The little guy can win
The tourism industry
The tourism industry is largely made up of small businesses often micro businesses . In other industries distribution is always important, but with information as the core product, travel and tourism is dominated by distribution. The end result – suppliers & intermediaries are all thrown into the same competitive landscape.
For most hoteliers, holiday cottage owners, and bed and breakfasts the reality is that the vast majority of their customers are delivered through an intermediary of some sort.
Be Realistic
Effective channel management – If you’re small forget competing directly for high volume direct traffic in the conventional sense. Instead Use analytics tools to work out who can provide you with customers in a cost effective manner. Hotels are often plugged in directly to ‘the travel distribution’ network they are more comfortable with managing inetrmediaries, holiday cottages and B&B’s less so.
I am not saying forget about directly acquiring customers – only to strike at the right time, in the right place with the right offer.
Long Tail – If you are familiar with the long tail you will know that people describe what they want differently and niche products and services can often provide welcome volume for small businesses.
this is the sweet spot you are looking for, that where volume and clear intention exist
Why not take a leaf out of the Paid Search managers handbook. Don’t spend budget on high volume low converting terms. The deal is often done after the prospect has narrowed down their options and is ready to specify exactly what they want – this is the sweet spot you are looking for, that of where volume and clear intention exist.
Beyond search – The long tail doesn’t just apply to search – for every nich interest there are directories, communities and portals to gain exposure through.
The good news is a small business doesn’t need that much volume – it is quite feasible to run a healthy small business in this long tail.
Recontact strategy – with so much hype about social media these days its easy to forget that email marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to market. It can be highly targeted and highly effective. Be realistic and pay for traffic you could never get, but once you have a customer make sure you keep them and get lifetime value from them.
Be Local
In terms of search, one advantage of being a small local business is that you are exactly that, small and local.
What tell tale attributes does a real life, bricks and mortar local business have?
- A physical address and phone number
- A local presence
- An affiliation and presence in a relevant trade directory (Trip Advisor, Local Tourism Association)
- Links to other local businesses
- A reputation – real life reviews from proper paying customers
These concepts are the foundation of local search engine optimisation – its an example of one of the truths of SEO “think like your customer”.
Details like which networks and sources search engines are currently favouring may change but these principles underpin the process.
Be Different
One way of re targetting your business online is to simply do something different. Many businesses have products or services that differentiate them like a hotel offering murder mystery weekends. When I look at hotel or self catering websites I see all the effort going into competing headon with intermediaries or bigger businesses when they should be exploiting what makes them different.
When I look at hotel or self catering websites I see all the effort going into competing headon with intermediaries or bigger businesses when they should be exploiting what makes them different.
Be Seasonal
OK so this wasn’t in the title but it would be a glaring omission if I left it out.
Seasonality, Volume and Realtime marketing – Small capacity of micro businesses means that much of their marketing is wasted. They will have choke points in their season where they are full and lulls when they struggle for occupancy. Social Media and Paid Search are not often talked about together, but they both share a valuable characteristic – they are both real time marketing technologies perfect for the tourism industry.
Couple these technologies up with a good content calendar and you have the ability to exploit the benefits of being a small business squeezing value from intermediaries but also feeding on the seasonal and long tail nature of the tourism industry.
