I’ve just been on holiday. Not a remarkable event in itself I’ll admit but my experience of booking and taking that holiday provided some prime examples of ‘schemas’ and their role in generating word of mouth.
 
So what precisely is a ‘schema’ I hear you cry? In brief, it’s a little movie containing generic properties about a concept or category stored in our memories and ready for ‘play’ when someone pushes the button.
 
No help? OK – let me give you an example. What springs to mind when I say ‘package holiday?’ …

When segmenting your audience and positioning your brand in travel and tourism marketing, psychographics is key and in particular how values and personality manifest themselves in ‘preferred level of cultural immersion’.

I described what I regarded to be the key segmentation criteria in travel and tourism marketing in brief in a previous post. I now want to delve a little deeper into one of those in particular which I consider to be absolutely key – psychographics.
 
The whole area of psychographics, a phrase that describes values, personality and lifestyle, first became of …

Have the rules of travel and tourism marketing been re-written with the emergence of Facebook, Twitter et al? Or are we simply playing the same game with a different set of tools at our disposal?

We’ve all heard quotes like ‘social media is a game changer’ or ‘you’ve lost control of your brand’ from the new crop of social media experts that have sprung up due to the rapid adoption of services such as Twitter and Facebook.  But have the rules of marketing really been re-written? For me, the answer is …

Two recent developments have suggested ways to more than double the effectiveness of online advertising – a combination of ad content, frequency and placement.
 
It seems a little premature to be blogging on the subject of online advertising again but there have been a couple of developments in the past week that have compelled me to put ‘fingers to keyboard’.
 
The first is a report released by Eyeblaster based on a study of online advertising by the airline industry. How I know the airline industry isn’t representative of the whole travel and …

Online display advertising has always been a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’ in my own promotional plans.  But recent developments have prompted me to re-think my position – in fact, its poised to make a leap between the 2 camps.
 
I must admit that online advertising is one of those disciplines I’ve probably misjudged.
 
I remember having a conversation with a senior online marketer at TUI 5 or 6 years ago in which he revealed to me that online advertising was very much an after thought in his digital …

 Digital marketing is cost effective, measurable and the likelihood is you’re under-investing in it. Make sure you’re keeping an eye on what’s coming over the hill but don’t forget some of the more established digital disciplines.
 
You could argue that I’m writing this a little late in the year because, believe it or not, we’re already beyond the point when most people have lapsed in their commitment to a new lifestyle for a new year. I have to admit to having one foot in this camp myself as my resolution to …

More, engaging content means more prospective customers and better conversion of those prospective customers. So how do I create engaging content? Think like a publisher.
 
I’m connected to a chap called Jeff Ogden on Linkedin. I bumped into Jeff when he was working for Greenlight Search. Now, he’s gone out on his own and runs a company that specialises in B2B lead generation. He’s doing very well, before you ask.
 
Now those of you that read my earlier post on marketing to high net worth individuals will know that us B2C marketers …

Content and personalisation win over overt branding and aesthetics.
 
There’s no doubt about it – there are some really beautifully designed email templates out there.  Ravishing pictures, short impactful copy, personalised (sometimes even in the subject field if you delivery system is that functional) and smothered in branding.
 
You nod proudly as your survey your own template.  Problem is, your open and click thru rates seem to be on the wane.
 
Polished though they are, and deeply appealing to our heightened sense of the aesthetic, personal for me will always win over polished.
 
Ask yourself …

Ask the right questions of your customers and a pandora’s box of marketing opportunities opens up before you.
 
Like in so many other of life’s tasks, timing is important.
 
Successful retention programmes are dependent on the right offer, at the right time, delivered to the right audience via the right medium with the right execution (it’s that simple…) If you know when they’re going to travel, you’re well on your way to answering the first 2 questions.
 
But how do you find out? Sophisticated data mining tools to analyse your customer’s past behaviour …

Whatever it stands for, it’s a peeRleSS tool for keeping on top of your marketing environment.
 
RSS is one of those technologies that until your try it out, you don’t really get your head round it.
 
It doesn’t help that no-one’s 100% sure what RSS means. I thought it meant “Really Simple Syndication” but then discovered some thought it stood for “Rich Site Summary”.
 
I was always told by web designers that we really ought to have a RSS feed on the site and would nod, agree and sign it off with only …