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Profile of a Resort Leveraging Guest Reviews
20 01 2012Resort marketers are using reviews from guests to influence potential customers more than ever now. USA Today’s review of The Four Season’s new website focused on their focus on social media and user reviews.
Why?
Here, Four Season’s VP Marketing Susan Helstab shares “In a Four Seasons survey, 33% of guests rate TripAdvisor “very to extremely influential” in their selection of a luxury hotel. In its research, the Toronto-based hotel operator also cites these stats from consulting firm e-tailing group: 92% of internet users read product reviews and 89% say that reviews influence their booking decision.”
In this blog post, our own Dave Gibson, shares a discovery process that started with a post from Guy Kawasaki gushing over the resort he just stayed at, and ended with a few new gems for resort marketers.
Read Dave’s Post on Social Media Marketing & Leveraging Guest Reviews
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Categories : Uncategorized
Putting a Value on a Facebook Fan
12 01 2012
While its impossible to accurately put a number on a Fan, a few have tried. Much of the value is intangible… what’s the value of a customer sharing photos of their vacation with all their friends? If that helps drive a sale, is it possible to trace the source? Of course not, but Dave shares some thoughts on value points that should be considering the value of Facebook and a Facebook Fans on his blog at propdave.com
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Tags: Facebook, Online Marketing, social media
Categories : Uncategorized
Reasons to Adopt Google Plus
9 01 2012
Google Plus has had a shaky start but G+ is quickly gaining adoption. Google’s deep resources and a number of additional factors are contributing the first real challenger to Facebook. Propeller’s President & Director of Online Marketing, Dave Gibson, reveals why Google + what is contributing to the growth and what this means for brands.
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Categories : Online Marketing, Social Web
5 Summer Marketing Tips for Ski Resorts
7 06 2011
It can be difficult to maintain marketing momentum through the summer months. All that great winter content and event stories dry up, and only the die-hards are thinking snow. Yet, you have to look for ways to keep that hook set for the next season.
Here are five ideas to consider this summer.
1. Keep the content flowing via Social. Do you have capital improvement projects in process? Cutting trails, putting in lifts, adding buildings – these are activities that a good photographer and videographer can use to accent your updates. Leverage what you already have. Pull together a “best of” that features the best.. or the “worst of” might be even more engaging. Think ABC Sports… “the agony of defeat” shots of tumbling skiers. Visual content is key.
2. Identify your Influencers – comb through mentions on Twitter and Facebook. Who are your loudest fans? They are your word of mouth marketers. Reach out to them. Introduce yourself personally. Consider creating a program that can harness all that love. Give and you will receive.
3. Stay active on Twitter and Facebook – keep updates and content flowing. Introduce contests that juxtapose summer with winter. This day 6 months ago…. If you have four season offerings, blend the winter content with summer content, and add soft reminders about pre-season specials.
4. Get around town. Get out into the community and strengthen those relations. Press flesh. Smile. Make new friends. In today’s world of social media, consider every member of your community to be a word-of-mouth marketer for you. So make sure they know what is coming up for next season, and give them reasons to like you and want to help you.
5. Tune your marketing program for next year. The website still is the primary point of conversion. Make sure it rocks. Make sure you have a mobile site that rocks even harder. Then work out a content plan that includes the ongoing resources to produce and distribute that content. Content is King.
Rock on.
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Categories : Educational Guides
Good Web Design = More Conversions
27 05 2011What is the value of good custom website design? Sure, its key to frame the brand and present a compelling message/offer, but in my mind, good design blends that into a clear path to conversion.
For different businesses and sectors, the “conversion” varies and for most, there are multiple conversions to be tracked – a sale, lead generation, engagement, recruiting form, whitepaper download, etc. It takes thoughtful design to entice visitors and draw them into the path to conversion.
We recently worked collaboratively with Coldwell Banker Hickok & Boardman Realty to redesign their site. Long before we got started, they had done their homework and had been tracking a range of conversion goals in Google Analytics for years. Their numbers were fairly flat though, and while investing more into online marketing did succeed in increasing conversions, they knew that investing back into the website to increase conversion rates there would provide their best return on investment.
The design itself frames those priorities, and places the brand in the context of the regional geography. In this process, together we carefully studied both the traffic patterns of the current site to recognize the information users wanted, and aligned that with the information that the client wanted to present. I’ve agreed not to delve into the details of each conversion point, but you can see quite clearly from the homepage, what our priorities were.
The numbers dramatically show the success of this redesign. Over the same period the year before, we instantly saw a significant jump up about 15% to an envious conversion rate of 51%.
What also ensured a win for this project was the collaborative spirit we shared in this project. Their team was heavily engaged and well tuned into their site’s metrics and the goals of each segment of their target audience. As much as I think design skill is important, I also believe that the cultural fit with two organizations is key to a successful partnership such as this. I think the success of this project reflects that.
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Tags: Analytics, web design
Categories : Analytics, Design
