you should insist on from your Internet service provider", Laurel King of Adventure Sports Online stated. The software they use is called Web trends and tracks the top ten URL's used to access your site, top key words used, pages most often hit, average time stayed, etc.

Marketing with the internet (E-marketing) is one of the best strategies to track exactly what key word phrases are getting traffic and what ads yield the best return on investment. Google Adwords allows you rotate two different ads for the same group of key word phrases. What this means is the market will tell you, based on your click through rate (CTR) what offer has the highest response, i.e. demand.

It gets even better. Google, unlike Yahoo Overture, Google will even LOWER your cost per click (CPC) for your ads with higher CTR. More web traffic for less money. Plus Google has free conversion tracking to determine your return on investment for e-newsletter sign-ups, brochure requests and reservations. This is place to start your travel advertising.

A Word of Caution

Google does have some subtle nuances that if not done right, will cost you a bunch of money with little return. But with a little guidance and some tips, you can out market your competition easily.

According to Dan Austin, Co-Director of Austin-Lehman, The source of the inquiry is the most important. How did they hear about us?" Every lead, whether it's from the phone, internet, in-house mailing or from a trade show gets a "source code" on their computer. These source codes allow you to run reports about your prospects. Additional important monitoring methods include the clients geographic area, are they a repeat guest, when they want to travel, what offer they responded to, who were they refereed by, etc.

It's important to remember that profitable advertising and promotion is a blend of what your offer looks like and communicates as well as where it is placed. Often clients run an ad that their friend designed, for only an issue or two to "try it out". Because they may not have gotten immediate response, advertisers often blame the medium. It may be the ad was not compelling, lacked a good offer, placed in the wrong media or all the above.

Travel Advertising Tips: Re-assess quarterly with print and weekly on Google Adwords to make sure your advertising money is working for you. Use your website log report to determine your source of visitors, path of traffic on your site. If your log reports show that most prospects are leaving after less then 1 minute your website needs major work to enhance retention which will lead to more sales.

Your success is gauged by cost effectively converting prospects into paying clients. Prospects do not pay the bills, only sales.

Converting Prospect Into Sales

What experience are prospects and clients having of your company when they want to reach you?

Staff

I liked what Eric at OARS said, "Marketing makes the phone ring. Staff really makes the difference in converting them into a sale". Your staff should be knowledgeable on all the products or services you offer. If your staff is sold on the company, they will transfer their enthusiasm to the client.

Follow-Up

Make a commitment to process literature requests and get questions answered on a timely basis. Establishing rapport and credibility with your prospect is key.

Persistence

Your prospect should have your company or destination name at the top of their mental list. Postcards, brochures, newsletters, E-mail newsletters, testimonials, display ads, yellow pages, association, etc. can all perform well if there is continuity in the message and you are persistent.

Travel Advertising Tip:

Remember to ask on your outgoing answering machine message, questionnaires, etc. how people found out about your company.

Author Name:Tim Warren
Author Bio:

Northern California based Tim Warren, founder of Adventure Business Consultants and author of the book �Tourism Marketing Success�, leads a team of result-oriented business and marketing professionals that helps outdoor and active travel destinations, tour operators and tourism professionals increase sales, arrivals and profits since 1994.

Tim specializes in launching or improving marketing, search engine ranking, team building, solving management problems and earning positive publicity.