Marketing

People often tell me they're too busy to do any marketing. They just 'don't have time'. 

Is this really what they're saying?  Do we mean we don't have any time for any marketing or just certain aspects of it? Responding to bookings, sending emails, talking to visitors are all marketing activities but we don't always 'count' them because they're everyday business essentials.

For some people 'marketing' means anything that seems a bit more effortful - posting regularly on social media, writing b…

I'm not very musical but every now and then a song gets stuck in my head. For some reason I've got Bob Marley's words singing in my head: let's get together and feel all right. 

It really does feel like it's time for us all to work together. Tourism can be affected by so many different factors (Floods, Brexit, Coronavirus) which we can't control. We can however make everything feel better.

Community. Collaboration. Kindness. None of them cost anything, yet they have enormous power. Visitors lo…

You might have noticed on social media and in the press that it's Something Day or Week almost every day? Whether it's Dry January, Black Friday or Take Your Pet to Work Day, there's always an 'awareness day' with a hashtag trying to grab attention.

You might have even tried to use one of these hashtags to give your own social media a boost? I've put together a few ideas to help you use awareness days more successfully. 

First things first.

What are 'awareness days'?

For decades we've used …

I don't think I remember a time when so many people were so exhausted. Almost everyone I meet or see on screen say they're just so tired, either because of stress, hard work or illness. I had a lot of messages when I wrote this blog about getting over difficult humps. There's clearly something in the air. 

I've been thinking about how we can somehow ease the strain and make life easier.

There's an answer: it's simple.

Or rather simplifying is the answer. 

I've started to simplify all kinds o…

Instagram has recently made two changes which are likely to make a big difference to users.

Firstly, you can now log in to your account and post to Instagram directly from your computer so Instagram is no-longer mobile-only.

The second change is that now everyone can add links in Stories. This used to be something only available on verified accounts or those with a given number of followers but is now being rolled out everywhere.

To add links to your Stories, you need to use the Link sticker …

I love twitter for the variety of topics  on there and the many useful links I often find, but I rarely suggest businesses use it to promote their businesses. Whenever I look at Google Analytics for tourism business websites, twitter seems to refer very little business.

Twitter is brilliant for one thing though: generating free media coverage.

Journalists love twitter. They use it to gather stories, spot trends, find new contacts and – most importantly and useful for you – to ask for informati…

Do you sometimes struggle to think of good things to post on social media? It can be hard to try to find different ways of saying "Look at my business, come and visit!" without boring people or feeling like you're being too pushy (you're not!).

Here are some different types of social media posts you can use to promote your business, engage visitors and make your feed more interesting. Using a combination of these will help build engagement and followers. But don't forget to do numbers 6 and 10 …