England Marketing

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England Marketing Sophie Hook
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Top 10 Marketing Tips for the credit crunch
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1. PR

• If you no budget then PR is good place to start
• Court your local regional media journalists and
  get a feel for the kind of stories they are
  looking for
• Make sure your business stands our from the crowd
• Have something new to shout about? Organise a
  familiarisation trip, photo call
• If you write a press release dont forget the 4
  Ws What, Why, When and Where
• Is your story of national importance? Contact the
  
• Enjoy England PR team who are constantly
  selling in stories
• PR does not just have to print media. Think about
  online
• outlets such as the Times online, the Guardian
  etc

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2. What is your USP

• With 150,000 tourism businesses in the UK why
  should a customer come to your one?
• Some of the more successful businesses have
  decided to focus on a specialism that can really
  help them stand out from the crowd. In marketing
  jargon, this is often referred to as the unique
  selling point (USP)
• For example some tourism businesses might provide
  special facilities or services for walkers,
  cyclists or families with young children
• Think of real people with real needs that you can
  meet rather socio-economic background
• Write pen portraits of preferred target audience
  as this will make your marketing sharper
• Each audience will need a different marketing
  approach

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3. Adding value

• Little touches can make all the difference
• For all tourism business, cleanliness is the
  number one factor that can make or break a
  successful visit. Here are some quick suggestions
  but brainstorm some others with your partner or
  staff
• Drinks on welcome/ a welcome basket
• Books about the area
• Local leisure club pass
• Wi-fi
• Discount on local attractions/hotels
• Concierge service
• Disabled access
• Games for children while dining
• Express check-out
• Business card prize draws
• A pick up/drop off service

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4. Making paid advertising work harder for you

• Find out as much as you can about your current
  customers and what they read when theyre not on
  holiday
• Niche and special interest magazines can be
  better value than more mainstream publications
• Think about the USPs you have pinpointed (above)
  and relevant publications that target these
  audiencesexcel in food?...BBC Good Food
  Magazine family friendly?...Family Magazine
  upmarket travellers?...Condé Nast Traveller gay
  customers?...The Pink Paper
• Ads need to catch your eye and have a clear call
  to action for your web site or other contact
  details. Sometimes less is more the old adage
  that a strong picture is worth a thousand words
  can be very true when it comes to advertising
• Remember to negotiate there are some good deals
  to be had out there.
• Track effectiveness and find out how customers
  came to find out about your business
• Work out conversion rates

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5. Website

• 71 of Brits now search the web for travel
  information
• Promote what is close to your business e.g. link
  to relevant destination guides and show case what
  is on your door step
• Recommendations get involved for free with
  social media websites. Activity can be broken
  down into two areas
• Monitor what people are saying about your brand
  by setting up Google Alerts (google.com/alerts)
  with various terms such as business name
• Seeding out information about your site and
  special offers onto relevant blogs such as
  regional ones, or relevant activity, or special
  interest sites. You can even set up your own blog
  for people to leave comments about their stay and
  the location.

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6. Google adwords

• Google is acknowledged as far and away the market
  leader and often delivers the bulk of traffic to
  your web site
• Two ways to get noticed on Google natural and
  paid results
• Speak to your web editor about search engine
  optimisation techniques to ensure your site
  comes high in the search rankings
• On the right are the paid results. You can
  purchase your advert here via Google AdWords
  (www.adwords.google.com) and, of course, this is
  a self-selecting customer base for you.
• Generally the more generic the search terms the
  higher the cost
• The ranking also relates to the relevance and
  amount of content you have on a page linked to
  the term you are sponsoring

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7.Events

• Why should customers return to your business
  throughout the year? Often events will provide
  that extra trigger to spur them on to revisit a
  location
• Speak to your local Tourist Information Office,
  tourist board or look in your local newspaper to
  check out local events that are coming to your
  area
• Is there any chance of organising a package deal
  with the event organiser? E.g. customers stay in
  your hotel while visiting the event?
• Perhaps the organiser can even work with you to
  provide free tickets that you could offer to
  guests as an added value incentive or as part of
  a sweepstake prize?

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8. Packaging with other businesses

• Are you able to talk to local partners about
  providing a combined accommodation/attractions/tra
  nsport/food deal
• But what about non-tourism partners? Why not see
  if you can agree a contra-deal with local
  retailers or pubs for instance to promote each
  others businesses?
• One memorable example of this was a joint
  promotion between Harvey Nichols department store
  and the V A Museum in London the store
  promoted a fashion exhibition at the museum with
  branding across its floors and vice versa
• Speak to your local tourism body, Business Link
  or Chamber of Commerce about putting you in touch
  with potential partners

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9.Work with your local Tourist Information Centre

• There over 500 TICs in England
• If you have a brochure or leaflet does your local
  TIC have a steady supply?
• Those TICs with the Enjoy England Official
  Partner status (approx 300) offer information not
  just about their local area but also the whole of
  England
• For accommodation providers, TICs also offer the
  BABA service (Book a Bed Ahead) service.
• TICs are usually located in areas of high
  commercial value - can this be utilised?

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10. Work with your tourist board and Enjoy England

• Enjoy England works very closely with your
  regional tourism body and local
• authorities/destination management
  organisations. Try to provide as much
• information as possible to these bodies as they
  will, in turn, ensure we use this at a national
  level wherever feasible.
• We will be running various activities this year
  with the regional tourist boards to promote short
  breaks and days trips
• So far we have over 900 offers on our website
  from 2-4-1s to various accommodation offers.
• We are working on our plans with the regions who
  will in turn update you with you various
  opportunities to help promote your businesses.
• If you are thinking of submitting offers please
  consider some of the following recession busting
  tips

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Top 10 summary

• PR
• What is your USP?
• Adding value
• Making paid for advertising work harder
• Website
• Google Adwords
• Events
• Packaging with other businesses
• Work with your local TIC
• Work with your Tourist Board and Enjoy England

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Examples of enablers... All about providing
access to things that might not be able to
afford, vitally important as times get
worse... -NB scepticism about catches" and
availability need to be transparent i.e. give
the price and not a 3 nights for 2
offer!! -free admission to sites / attractions
with rail tickets very popular idea, also
stimulates Fits environmental agenda 2 for 1
admissions particularly kids sites as these can
be very expensive particularly when food drink
etc. taken into consideration particularly for
the London sites but also theme parks gather
tokens / points for a weekend away in hotel /
admission to expensive sites discount cards with
rail ticket 2 nights for the price of 1 where
could not justify value for one night, two seems
better value 3 nights for 2 can for some seem
too long cheap rail fares (mobitix) other
loyalty schemes e.g Nectar points that can
contribute to savings
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Examples of some enhancers... Enhancers improve
the experience and provide benefit if presented
in a package, very relevant for more
affluent... hotel with good meal in great local
restaurant is very popular bars, clubs for
younger Rail tickets, good hotel plus theatre
tickets (included in price or discounted)
particularly for London e.g. package cheap rail
tickets, nice hotel and theatre ticketsto
Scarborough for Alan Aykbourne Theatre admission
to one site and suggestions / admission /
discount to others free spa treatment as part of
luxury bed and dinner package free upgrade in
rail travel including the price of
accommodation better standard / private hotels
for better prices (vs chains) unusual /
privately owned hotels e.g. somebodys home with
4 poster bed Marriott Hotel with Selfridges
vouchers superior room at the price of a
standard
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Examples of some stimulators... Stimulators
grab with a specific hook and something that
stirs the imagination... 12 train fares (hook)
to London (stirs the imagination) 02 concert
(hook) with things to see and do in Greenwich
(stirsthe imagination) free cookery course
(hook) with a weekend away in beautiful Cornwall
(stirs the imagination) ½price board (hook) in
the rugged Scottish Islands (stirs the
imagination) Notting Hill Carnival (hook and
stirs imagination) break New Years fireworks
(stirs imagination) and bottle of champagne
(hook)