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The winter season has just closed and a new season is on. June and July usually are the best time for ski resorts and Chalet management companies to review the past season and slowly gather new teams.

by Eseriani Travel Media - Online Digital Marketing Strategists for the travel industry

Do you struggle to get new bookings each year?  If you're feeling that it could be a much easier task, there's a few rules to follow: - Start your communication early - Be consistent in delivering information - Smooth operations with adapted processes in place How? by improving your performance with simple affordable tools : 1 - Analysis. Am I performing well?

Are planning jammed and team always asking for timetables? Are your operation procedures easy to follow and adapted? Is communication with your suppliers always understood? How we can help: We analyse your operations & organisational problems to find adapted solutions right now. If you're loosing considerable amount of time running your business instead of making bookings and delivering amazing services, you need new methodologies and ways to perform better. 2 - Exposure. Do clients see me?

Do you loose clients because they cannot find you? Do you have lots of requests and too little bookings? Is your competition performing better in your area? Are you experiencing too many last minute bookings that give you a hard time? How we can help: We revisit your brand, your website and online exposure to foster growth and engagement. Press relation, social media and newsletters are put into scrutiny to rapidly generate online visibility. If your name appears nowhere or generates too little activity on social media, you need to get out of the wood and show your skills. 3 - Performance. Are bookings increasing? Are signing clients difficult to get? Are clients wasting your time with questions that result to no bookings? Are you struggling to fill your chalets? How we can help: We activate performance tools to monitor your clients experience, evaluate engagement and measurable results. Analytics enables to give sense to your efforts and take action to improve performance. If you invest considerable amount of money on creative and marketing solutions but cannot monitor the effectiveness of such tools, you have no way to know if you're heading in the right direction.

We're here to help and to guide you to the adapted tools for your resort or chalet. Contact us now to discuss your issue and follow us on Twitter for a better insight of what we can offer.

The vast majority of businesses rely on their website to propose professional services and interact with consumers. Most of us read news and browse the internet with our mobile phone and tablet.

by Eseriani - Online Digital Marketing Strategists for the travel industry

But how many of you have a website which design automatically adapts to the different devices and offers an adaptive display of your website? With the unstoppable boom of mobile technologies and smart phones, having a responsive website is a priority. And if you don't have one, your competition does. 

What is a responsive website?  

Websites are no longer static and frames are now designed to adapt automatically to the device you are on. Whether your browsing experience is on a PC, tablet or smartphone, your website layout becomes flexible and respond to the size of your screen.     A responsive website is developed with CSS (standardized Style Sheets), flexible frames and layouts that automatically adapt to the resolution of your device screen. No more zooming on the page to read the text. No more long and annoying scroll to access the bottom of a page. Pages become easier to read and your website design is conveniently adjusted to allow a seamless experience through your pages.      The major benefit of having a responsive website is that a single URL now fits all screens. Maintenance costs are significantly reduced and page render is optimized to supply all devices. All great news!

Websites that don't adapt to mobile devices are unable to capture new visitors, reach readers with new content and make conversions.

Why you must switch to responsive ?

Browsing on a smartphone is so common that surfing experience on a conventional PC seems to have lost ground.   Users respond better and stay longer on a website that delivers an unified interface, an intuitive navigation and an enjoyable experience. Responsive websites offers amazing interactions to mobile viewers and convert readers into consumers ready to shop from their phone.     Offering user-friendly navigation and consistent look on all screens can ensure a surge in the traffic and a significant increase of your conversion rate. You become reachable virtually from anywhere, no matter on what device your consumers are. Being adaptative has become vital to respond to the new ways of surfing the web.   

Don't miss the turn!

Websites that don't adapt to mobile devices are unable to capture new visitors, reach readers with new content and make conversions. Digital marketing plans that don't embrace a responsive web design are ruined by a poor user browsing experience, a reduction of traffic and a loss in revenues. Make sure your marketing team is aware of that. 

What a responsive website offers in terms of SEO?  

My experience on designing websites has shown that the Google algorithms provide a better ranking to mobile-friendly websites. Better positioning often means growth in page view and traffic. As a responsive website is linked to a single URL, SEO strategy is easier to manage to improve positioning and you don't have to manage multiple URLs adapted to the desktop and mobile environment.     Being multi-screen friendly from a single URL also prevents the duplication of content. We've already mentioned the consequences of duplication in a previous post and the damages in your ranking. Google does not identify whether a duplicate content is from the same author or not and duplicates will be considered as plagiarism. Bad for your ranking.       With a responsive website, analytics are still effectively monitor mobile experience, deliver more accurate reports and provide useful information on how your audience reacts to your responsive design. With precious information about your customer experience in hand, SEO strategies can now be successfully adapted and better managed.  

Responsive website help capturing new visitors, increase sales and offer more flexibility.

Don't miss any business opportunity and offer your consumer a great surfing and shopping experience on mobile devices. Save your team time and effort when managing your website. Be better positioned on the search engines to overcome your competition by simply be more visible.

Give yourself the tools to interact in a more friendly way with your viewers and encourage your consumers to take action.

Still wondering why you don't get the traffic you deserve? Contact us or read more about what your audience can do for you.

The most common mistake in Online Digital Marketing is the lack of a strategy. Companies often fail to have a plan when they create or renew their website. With no goals, companies don't really engage with their audience that in return don't respond positively, despite amazing designs.   

by Eseriani - Online Digital Marketing Strategists for the travel industry

Don't stay without a direction!

Most companies start their website with a general idea, a basic site map, a relatively good design, an in-house person to write content from time to time and to update the social media, but no real plan to define where to go with it.     You start off your website, spending money and hours just to realize after a few months that you are going in the wrong direction. After an initial take off of the traffic, the website seems to miss targets and meet your expectations in reaching your business objectives. The website becomes poorly updated, less time is devoted to it and the social media slowly suffers from a lack of interest.     It is time to define the real purpose of your website! Build brand awareness, drive sales, generate bookings, increase clients base, gather email addresses for email marketing, create a community...? There are many objectives along the a road map but only one (or a selection of them) must fit your company objectives.   Shape your future by defining your goals, writing detailed specifications for the web-designer and find expert writers. Finally, take time to reassess your objectives to go in the right direction. Realistic and quantifiable objectives lead to better results.   

It is time to define the real purpose of your website! Build brand awareness, drive sales, generate bookings, increase clients base, gather email addresses for email marketing, create a community...?

Identify your customers 

Don't market to customers you haven't identified! The temptation is great to hire a web designer and shop for beautiful templates without identifying who are your potential customers and how you can interact with them.     You end up with a website with an awesome design that generates a wow effect and pleases everyone around you, but what's the point if it does not answer your readers questions, respond to your audience needs or continuously fails to deliver the right information.     Identify your consumer journey into your brand, interact with them focusing on their interests, analyse the user experience to create accurate and targeted content.     Segment your customers by demographic, gender, age, habits, education, define the affluent and the influencers to follow. Understand your audience to create great content and induce your consumer to take the action defined in your marketing plan.    

Deliver a powerful message

Don't challenge your competition with a poor message!   As already mentioned in previous posts, content is king! Capture customer interest and imagination with great content. Generate traffic with SEO friendly information, follow the trends and post regular updates.     Keep your content consistent with your company objectives. Structure your website navigation to ease your customer journey into your website and through your social media.     Classify information to keep your readers' interest and experience high. Don't leave your audience stranded into a page with no other option than leaving the website. That's the worst case scenario. Constantly review your customer experience throughout your website to target interests and refine your content.   

Convert online traffic into buyers

With measurable objectives and regular reviews of your performance, your company should increase its conversion rate, turning your readers into consumers.     Track your statistics and analyse your online visits to make sure that increase of traffic correlates with sales conversions. The progression of  unique visitors is not enough evidence that you are performing well.     Generate multi-channel experiences and implement a responsive website that will adapt to all devices. A consumer experience should not end because your website is impossible to browse on a mobile phone. Allow consumers to engage with you across all channels to generate action.     A component that is often ignored is the performance of the team in charge of the website. Is content proofread, photos calibrated, navigation optimised, message consistent with your brand, links free of all 404 errors, social media appearance aligned with the website graphic line? It is key evaluations to consider to retain your consumers and increase loyalty.    Conclusion: review you marketing models   Your website should deliver an experience that leads consumers to engagement.

Defining all aspects of your digital marketing plan before investing in any design prevents a series of headaches and a ton of disappointments despite all the efforts and initial investments. 

Don't let your busy schedule ruin your financial marketing efforts to reach your objectives. Stick to the plan and don't procrastinate. Measure, rate and review your performance to optimize your models, deliver better and get profitable ROI. 

Continue reading about how to boost your website with content or be in touch with us to plan your next digital marketing campaign. 

Are recommendations and  word-of-mouth the new ways to influence your consumers? There is an increasing popularity in social media usage and a larger variety of media formats to share. You not only share text but also photos, videos, links, apps, widgets... mostly to the people in your circles of friends or network of contacts. 

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

Why recommendations work

You consider buying a new car or going on holiday somewhere? Who do you ask for advice first? Obviously, you trust your family and friends to give you their best recommendations that will be valued more than any advertisement in a bochure or a website. Here is the anwer to your question, it works because recommendations influence behaviors!

Through social media channels, recommending brands or companies to your online friends is becoming more popular, but it is also more effective for brands to be recognised as the leader in their market. Recommendations can generate connections between people and influence purchase behavior.

And what if you are endorsed by a celebrity or an expert in your field? Recommendations become a stratgic marketing tool to influence consumers and reach your goals.

It is time for you to identify who you are talking to instead of preaching to an audience that you don’t really know.

The power of the recommendations

What drive consumers to recommend your brand? Why do they talk about you?

If you don't have a clue, it is time for you to identify who you are talking to instead of preaching to an audience that you don't really know. You have a facebook account, check what is said and shared. You have a twitter account, follow conversations and monitor what content is retwitted. And so forth on each plateform you are active on. When engaging with your consumers, make sure that your content strategy matches their needs. Talk about what they want, not only what you sell. Build your credibility with useful content in your niche, engage conversations and slowly turn your consumers into brand advocates you can rely on to spread the word.

Root your strategy on recommendations

Now that you have analysed your audience, do you know who influence them? What are their interactions?

Here I would say that content is key. What you say and how you say it can create new ideas, generate new experiences, build loyalty and increase sales. Surround your brand with a community and customize a personal relashionship that could influence behavior. Let your audience be part of your story and make it easy for them to share useful content.

Enrich your content with active links, valuable testimonials, exhaustive content from experts or influencers to generate traffic and exposure.

Build a brand

The importance of engaging with your audience showcases the need of having a strong identity that is recognised among your competitors. Inspire people and get involved into communities, associations to be recognised as an expert. When loyalty and trust are at your door, tailor some give-aways or special deals to initiate recommendations, gather new followers and encourage action.

Let's talk about your online project, contact us now or continue with us by reading this article. 

Website viewers like images, search engines like text. Having said that it is also true that Google considers that an image added to a post illustrates the content and then gives better credit to your post.

To increase your ranking and get the most of your images, Google needs to read and undestand what is the image about.

When posting, always name your graphics with target keywords that you separate with dashes. Don't use more than 4 or 5 words that will give essential information about the image. You can also choose to include the geographic location of the picture in the title or description to help Google categorising your image.

Adding text or keywords in the Alt tag is also a valuable information for Google and an easy way to increase ranking i.e. <... alt="architectural structure of Eiffel Tower Paris" ...> it helps Google to understand the image and gives an indication that is more than a touristic snapshot.

Anchor text that links to images should include the keywords used either in the title or the Alt tag of your image. Google can interpret the link that also becomes a call to action i.e. which anchor text are you more prone to click on: 'click on the photo here' or 'click to discover the amazing architectural structures of the Eiffel Tower'

Format of your image is important and JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and SVG are the ones accepted by Google. Consider weight of your image when choosing your format, JPEG being the most commonly used compressed format.

Finally, surround your image with content related to the image published or linked and include some of the keywords used in the captions or the title to inform Google of the topic of your post.

Continue reading to discover top articles or be in touch with us to plan your next digital marketing campaign. 

You write fresh and original content regularly but finding new ideas, topics and stories to captivate your audience is sometimes a bit of a challenge, especially if you target a niche market or your indusry is a seasonal activity.

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

Refresh content

The temptation is high to repost old content from your blog archives; that would be so easy. The problem is that the SEOs will consider the ‘new’ post as duplicate content and penalise your blog and its ranking. To get your old articles out of the grave, fresh angle, new perspective, updated information and change of target audience can freshen up your content.

Be creative and keep an eye on the many ways that social media offers to inspire your audience.

What content to refresh

Not all posts can be upated and the search of a quality post can help you to propose a new post that is genuinely interesting to your community. Check your statistics, either from Google Analytics, your web host or other plugin/widget with tracking codes placed in your footer.

Consider what posts attracted the most attention or was getting the most traffic, shares, comments? Social Media is an evolving world where you can choose to focus on a new target, change your startegy, link to news resources or cater for audiences’ new interest to connect with them.

Select new set of keywords to be included into your content to attractmore followers. Technology has changed? add value to your initial content displaying the latest innovations (i.e new ski bindings, new board shape, new lens technology for cameras), your comments on the lastest travel show or a small review of your lastest product.

You can hire a professional copywriter or a proofreader to improve the tone of your copy and boost interest to engage with your consumers.

What other tricks

Be creative and keep an eye on the many ways that social media offers to inspire your audience.

The first thing to do is to check and reactivate all broken links; you can use a link checker to quickly identify the broken links, especially if you have decided to refresh a considerable number of posts.

Insert new visuals and graphics that you will name and tag to make them SEO optimised. Use Pinterest and the repin button to link your content to stunning images.

Link part of your content to social media plateforms or include it in a newsletter if you haven’t changed the content much.

Finally, make your post original by adding interviews, testimonials or reviews to reconnect with your audience to generate traffic and exposure.

Conclusion

New trends, innovations, laws or technology improvements are a good way to write an eye catching introduction that will provide useful content to your new audience and entice them.

Share with friends or read more on that topic in this article. Contact our team to build a strong marketing article strategy

The most fascinating thing with storytelling is that instead of pushing people into buying a product, storytelling grabs the attention of your viewers to generate traffic.

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

What storytelling says to your consumer? 

Your marketing strategy revolves around sharing experiences that can move minds in the direction you'd like to lead them. The key is to link your content to the emotions that bring the stories to trigger action among your viewers. Tell the story of real people, share their struggle and challenges to bring your services to life and promote your brand outside the traditional marketing plateforms.

What is storytelling? 

The idea behind telling a story is to generate a set of images or concepts in people's mind that will trigger action. Whether it is personal experience with a brand, a 'go wrong' experience turned right or an inspirational experience, let people connect to the story that you are telling in order to move them. 

Our number one recommendation to build consumer engagement is to produce interesting content, to translate experiences into everyday life and to get deep into personal experience. Create a success story and help your viewers to connect and share their own. Adapting to this new way of socialising helps to link your long time clients to your new consumers though great stories. The important thing to remember is to drive an emotional connection between your story and your products to create an affinity with your brand. 

Our number one recommendation to build consumer engagement is to produce interesting content, to translate experiences into everyday life...

Grow bigger with partners

To fully benefit from the experiences of real people, we believe in building a success together. Connect with companies to elaborate a strategy that benefits to every partner. The key is to deliver more to your clients by partnering with companies that bring an advantage to your individual product. Create a non competitve environment where the different companies benefit from one another to add value to your product and increase the impact of your message. Now you can leverage opportunities through the storytelling and give more credibility to your brand.

How to generate affinity with your brand

The best way to generate affinity with your brand is to deliver a consistent and personal content that helps consumers to connect with you. Keep the same tone and publish fresh and interesting content to your audience. Storytelling is an incredible opportunity for small businesses to connect with different partners that will interact with your story to build influence and drive sales.

When it comes to sharing your story, you'll find it more valuable to craft a message that is deeply rooted into the real world, to adapt your message to each social media platform and to keep the level of interest high by connecting your different partners and brands together.

Find more about successful marketing strategies for your business by reading here or contact us to create your own success. 

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

Your brand needs visibility but lacks the budget of big companies. How to get out there and be seen?

Your social media marketing strategy should aim to tell a story about you, your brand and how you connect with your customers through personal experiences.

What does this mean for travel brands?

The strategy is to use the 'human' side of your brand to interact with your customers. Take your brand message and confront it to the real world by sharing customers' experience, giving real life experiences, creating a story behind your brand, in fact make your brand more approachable.

What do your clients like in you? Why are they connecting with you? What will make them share your content?

Finding emerging topics and interests in your field will help you to get an overview of the content that is shared on the web. Online conversations give brands, especially in the travel and hospitality industry, the opportunity to respond to specific demands and to provide content that will keep readers interested.

Share with friends or find out more by reading this article.

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

The attachment to a logo is more emotional than rational. Font, colour, message, every element of a logo conveys a simple message with authenticity and precision. The professional feel implies competence and increases trust among customers in the product or service the company offers. It is often about emotional attachment.

Why a logo?

Designing a logo is part of a creative strategy to strongly position your company on a market. Your logo becomes the visual element of your identity that consumers can easily identify. A sophisticated look can steer new audiences to your company rather than a competitor. It helps you tight an affinity with your target, improve your position on your market and give a professional image to your potential new clients.

What’s the first step in the logo design process?

Symbolic, typographic or even both; what really determines the kind of logo to design? Your logo should be distinctive and give voice to your message, fit the vision of your company and embrace your personality.

Taking inspiration from the company history, concept or influence is a good start to gather the key elements of a brand. Whether typographical, symbolic or even a mascot, your new identity have to work across a large range of media channels and pass through the fashions and trends.

What makes a good logo?

A good logo is not only defined as "good" because of the creativity and typographic elements that is put into it. A good logo have the mission to differentiate your business from your competitors and to be relevant to your industry. With this, it helps consumers to remember your company, product or service and to identify your name with greater ease. Simplicity and singularity make your logo unique and distinctive from any other brand in your field; your identity slowly becomes recognizable and memorable. Printed on letter-heads, business cards, envelopes, brochure and leaflets, in colour or in black and white, if logo remains readable and easily recognizable, a "good" logo is at hand.

What does your logo says to your consumers?

Storytelling is the key word ! Behind the identity lies the personality and identity of the people that represent your company. The identity conveys emotions that consumers circulate through their social media and share with their connections. As the company grows, also grows your professional image characterised by a logo that consumers are more likely to engage positively with.

Conclusion

Need to undergo a few stylistic changes, refine your identity or go through drastic changes? Gives your target audience a visual element that reflects your identity and provides essential information about a company.

Continue reading about the ways to gather audience around you with this article

Contact us to require a comprehensive branding strategy.

By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

As part of your strategic campaign, your company has created a Facebook page to engage with consumers. But what's next? How do you know your page is performing or whether fans are engaging with you.

Analyse visits and time to schedule your posts

What do you know about your audience?

What are the most read articles? Are people sharing your content? At what time do they connect? Do they come from Facebook or from other external websites? Many questions that need to be answered to track your audience and to define if your strategy is performing well.

Facebook offers a free tool within your page to help you analyse your audience. Facebook Insights Metrics are basic statistics generated automatically to monitor your page’s activity.

To access the valuable information, go to your Facebook page, click on the settings icon on your page's cover photo and select View Insights. A handful of data and metrics enfold and you quickly get an insight of how your page is performing.

Why such metrics are important?

The engagement of your audience is now measurable. You can determine if what you're posting generates interest and action. Marketers have a more comprehensive idea of who is interacting with them. It becomes obvious that the quality of the content posted influence engagement. Quality of content is certainly not to be neglected.

Companies can directly export the data to Excel from their Facebook interface selecting the “Post level data” as the data type.

Optimise your digital marketing strategy

Understanding the number of fans and non-fans that reach your posts, the optimal posting times to display content, whose talking about you and the engagement rate comparing different types of media (link, text, image or video) become a crucial and useful indicator of how you perform online and how your strategy should evolve.

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By Eseriani - Creative media strategists for the travel industry.

The increase of mobile users has revolutionalised the way people book a room today. More and more consumers are using mobile devices to plan their holidays and social media hugely influence their choice.

Consumers no longer trust third party reviews or simply don't have the time to read all online comments. They now rely on the full potential that offer their network of friends to track positive experience.

How hotel can respond to this?

With more travellers expected from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) hotels need to grasp the importance of managing their online reputation to build consumer confidence.

Guest satisfaction and experience directly affect image, decision making and sales. Blogs, forums, and other social media channels also influence client's decision making.

Then using the wrong strategy can be fatal. Hotel have to embrace social media to their benefit, re-think their branding, develop a specific strategy with unique content, build an online reputation, manage customer satisfaction by maintaining their social media and collect accurate satisfaction data report.

New strategy should involve new guidelines or process to ensure that the social media is well maintained without being time consuming and a waste of money and effort.

Monitoring what consumer say about your brand and responding to it with the right strategy can prevent negative comments that are damageable to your reputation.