What are your web plans for 2009

With the travel marketing been tight in 2009 it pays to think about your marketing strategy and in particular your online presence.

Some things to consider are:

a) Do you know how your customers find you?

b) Is your website working for you?

c) Can customers book on your website and receive immediate confirmation? Or are you still doing the email tag - with customers booking more last minute accommodation you will be missing out to your competitors who have instant confirmation.

d) If you sell other tours - why not sell them online when customers book your own travel product. Or include a summary of ideas and suggestions for booking with your email confirmation. 

e) Do you have an email newsletter or blog yet?

f) Can you update your website easily?

g) Are you using PPC (pay per click) advertising? Are you paying too much per click? Or paying for irrelevant clicks or missing out on clicks with the wrong key words?

There is a lot more but these are just some of the simplest things you can do to improve your online performance in 2009.

Rainbow Tourism can assist you with managing your online presence as we have a large number of partners who offer great value for money. Contact us and we can give you some ideas and quote for different services we can offer you.

How to annoy a potential customer

Just over two years ago I opened an account with Regfly.com to enable a transfer of a domain name to our business.

Once the transfer was completed I moved the domain name to our registry.

After this transfer I received no further emails from Regfly.com then this last two months I received two emails from them saying how they appreciated my business.

Thinking I might have left a domain on their service by mistake I checked but found none. I thought I should close the account so that I didn't get any further emails.

However this proved impossible and I was told by their tech support that this couldn't be done.

So what lessons does this hold for how you treat your customers:

• If you haven't had contact with customers (or previous customers) on your database don't assume they will want to hear from you.
• Ensure you provide a means to opt out of your system and if they ask to be removed from your system simply do it. 
• In every email communication offer a simple means to be removed from your system. It should be a one click system ideally
• The longer the gap in communication the more likely the person won't remember dealing with you.
• Of course this rule applies not only to emails but phone, fax and postal communications.

Have you any experiences like this to share? Feel free to comment below.