How to Use Marketing Technologies to Create a Sustainable Tourism Business

foreign foreign good morning and welcome to the tourism of Scotia webinar series today's webinar is how to use marketing Technologies to create a sustainable tourism business so really excited for you to join us uh for those of you joining us for the first time my name is Nick fry I'm the manager of marketing sorry manager of Business Development for uh tourism Nova Scotia I was looking at the word marketing anyways so tourism Nova Scotia we are a division of communities culture tourism and Heritage and we work with communities and Industry to attract visitors to the province to increase tourism revenues through experience and sector development business coaching marketing and visitor servicing so really excited for you to join us today now any good webinar of course is uh built on great questions so if you have any questions please pop them in the Q a at the bottom and if you have anything to add in the discussion please add in the chat anything we share throughout the presentation whether it be a um a link or anything like that we'll share it out after the fact by email so you don't have to write it down or you know go down the rabbit hole of checking out the link so try to stay focused uh ask any questions and again if you find this valuable uh you think that you may want to share the information that you see today with any industry colleagues please do so they're also all available um any previous ones future ones will be all available on the website on the link on the screen now this um is available offered today through digiport and that is a collaboration between digital Nova Scotia and tourism Nova Scotia and digiport if you're not signed up and you're on the webinar I really encourage you to do so did you pour it to One Stop Shop where we have all of our interactive and educational opportunities around Bridging the digital gap for tourism businesses there is past presentations all of our programming there's some tip sheets and all sorts of different topics so really encourage you to sign up if you haven't done so please share with any industry colleagues and I think it's a valuable resource it's the only one offered of its kind in Canada for any tourists and businesses I really think it's a wonderful opportunity so I'm happy today to have uh Shelly bellafontaine the CEO of Atlantic online and um atlanticonline.ca is a full service digital marketing company it's headquarters in Claire Nova Scotia on the Nova Scotia southwest coast and Atlantic online specialized as in website design e-commerce storefront development organic social media strategy they offer paid ad Management Services they do that with you know the global Fisheries industrial manufacturing solar energy tourism and also you know small business sectors so they have a lot of experience with different types of businesses all across the industry so really excited to have Shelly here today I mean Shelley's been a web designer long before it was cool to be a web designer and they're actively engaged and entangled in all things webbed but they tend to focus exclusively on developing digital marketing growth strategies using social media and other marketing Technologies and I think that the the thing that sets Atlantic online apart is that they are an all-encompassing um strategy so from start to finish they are able to help you in your company with what they need um Michelle is also a uh registered with digiport as a one-on-one so if you you are here today and you think oh this is so great I'd love some time with Shelley well you can book that through digipore after the fact so one-on-one is is an opportunity for you to book with with the presenter and there's no cost to you but of course they are paid so don't worry they uh everyone benefits so really encourage you to check uh out um a one-on-one with Shelly after the fact see what digipore has to offer I would like to welcome Shelley to the screen and so excited for you to share your knowledge with us today and um here we are ready for you Shelly well good morning Nick thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to so many people today about something that I'm extremely passionate about which is digital marketing um yes I can just get you to um start your video we'll start this again here we go all right thanks so much thank you so yeah hey good morning everybody Shelley here from Atlantic online coming to you from sopas Nova Scotia so happy to be here to be able to chat about something that I'm extremely passionate about it's what I built my business on um that is known as digital marketing so let's get right into the uh presentation and I'm going to work through this to share my screen from one of my dual screens so bear with me for a moment um SEC there I'm going to pop this over just screen one now um nope that's not it excuse me for a moment I know that we um let me share this one and then we went through this this morning okay can everyone can you see my screen can you see the presentation how to build a sustainable business looks great Shelly okay fantastic um when you have dual screens such as uh uh that I do then I have uh it's a bit of a configuration effort to bring every everything together but nonetheless uh we are we are on point and welcome to this webinar I'm really excited to be able to share this knowledge with you today on how to build a sustainable tourism business using digital marketing practices okay I am Shelly and this is a little picture from my corner of the world and um I know that digital marketing tourism Marketing in particular uh is a very very competitive industry you also have a very very short window of time in which to engage your audience and it's a very very competitive industry and I have a great deal of appreciation for that having worked with numerous tourism operators within the province and external to Nova Scotia as well I could tell you that they all face the same challenges especially um you know as a result of covid but then there was also a challenge after covid when the influx of visitors was almost too much for some at some point so I can appreciate the competitive nature of this business for sure so today's webinar is with that in mind it's going to focus on some brand Outreach strategies that you as a tourism operator can use to help promote your business and to help you connect with your visitors or your potential visitors in a very meaningful way and a very meaningful way for them as the prospective visitor to your establishment um we'll talk about ways in which you can convey the uniqueness of what you provide and how to stay top of my with your visitors as well so that they keep you as a go-to reference for their next vacation after having such a wonderful experience so we'll talk about ways that we can put you front and center for new visitors and for returning visitors as well so my name as Nick mentioned is Shelley belfonten I own Atlantic online and I've built this uh business over the last 20 plus years to be a full-service digital marketing agency and I had a small But Mighty team we are all professional marketers and extremely skilled digital navigation we worked with Industries uh or with businesses rather within um industry within the global fishery the tourism sector and the small business sector as well and we find that there's a very common theme amongst all of the industries when it comes to responding to or building digital marketing Outreach and we'll be uh sharing some of those with you today okay so today the spin that I'd like to take is that is the experience that I've had working team with amazing tourism operators in this province and abroad I've noticed that there's a very very common theme when it comes to doing Oak reach and when it comes to engaging potential prospects to become your visitor so I've positioned this um webinar today to be from my viewpoint and what a year in the life of a tourism marketer actually looks like so by doing that I'm able to share with you a a broad overview of what the marketing activities are recommended for your business so that you can build like an annual marketing Outreach so that you can help to engage those visitors and again stay top of mind that's always the goal so we'll review what an annual digital marketing calendar can look like for a tourism business specifically I'll also look at an overview of the technology and the tools that you can use to help you stay front and center as you engage and Delight your audience okay so let's go it's been my experience that every organization in every service or every product everything we deliver to a customer is based on a life cycle and during that life cycle there are certain activities and events and perceptions that occur during a life cycle of anything think of a life cycle as the beginning of something and the end like the alpha the Omega if you will but we're going to concentrate on today is looking at holistically the life cycle of the tourism marketing uh operation but also we're going to look at the in-between and we're going to look at all of the opportunities that exist within that holistic view where you can position yourself front and center okay so with every within a life cycle be it um a business life cycle any sort of Outreach marketing Outreach life cycle um the customer Journey map comes to mind and when we think about the the steps that a prospect has to take in order to become aware of us to engage with us to love our product and then to become a faithful purchaser a repeating purchaser we we realize that they walk along a certain path known as that life cycle I mentioned that we're going to focus on the in-between of those events that occur on the life cycle and they seem to follow certain themes and I've noticed this with um every digital marketing project I've done for a tourism business they seem to focus on these four areas of interest and as a result we can see that there are four marketing themes that we can concentrate on how we behave from a marketing perspective when we do Outreach and for awareness is very very different when uh from from the Gratitude stage that will be you know doing a deep dive on as well each phase each marketing theme represents different opportunities for us to create different types of Outreach and content to appeal to that Prospect so we start with awareness we always want to you know position our our product front and center but how we do that with a brand new audience can sometimes be a challenge so there's always effort on the very front end of any life cycle um to focus on the awareness piece to raise awareness with your audience whether it's your Master's audience that will talk about repurposing to or if it's a brand new audience that you want to do Outreach to once we once we ensure that our brand is known and that or your brand is known and that we've raised the level of awareness then the next phase is that we have to build desire once people are aware of us we don't have to keep telling them who we are we don't have to keep digitally handshaking them if we've gotten their interest in the beginning then what we can do is move over to the desire stage to make them really wanted covet our service or our offer so how we speak to somebody during the desire stage along the marketing calendar is going to be very very different I I noticed too that the next day the truth this is where we showcase our authenticity but we don't do it alone this is an opportunity at this stage where we can engage our audience to speak Our Truth with us so I'm just going to leave that alone for now but it's a very powerful part of the marketing calendar and you'll see the impact that it can have on your business as we move forward the last theme is known as gratitude and I find that this theme is is extremely powerful when you can Express gratitude um to in to your audience an audience that shares your values shares and appreciation for what you do when you can when you can Express gratitude that is extremely heartfelt and that's a very very powerful marketing strategy so let's move forward and see how we can apply these marketing themes in the overall strategy so what are we looking at here is the annual digital marketing calendar a timeline if you will we spoke about awareness desire truth and gratitude they all have their place in the marketing calendar with respect to the type of um engagement effort that we that we put produce awareness typically will happen during the winter months and I just want to take a moment to say this marketing calendar is reflective of a of a tourism business that operates from May to September May to August or October rather I am fully aware that we have operations all year in this province and in fact I'm a huge winter fan um so I know that we have a rich uh array of Tourism opportunities during the winter as well that being said this approach can be tweaked along the timeline I think you'll see that but for the purpose of this demonstration to help reinforce these Concepts in this strategy we're going to stick with the May to October kind of timeline so given that in the winter is our opportunity to build awareness at this point you know in January just after we've come off the holidays and where where enthusiastic about starting the year we know that there are great things to come our audience however doesn't know that so this is your opportunity to start um building some very simple digital marketing tools and assets that will help carry you through the remainder of the year that would allow us to move into the spring area and during the Spring is when I recommend um after you've spent you know a couple of months building awareness of your product I think between the months May June April May and June are the opportune times to build some desire for your products and this is going to involve a little bit more Oak reach than what um activities were in in the winter but it's going to be well worth it for sure because it's going to continue to keep your brand top and center with your audience then as we move into the summer months this is when we can news in more strategic engagement efforts to draw some truth and authenticity out of the experiences that are out of the the visitors who've had um awesome experiences with us so when we can use that theme then it makes sense for us to move forward into the Gratitude and you'll see how that sticks into um it comes into play as as we you know do deep dives into each of these pillars but for now just know that these marketing themes when executed during the this particular timeline using these types of efforts will ensure that your your brand is well seen and well received so we have I can't see part of my back screen there so this is the the actual detailed approach that we take to achieve each of these marketing objectives so when we're in the uh awareness stage during the winter season January February and March there are some very important technical items that you should be working on um and then you'll see that this is structured in such a way that every part of the timeline has certain activities that you can be doing I've based this on the minimal effort required to be to raise your your profile to be front and center you can certainly do a lot more than this but I positioned this from the point of hey I know you're busy as tourism operators I know too that you you don't want to be web designers you don't want to be social media marketers but you have to have some of those components um as part of your package so I think that by using these types of tactics from a minimal perspective that you'll you'll gain a better appreciation as to what you actually can do and in moving forward so during January February March during January in particular the first thing that I recommend you do is to look at building a stellar package and that is a package that's going to set you apart from your competitors you might be operating in a town that has maybe six or eight other Airbnb or B and B's um or other types of Tourism operators and you might all have influence or access to very similar attributes within your community but if you're the only one that's producing a package that helps to capitalize the use of these area assets then then that is in itself is going to help separate you from The Pact take the margory river for example there are quite a few tourism operators along the margarit um and their greatest asset largely um outside of you know touring the Cabbage Trail and everything else Cape Breton has to offer but their greatest asset along the margarita is the fly fishing so look at your community assets and take a look at what could really resonate with your audience and build a package that focuses specifically on that okay how you would do that is use something like a Canada tool speak to the people in your neighborhood speak to people who might want to partner with you to develop a package but do develop a package and when you have that done you can lay it out beautifully within canva and we'll go over that shortly the next tactic that you should be focused on within I'd say like the second third week of January is building out this sign up funnel and a sign up final is very super simple easy essentially we'd be looking at creating um like a Facebook ad or something to draw people that would invite them to give their email address in exchange for that um Stellar package that we've defined that only you are offering so this is an opportunity to do those three very simple tasks within the month of February uh I'm sorry within the the first couple of weeks of January so that would position you for the months of February and March to start doing some very soft awareness advertising using Facebook ads then as we move through within um April May and June we're going to kind of up our game and build more desire in our audiences purview and by running those same Facebook ads we can augment that by running organic social media and that's running just a couple of posts on a weekly basis not a great effort and we'll show you how to streamline that effort as well at this point too I would recommend that you start doing some email Outreach because really the previous month uh several months you've been running a Facebook ad that should have been garnering email signups in exchange for that PDF now it's time to start talking with them so we can engage our audience quite well by doing email Outreach and when you think about it that Prospect has trusted you by giving you their email address excuse me so I would recommend that you start writing that conversation with them since I've trusted you with that that vehicle in which to have those conversations when we talk about truth this is when we can you know truth and advertising really comes from the prospect so this is an opportunity for you to carry on with your or get your storytelling in your social media posts and and to carry on with running your Facebook ads but also too I think by running a contest in um August to get the visitors who have engaged with that Stellar package to talk about their experience then that's going to lend so much credibility and show that the experience is of value and it's presented from an authentic perspective from your visitor's perspective and that's going to help you as we move into the Gratitude phase build content to then communicate back to your audience so you can see that there's um there are a lot of um things that we can build on from from such from timeline to timeline to timeline that helps us get to the end game if you will and then there's always that fifth one and that's known as optimism and I don't know about you but I feel so much optimism on January 1st I'm so excited to roll through into another year and um I think it's just a nice sentiment to send out a Happy New Year's Day greeting to people it's uh it's non-offensive because not everybody celebrates Christmas some people celebrate Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and so forth or the need and we we don't want to you know offend any any particular group but however people do generally appreciate New Year's Day and look forward with enthusiasm for that so there are lots of opportunities to build certain um tools and assets along this calendar as well okay so let's take a deep dive into the awareness the awareness phase within January is when we can start to build out that Stellar single product offer I watched the webinar that tourism Nova Scotia put out this week where they unveiled the theme of the year maybe it's not called that but it's called um oh gosh take me to the ocean no your ocean playground excuse me I've taken it a step further and I and I think taking it take me to the ocean is going to resonate well when you think about it we all you know appreciate the ocean for its beauty its Grace its strength um but there's an Essence about the ocean that um very few other provinces uh can attest to like we are only I think at most 45 or 60 minutes from coast to coast in this province there are lots of opportunities for you to showcase the unique characteristics that our ocean presents to us and I think that could if you think about it that could be an excellent theme for you to build um your Stellar product offer in January as well you should look at building a very simple email capture form and a very simple Facebook ad in Jan in February and March then your position because you have those tools you already have the the product offer you have an email capture form that can you know capture those emails and you have that Facebook ad that's running in automation for you so I think within the months of February and March you should see some uptake in interest because of this awareness effort tools that we use to to build these assets very common tools very accessible tools and very easy tools for people to use canva is a fantastic design tool now I would never tell that to the graphic designer that I work with on a project by project basis we've had debates about that but canva is an excellent design tool for non-designers but moreover what it can do is help you create marketing assets or digital assets or tools that you can use in your marketing Outreach such as the PDF of that wonderful single product offer we'll show in a sec mayor light is my next secret tip for using it is an email Communications tool it can also it's a free tool as well I have many of my clients on mailerlite because of the ease of use and um it you can create a very simple input form put a link in your Facebook ad to your input form and Bob's your uncle once somebody signs up you can have mailerlite automatically send the PDF of your Stellar offer to your client so in that way we have done a couple of things during January February March there are boats we have raised awareness by showcasing our unique value we have encouraged that audience to engage with us by giving us that coveted email address as a marketer that's that's a piece of gold right there and you know we we have raised our awareness we have people interested now in learning more about what we can provide them this is what the funnel if you will looks like during the awareness cycle we've got the Facebook ad running which I'll demonstrate in a moment it goes to Once people click on that Facebook ad it can go to your mailerlite form I apologize this is the MailChimp icon there wasn't in my in my blueprint Builder an icon for mailerlite but nonetheless once people complete the form mailer Lite will receive that email address and stored in its backend database for you it'll send a thank you note that includes that PDF download so it's a very simple funnel this is what your um um object could look like this is just a a simple um concept that I whipped up using canva and um this is that single Stellar product that's based on the theme of take me to the ocean we know that's all largely why people come to Nova Scotia so right away we've aligned our product with the audience and but what's inviting about this is that this is a document that people can download to discover the secrets and the expense of where the locals appreciate having you know their their time here in the province so I think it's an opportunity when you position your product this way um it can be inviting if you will and again I used canva to whip this out as a design tool and what I'll do at the end of the webinar if we have time and if not we'll make time um we'll just take a peek Boo at how easy canva is to use and how you can position your content and in a very nice guide okay so next I I popped over into mail mailerlite excuse me and I built an email capture form and again at the end of the webinar we'll take a look at what nailer light looks like it's super intuitive really easy tool to use um there are paid plans as well but the free plan on mailerlite meets meets all of our needs really to date um you can see that this is the uh a beautiful little a little form uh you know a little Intrigue there but the tail of the whale and uh it's very simple you're just asking for their email address and their name we recommend not putting more than than that on an awareness type of gathering form because people just don't want to give you their life story in order for them to have your free piece of content so keep it short and sweet get my personal guide the next step of course is that it'll be sent to them through email I kind of approach this in a backwards way but these are the things that you want you want to create them in this in this order you want to create your offer first then you'll know uh how to you know position the imagery on on your form and then your Facebook ad will use very much the same language that you've used in the uh the product offer of that PDF so you'll see that this is um you know the the basis of the Facebook ad if you will you will need to be active and have an active Facebook ads manager account you're not sure sure how to do that you find the Facebook environment I'm not going to say annoying because Facebook might be listening but if you find it to be convoluting and rather layered you're not alone so I think it was mentioned earlier that you can book time with any of our advisors for the digipore channel and we can help you uh set up your your Facebook and and have a conversation about setting up your ads manager for Optimum performance for sure but nonetheless you will need to have um an account with Facebook um to run your ads when when building out your Facebook ad we want to you know keep in mind there are some very um key metrics that you can employ for your success and make sure that your headline is simply that summary of what you're offering your image is what we saw on the previous screen okay so here within the Facebook ad you'd have your headline copy is going to appear here so think strongly on on making a very riveting headline copy as well obviously you'll fill in what your website name is here's where your text will go and I recommend using a series of hashtags I would say no more than five six visit Nova Scotia is a super trending hashtag so I would recommend that you use that as a minimum and I think um if you're going to go with the ocean theme I would definitely recommend one of the trending hashtags I've been seeing recently I think was take me to the ocean or any anything ocean related is going to be um you know highly converting for you as well okay so do keep in mind that um creating a Facebook ad is not an intimidating process but it is a layered in a detail process and there are certain things you need to have on point before Facebook will approve that ad and don't panic if you take this approach to do your own ad if if it's up to a day or maybe even two days before Facebook will approve your ad and don't be surprised if it comes back the first couple of times is being rejected or uh for whatever you know reason you really want to make sure that your language is friendly and inviting you don't want to make false promises in your ad and you want to make sure that you stick away from offering your solution as a housing alternative even though you're offering housing to tourists you don't want to position your ad that way because you'd definitely be be disqualified immediately nonetheless take some time to go through looking at creating a really nice ad for your business when you do people are always confused about this point when making your Facebook ad you want to focus on the objective uh and the audience in particular those are the two key areas that are going to drive the success of your ad I would recommend for this awareness type of an approach that you use a traffic as the objective so that'll be traffic that you would Supply a URL or a web address that would be that for your form that you created so you want to drive traffic from the ad over to that form say that your audience is going to be very very important we spent a lot of time just doing deep Dives on the right types of audience to use because Facebook has a huge huge amount of information on all of its users um so it can be really interesting how we can get right down to the granular level maybe you want to only advertise to women between the ages of 35 and 40 who are education at University level who live in a certain part of the country Etc you know who who are only interested in scrapbooking I don't know something silly like that you can get that granular with a Facebook audience targeting approach it can be a lot of fun I would say your timeline as well is important because it's going to correlate with your budget so to run an awareness ad I would say running uh go heavy within the first cycle of the Year run the ad for three weeks each month I would however about Midway through each month switch up the media change the image make it a little you know a different perspective of what you're offering but switch up the media so that you don't engage so that you don't encourage uh ad fatigue now I heard something the other day ad frequency is not ad fatigue and having your ad seen multiple times is a very good thing because that shows it's resonating with your audience but I would make sure that to discourage ad fatigue that you would switch up the media and for your budget I'd run this at ten dollars a day as a minimum now I have some clients that run their ads at 100 a day 75 a day some at only five a day it really depends on the broad reach that you want to um that you want to have okay so again this is what the awareness stage will look like you will have built this beautiful PDF download you will have built a simple form and you've connected it all through a Facebook ad super easy this is the structure okay I think your whole budget for the awareness phase um and I've broken down the budget for each phase going forward so we'll have a grand total at the end of the webinar I would run as I said the ad in both February and March for three weeks each at ten dollars a day you're only looking at four hundred and twenty dollars in ad spend that is that Facebook will happily charge to your credit card now if you were to engage someone to create the ad write the copy design you know everything for you then of course this fee is going to to be increased and if you're not comfortable doing any of what I've spoken of today might be worth your while to do that might be worth your while to bring in a consultant to take care of building your awareness pieces for you and then just set your ad in automation after that okay so now we've we've raised our awareness within our audience we know that there are people responding to us they are seeing what are incredible Stellar product offer is we know that they are interested in what we're offering so they have some interest but how do we build that desire there are certain things that you can do to continue to engage with your prospects on their level and that would be primarily um focused on three areas I think by this time you should be positioning your business organically on social media and when I say organic that means you posting relevant content on your timeline for your or your Facebook page rather in a non-paid format so that's known as organic social media the anticipation here is that people are seeing your ads from the previous month they're also going to be looking at your timeline that's on your Facebook page it's an opportunity for us as marketers and for yourselves as marketers to start telling your brand story now you don't have to post every 20 minutes you don't have to post that oh time for coffee you don't have to post everything that your life is on social media please but what you should be doing is taking a very strategic approach posting I I would say a minimum or even a maximum in some cases of three posts per week that are very structured and very much focused on a theme and we'll we'll disclose that so by this time you should be engaging uh with social media three times a week you should also be continuing to run your Facebook ads and again changing up the copy keep the same um Facebook ad keep the same mail or life form keep all of the assets that you invested time and energy in in January February and March to develop and but continue to repurpose them and continue to use them going forward to do that you still need that Facebook account and then with respect to email I think at this point it would be a good idea to start talking with your audience you have their email it's giving your their your email addresses were provided to you start this conversation use um mailerlite to compose um a hello email to your followers tell them what's happening with your business tell them that oh we're starting to plant the Roses we've pruned this for the garden therefore you'll have fresh herbs with your you know your salads Etc whatever activities you're doing to start to prep to open up the doors for the new year it's now Todd just start sharing that and organically through social media is a wonderful way to do that and through email Outreach so when we tell our Brand Story I did mention a minimum of three posts per week I think three posts per week is fine if you tell your Brand Story correctly I think saying whatever you want to say on Wednesday Thursday and Friday is the best way to go that those days seem to be the days that have the most uptake and engagement on social media before covet and it's sort of settling now now in terms of traffic and activity on Facebook and on social media before covid I knew on Saturday mornings between 9 and 11 I could sell female related products for my clients not me um I knew those ads would resonate the best during that time now we are all over the map so it's starting to settle down a bit people are back into their normal life routines and it seems that Wednesday Thursday Friday are the days to experience it's the most engagement so on so we would use those posts to build desire for what we are offering I think some topic pillars that resonate well and work well for this industry is uh are rather and about us pillar so on one day of the week maybe Wednesday you could talk about you then you can talk about the area this is where we can showcase the value that our local area offers or that your local area offers that could be so very different from the concrete cities in which some of our prospects might be living that's a way to build desire when you showcase the simple little things in your neighborhood that we take for granted but that people from away covet dearly then you can talk about uh your in or your I'm saying it in it could be whatever your tourism operation is this is where you could do a little bit of selling here um I think in terms of what you could use for a social media calendar it varies I mean a simple Spreadsheet will do where you can list out the day of the week your content pillar and your message um that's a nice way to keep your content organized I use a tool called Cloud campaign if we have an opportunity at the end of the webinar I'd be happy to demonstrate that if you wanted to have a private demonstration by all means I'd be happy to do that as well um I use cloud campaign because it's an extremely powerful social media tool that gives me metrics and measurements of my activity across the channels far better than what social media Facebook does actually yes there are products that do social media better than Facebook um in order to bring to raise your brand awareness we we've got the ads running of course but when we approach telling our Brand Story through organic social media you really want to make sure you focus on who you are speaking your own voice don't speak for the salesy's perspective um don't write or speak as if you're you know demonstrating a product on The Price is Right I mean I heard that on the other day it was so salesy and so gimmicky don't speak like that when you want to um convey your brand story and I would use things like canva to create your branded posts it does a beautiful job and again I use cloud campaign dot IO is the link as my scheduler and we can uh it's they're they're easy tools to um to begin using for the power of what they offer really okay within the desired stage you still want to maintain those Facebook ads again maintain the objective is traffic make sure that the audience remains targeted and your ad copy should be the same but I would switch up the media again I would run this is a solid strategy that has worked for others so take notes run it for two weeks each month and keep it at your ten dollar A Day ad spend and you should get some traction and some engagement there all right in terms of the uh email Outreach during the desire stage remember the previous cycle we had people provide their email address to us so now it's time to start having that conversation to keep your business top of mind send out a monthly email newsletter doesn't have to be um salesy as we discussed it can be about topics that are very light it can be about the weather oh the weather resonates with people when you have a snowstorm people want to know about it when you have a hurricane people want to know about it they want to know how you've been impacted weather impacts our experience with the ocean so uh put that into your marketing copy I have a client up on um where are they around burnt coat they put like all across you know the western part of Nova Scotia wherever we look onto the Western Waters we have the most amazing sunsets whether it's overshadowbrook obey or I'll take a shot about debate definitely over St Mary's Spade Bay of funding wow we have sunsets here that are unreal that can be a perfect uh lead into your email communication to Showcase some of the beauty of the area Okay use mailerlite and a campaign Builder you can send follow-up emails to all those people that have already subscribed to your list and then you can add these to an autoresponder which means you write the email once attach it to your list put it in an autoresponder so that it will go out automatically for you okay super super easy way to do engagement to a mass audience of people who are already interested in what you have to offer always include a call to action so a call to action is something that is like book now or learn more and then you could attach a link to your website as that call to action Loop I'll say in terms of a budget for this phase of your Oak reach between April May and June you will I would say run the ad for two weeks a month so you're looking at six weeks of ad uh at ten dollars a day and you're only spending 420. but that's not bad to keep your brand top of mind foreign here's the fun part the truth part during July August and September is your time to be authentic and to allow your audience to be authentic as well doesn't that look good I'm just so craving a lobster right now um during this time of year during July August and into September I know it's your busy time I know that I know that you you know you're you have to be attentive to all of the activities that are running within your your operation but it's still an opportunity for you to take and schedule some time with Harvard sometime during your day to keep up the organic storytelling it's only three posts a week you can do it you can do it with the tools that we've whether we've talked about today you can do it for less than an hour a week less than maybe 30 minutes a week when you get to be really good at it I suggest that you continue during the truth stage also running your Facebook ads but I'd reduce them down to about one week a month switch the media out on a monthly basis so you're looking at three different images three ads I'm running on the same ad throughout the whole summer that is not a big effort when you think about you know what's involved to to convey to produce that keep up the monthly email newsletter but again keep talking about the local the weather the local events but speaking of local events if there are international events happening in your area absolutely send that out in your newsletter but I would not include international events um as part of your ad copy I would I would not I would not align my business with any organization that is um only a a one-off type of event even though I guess we're having like the junos did I hear that the junos are coming to Nova Scotia next year fantastic um mention that in your newsletter and uh and that could be a way to to draw people to stay at your at your at your you know tourism operation so keep keep it that keep it light if you will but do engage with that email once a month and then I strongly recommend using um a reviews contest this is where we talk about the authenticity and advertising this is where we can talk about uh and use the authentic approach to advertising for your benefit if we had my recommendation is that we run like a stellar package reviews contest so people have engaged with you in the beginning they they want to learn they wanted to learn about your superb one-off package that only you can offer well now it's time for them to tell you how they feel about that one-off package and I think if you had your guests take maybe a vacation selfie at a secret location and you know a part of you which would be part of but what would be listed in your in your PDF guide and if they could post that to your Facebook page so you would have one post that would go out that month encouraging your local audience people who have experienced your your your service to write their testimonial write on your Facebook page in that post stream okay now I encourage them to use like a very specific caption like loving this amazing private Seaside Cove perfect Hideaway to reconnect with the ocean and a series of hashtags so if you could get your audience to give you feedback in this format then you have tremendous value here the value is that social proof is gold absolute golden when you have somebody on social media telling writing something putting their their their profile out there saying I testify to this that this is an awesome product then people who are like them who are their followers people who are um like friends of theirs people who are at their level are going to say oh that looks really interesting if they liked it I would probably possibly like it too if you've got that attention as a result so social proof can be a tremendous Golden Nugget there's no doubt what you can also do with this post stream is that you can repurpose it later you can talk about it in your future campaigns you can talk about it in email the following month as part of the Gratitude thing and you can really push that later in your social media post when you say look we had such a fabulous year um look what people have had to say about our product okay I think that the prize you have to give people an incentive of course for participating in this reuse contest why don't you just give them like a weekend for two for next year lo and behold you'll have them coming back okay the budget on ad spend for the truth cycle if you're running an ad during July August and September at about one week each you're only looking at three weeks of ads running at about 10 bucks a day you're looking at two hundred and ten dollars so that's a nice way to keep your your brand active and out there the Gratitude phase this is where during gratitude we can express what our appreciation for all of the effort I think the action items during the Gratitude phase should be continuing with the organic social I think there's an opportunity to repost all of those contest reviews and to send out a gratitude email to your list and this can be just you know thank you so much for purchase helping us you know grow this year we appreciated having you with us Etc the tech tools that you would use going forward are still the social media calendar and using mailerlite and canva 2.

okay the total ad spend during the um during this phase would be about for the entire year you're only looking at around a thousand dollars in ad spend during the uh the winter phase and the spring phase of 4 20 and then in the summer time you're only looking at about 1050 for your total ad budget spend I'm looking at the clock we're doing fine um so really this is quite doable quite doable I mentioned in the optimism stage um this is an opportunity for us to say hello New Year hello to a new year sent out an optimistic New Year's Day greeting to your list on email and posted on social email this out to your subscribers and talk about the good things that are to come this does indeed help uh your your audience stay top of mind with you for sure and here's a tip all of the email subscribers that you receive through mailerlite during the previous year upload those to um your Facebook audience manager to create a new lookalike audience so then when you start engaging with new Facebook ads in 2024 you can send to an audience that looks like the people who have already subscribed with you it's a brilliant feature that Facebook has okay so again when you're ready in January of 2024 just pull out the sheet and this is your um your Tactical guide for the coming year okay as you move forward just keep this simple formula in mind digital marketing doesn't have to be um it doesn't have to be intimidating I know because technology is associated with it some people get so nervous and and and really don't want to have anything to do with touching Facebook move past that because there are some super easy tools that you can use and if you just need a little bit of encouragement or coaching by all means reach out to any of the Consultants through the digipore channel um unlisted as one but there's tons of incredible uh talent in the province standing by ready to help you again just move forward with that simple formula of offering tremendous value in a PDF people want to to see how you're different so that's how you can you can convey that message build that email list Build It Up throughout the year and then do your Outreach with Facebook ads and tell your Brand Story using organic social media and then engage with email it's super super simple okay I have done this in one hour are there any questions at this point shall I stop the share I shall stop do not stop the share oh do not stop there oh okay somebody's listening to me that's awesome we're all listening yeah so um a lot of the questions uh that we've seen so far kind of were answered um throughout the presentation so that's great so a question so again if anyone on the call has a question please put it in now um is uploading our email list to Facebook a privacy concern especially if we have promise not to share their information yeah no it isn't because um yeah that's an ethical dilemma but I I and I won't speak from a legal perspective but it's hidden those email addresses are hidden nobody nobody sees it per se but it's it's kind of encrypted and hidden behind layers of of code within the Facebook paired algorithms and they send it to people who are like them so no what Facebook will do with that email address is that it doesn't compare between all the attributes in that of that profile user that has that email address and they find people that are similar in profiles similar who have similar likes similar attributes that are you know Facebook amass is a huge amount of information on each of its each of its users and it does so for the purpose of retargeting and marketing so by uploading that um email address of that prospect that you have you're not um you're not violating their profile you're not violating their essence or their or their position in any way you're just giving a sample database a sample list to um to Facebook that it adds to its database to do a comparison and then it re-targets advertising to people who have profiles that are similar to those that you uploaded so yeah I know it's it's almost like an ethical dilemma there but we we can Overlook we Overlook that uh because it's uh it's fairly safe it's a tough one to answer yeah that's yeah this is always top of mind so is there any other questions here uh that we would have uh for Shelley again a lot of positive uh feedback grade presentation very informative a lot of people asking if um it's available after the fact that's that's positive what role rank is print media playing in this marketing campaign the life cycle question mark I'm sorry what was the question dick question is um what role or rank is print media playing in this marketing campaign life cycle great media wow oh I'm a digital marketer so I I I I um I tend to not look at a lot of print however I know that in some circles Prince still has its value Grant is not um it's not a sustainable marketing tool when you want to reach people all over the world when you know I have clients that Target just um you know certain parts of Europe as an example and that's where privacy gets to be a whole whole other ball of wax but we could never use digital or print rather to reach the uh the audience in Germany so digital has to be the way to go if um if you want to engage with print to do like brochures or newspaper ads if I don't think you can even get a print newspaper anymore um then you're really limiting your Market aren't you you're you're tying up your your messaging which could be fluid into what you have printed so you better make sure that everything you say is on point and that your phone number is doesn't change and your email address doesn't change once you spend you know sometimes thousands on print um it's it's difficult to measure print and I think that's the biggest problem that I have with it with um with social media advertising whether you do it organically or through uh paid ads you have metrics in place that count every interaction with your ad with a print ad um they might broadcast local distribution to ten thousand homes but how many of those 10 000 Publications that went out that month were actually read and appreciated by the audience we had no way to measure the print qual the print impact whereas with digital we do so uh yeah I tend to stay away from print cards I mean I still have still had people I still have the old-fashioned business card that I really like because it has my logo on it and all that jazz so that appeals to me from an ego perspective um do I invest in print I I do not personally so I hope that answers the question without you want to and you know what if your audience is receptive to print then maybe that's the way to go but I can't see from a tourism marketing perspective when we want to encourage visitors from outside the province that uh to come and visit us and and enjoy what we have I can't see how print Can Be an Effective medium there okay uh so how do you navigate the strict rules of Facebook terms of service with giveaways contests do you encourage those on IG instead which has less strict regulations yeah um you need to be respectful of Facebook's uh rules with respect to running contests if you go to facebook.com and look through their business management section I think it's facebook slash com slash business or something you can research the up-to-date rules on running a contest on social media and the type of contest however that I'm encouraging um with the the truth authenticity theme um is is a safe approach to doing a contest on Facebook now I've also had some horror stories um with respect to running contests on Facebook that have been hacked and I use the term hacked Loosely I we think it was just personal sabotage against one particular vendor and um for every and it was a highly engaging contest it was getting like dozens upon dozens of uh comments in the profile in the post timeline responding to this contest um we were getting you know exceptional feedback and for every um message that was posted on the timeline for this Facebook post um somebody was in there saying you won you won you won so it made it very difficult for us to continue with that contest but that was a deliberate effort just follow Facebook's rules and hope that you um don't have you know bad people that are going to try to ruin your your thing and it'll go fine just follow Facebook's rules and again if you need help with running a contest give us a call and we can walk you through some of that as well but but a contest that encourages um uh the Facebook algorithm I know will respond quite well to any series of posts if you have a post that has a high engagement rate um then it's going Facebook will Elevate that in its algorithm and show it to more people so it's a contests can be a very good thing perfect uh so uh this webinar has been excellent Shelly thank you so much I don't see any questions but you know if anything else anything else pops up after the fact it kind of goes back to to what I had said earlier and that is um book Shelly with the 101 you know like there's a lot of those follow-up opportunities um Shelly thank you so much for the excellent presentation there's a lot of people that said there's very valuable information that was actionable so thank you and uh I'm going to take back over the screen now Okay click stop share No nope just I'll take back over do nothing it's so odd for me that's really awesome I know thank you Sally have a great day tata for now goodbye everybody so again uh that webinar was excellent all of our webinars are excellent and the previous recordings are there the this webinar and PowerPoint will be up tomorrow they'll receive an email uh the next webinar we're going to have is Thursday April 13th and it's how to crack the profitable Facebook ads code so that'll be an excellent webinars presented by Sarah Mills with dashboard living and Sarah has an extensive experience with this so really excited for that webinar so join us on April 13th at 10. uh if you haven't had any ideas for future webinars send us an email TNS business at Nova scotia.ca you can find uh any of our corporate information at tourism ns.ca our

consumer websites so our call to action where we send people is Nova scotia.com news and resources so this is the area where we share all of our news programs anything that's relevant that industry needs to know we'll share it there and that's tourismns.ca news Dash resources you can find us at Twitter tourism NS and on LinkedIn at tourism Nova Scotia thank you so much and have a wonderful day thank you for joining us thank you

2023-03-14 18:49

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