Tim Robertson, Author at Tim Robertson ~ Page 5 of 5

Ecolodge Marketing With Instagram #Hashtags

Use Instagram to Generate Interest with Picture Campaigns

Instagram is a visual medium to promote great images of the ecolodge experience. Consider having 2 Instagram accounts, one for the international market in english, and one for the local market in the local dialect. Here is a list of the most relevant hashtags for the ecolodge experience worldwide.

Refugio de Santiago Gardens

#ecotourism
#ecolodge
#rainforest
#naturelover
#ecofriendly
#travel
#nature
#tourism
#wanderlust
#adventure
#travelingram
#instatravel
#traveler
#ecoturismo
#eco
#lodge
#lodging
#ruraltourism
#natureconservation

Ecolodge Marketing: Use Alternative Ways to Promote Your Property

Refugio de Santiago

When it comes to the digital world, you have to think a litte bit out of the box. Because digital marketing isn’t just what you think it is. There is always a bit more.

Digital marketing is really about reaching anyone, anywhere, on any device, and on any platform. Most people get the “device” part. Smartphone, ipad, tablet, or laptop – that makes sense. And the idea of 24-7 is common.

But different platforms might be a bit of a challenge. What platforms are you familiar with?

I would describe a platform as a destination or screen that has a community, or set of digital choices, in a searchable and organic format. Here are some familiar platforms for you to promote to or show up in:

Google
Yahoo
Bing
Facebook
Pinterest
Instagram
Digital magazines
Blogs
Ecotourism sites

The Amazon Search Engine
I am going to suggest something a little bit different, but just as potent. Have you gone to Amazon.com lately, and looked for a book? First, you go to Amazon and search for the topic you are interested in, such as “ecolodges”. Then you look at what comes up, and all of your choices are books and guides that are at different price points.

Now when most people start thinking about “writing a book”, they think about editors, and a publisher, and months of research and work. I’d like to challenge that notion and suggest you write a book about your region and your ecolodge.

Have it show up in Amazon when someone is searching for the term “ecolodge”!

You probably have already enough material already – if you have been writing a blog and posting pictures.
It will put you in front of hundreds of thousands of interested prospects who are browsing in Amazon.
You can fill up your book with pictures, links, videos, and even testimonials.
Showcase your property with all the best photos, Trip advisor badges, inside stories, personal anecdotes, and anything other content you have created over the last 12 months.
You can even give them tips about when you offseason is or how to get around your area, ideas for restaurants and tours, and go into as much detail as you want. Think of it as a user guide for your property, giving the reader a feeling for what it is like to be there.
Not difficult to create – you can use a Microsoft Word document and then find an inexpensive technician to create the code for upload.
And if you look in your area you’ll see no one is taking advantage of this vast audience inside Amazon!

Because it is a digital book, you can update it at any time. You are not tied to a printed edition of 10,000! Just upload the latest edition and it will automatically populate the digital file on Amazon. This way you can keep current with your promotions or with any new material you want to feature.

Amazon will also print paper copies for you, and you can order as many copies as you need (from 1 to 1,000+). Give them to your guests as a guide book for your area, and use extra copies to distribute locally. Visit www.createspace.com for details.

This Killer Marketing Letter Had The CEO Call ME

The Killer Marketing Letter

My conundrum: how long would it take me to get a meeting with that important decision maker or CEO?

I discovered a killer marketing letter that helped me solve this problem. A few years ago I was introduced to a new technology that had a lot of potential. It was a business solution for newspapers that were stuck with declining fortunes. It helped them increase advertising revenues in an era of shrinking profits. The director of digital ad sales at the San Jose Mercury News had come up with a very innovative idea.

Because newspapers had local sales agents who knew their market very well, he set up a daily deal program much like Groupon, only for his own paper. The program he created, called the Mercury News Daily Deal, gave local businesses a daily deal in the newspaper combined with digital coupons online. This innovation boosted advertising revenues for the paper by over $150,000 per month.

News of his success spread through the industry, and in a matter of months several technology companies in the U.S. sprang up with online platforms that would allow media companies to create their own Daily Deal. My plan was to bring this technology solution to Canada. I contacted the best technology platform out there and made a deal with them to do just that.

My next challenge was one many business owners face: how was I to reach the CEO prospects I needed to get in front of?

For one, I had worked in the technology sector for many years, and did not have any connections in media companies, let alone newspapers. As well, newspapers are old and established industries, making them seem even harder to penetrate with a new idea.

“How was I going to reach the CEO’s in such an old, conservative industry –one where new ideas are perceived as a threat?”

It seems like every day there is another social media, content marketing, or other lead generation strategy for reaching key prospects. But there are three major forces changing the market:

First, it’s getting more expensive to invest the time necessary to make a lot of these methods worthwhile.
Second, when someone is looking for a solution to an urgent problem, they may have already searched, but not found, what you have to offer.
And third, technology is getting in the way of the personal contact that closes deals.

I discovered a simple solution to what seems to be a very tough problem…breaking through and getting a meeting, fast.

I discovered a very effective way to reach out to executives in that industry. It’s a killer marketing letter that has been tested many times, and has produced some great results. It uses something that is very basic to human nature: the power of curiosity, and the allure of having a solution to a very pressing problem in the palm of your hands.

I created a letter campaign that did three things:

One, the letter got across the benefit I was offering right away.
Two, it addressed a problem that was keeping the CEO up at night.
And three, it facilitated a phone meeting without anyone feeling imposed upon or “sold” to.

I sent a letter to the CEO’s of some of Canada’s largest media companies and news organizations

I delivered my letter to the CEO publishers of Sun Media, Postmedia, CTV, Post Media, and other media companies across Canada, about 10 in all.

Two days later I had the Publisher of Sun Media interested and on the phone, the VP of Sales at the Chronicle Herald taking my call “because my boss told me this was important,” the Digital VP at the Winnipeg Free Press contacting me to set up a meeting, and the CEO of Postmedia Network, personally picking up the phone and calling me directly. All of them wanted another meeting to find out what I was offering, and were eager to talk.

In another venture, I needed to connect with one of Canada’s top “Profit 100” technology companies. We were looking to set up a distribution deal to export technology to the Middle East. I used the same campaign again. Four months later we were in the boardroom of major banks in Dubai and Kuwait with the new technology offering in hand.

“That letter you sent – it really got my attention!” – CEO of Profit 100 Technology Company

You may have heard of having an “unfair advantage”. A simple, direct message might be exactly that.

Start by thinking hard about what pain your service or product solves. That means thinking beyond all the “features and benefits”. You might end up in a few essential CEO/decision-maker meetings – without all the steps between – of your own.

Interested in getting help for your own Killer Marketing Letter campaign? Click here.

Branding in the Midst of Civil War – Sri Lanka Brand Archive

In the war between the separatist north and the ruling south, the capital city of Colombo had endured suicide assassinations, truck bombs, and a besieged population subject to military checkpoints and terrorist warnings. In spite of all this activity, the people of Colombo were always cheerful and busy going about their daily lives.

Sitting in my Colombo hotel room on a hot day in March 2001, I was contemplating my branding assignment with one of Sri Lanka’s national newspapers. The country was embroiled in a civil war. My view outside the window was of the Indian Ocean and the remains of the Central Bank building, destroyed only a year before by a truck bomb that killed and maimed over 150 people. Across the street they were putting the finishing touches on the reconstruction of a hotel lobby that was blasted by another terrorist action. Was this assignment a such good idea?

New friends
My worries were erased upon meeting my client in the lobby bar that evening. Lal Wickrematunge is publisher of the Sunday Leader, a weekly publication with a circulation of over 15,000. Friendly and disarming, smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes, he invited me to have dinner with his wife and some colleagues at a nearby restaurant. Their warm welcome convinced me that this was the start of a great relationship.

There are 3 major newspapers in Sri Lanka. Printed primarily in english (Sri Lanka was a British colony before independence in 1967), one is government controlled and the other two are private. The Sunday Leader, a weekly, had a reputation for telling the real story, and was usually the paper people turned to after reading the “official” versions in competitor publications during the week.

The next morning my driver took me to the offices of Leader Publications Plc. We drove through several checkpoints and past the parliament buildings. The traffic was heavy, smoke billowing out the back of crowded buses and zippers darting back and forth through busy intersections. Lal showed me around the newsrooms and computer facilities, and introduced me to the editors and feature writers. Leader Publications has over 50 employees in their offices, their printing plant, and on the road.

Newspaper Stand, Colombo

The brand challenge
I only had three weeks to make an impact; so I had to make my time and effort count. We settled into the boardroom to examine some of the issues facing the paper.

In spite of having won journalism awards for their accuracy in reporting and a reputation for due diligence, a large percentage of their target market considered the Leader to be a poor cousin to the other independent national newspaper.

In terms of presentation values, the Leader was lacking in quality. Colour photos were blurred due to inaccurate placement of the color separation plates in the printing process, the header logo was dated, and each news department had initiated their own graphic style. This rough and hodgepodge approach was in direct contrast to the high quality reproduction and clean look of the competition. My challenge was to have management articulate the newspaper’s core brand values; have them commit to delivering on these values at all levels of the organization, initiate design standards, and provide a new, consistent look and feel that reflected this branding initiative.

The rewarding aspect of any branding exercise is seeing people enthusiastically embrace ideas that were already present, but not expressed in the workplace. The management consisted of Lal and his brother as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, department editors, a production manager, and the paper’s lawyer.

The Sunday Leader had a strong brand, it just hadn’t taken the steps necessary to strengthen and clarify it. I immediately had management focus on the newspaper’s production values.

We examined not only the Sri Lankan papers but included international papers like the Financial Times of London and the International Harold Tribune. I wanted to initiate a style that demonstrated excellence and authority.

Design momentum

Now that I had some momentum, we were able to have the production manager commit to improving the print process. We found a candidate who had many years experience with the aging Heidelberg press the Leader had at its printing facility just outside the city.

Within a week the colour separations were matching and were no longer blurred or distorted. We created a new masthead and design template for the production artists to follow. An art director was hired to implement the new design and ensure that it was consistently applied and maintained throughout all publications on a weekly basis.

Living with danger

What’s it like to be a journalist in a country where you can often be at odds with the government in power? Sethia Wickrematunge, Lal’s brother, had his house machine gunned one night while he and his family were out at a favorite restaurant. They had published a story that did not put the army in a very good light. How did he find living under these conditions?

“It’s been going on for 15 years,” he told me with a laugh, “so you just get used to it.”

Unfortunately this gentleman was assassinated a few years later.