Five ways tourism marketers often fool themselves.

March 17, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 8:04 am

Listen up marketers…we like to think we’re always making wise choices, but sometimes we stick our heads in the sand. When budget, staffing, or timing is tight, it’s soooooo tempting to cut corners and say to ourselves “it’s fine.”

A cartoon image of a dog with a small brown hat sitting on a chair surrounded by a room that's on fire, while he is sipping coffee calmly and saying "this is fine." This is meant to illustrate what's happening as part of the five ways that tourism marketers often fool themselves.

Y’all…it’s really NOT fine, and deep down inside, you know it. Here are five ways tourism marketers often fool themselves, and how it comes back to bite them in the booty.

1) We can water down this BIG idea and still get BIG results.

The excitement and energy that accompanies a big idea is invigorating, infectious, and lasting. This is especially because the magnitude of the potential results makes us star-struck.

Here’s the rub, however. When – due to budget, operational challenges, timing, executive indecision, or whatever – that big idea gets watered down before implementation, often marketers are super bummed that the results aren’t the ones with which they originally fell in love. They conveniently “forget” that they dramatically pared down the idea, and never shed that infectious, lasting excitement they had at the start.

If this describes your organization, fear not…you’re not alone. I can’t tell you how many times clients have asked us for a BIG BOLD IDEA, which they love at first hearing. And by the time it comes back to us after several washings through their various committee discussions and lengthy decision-making processes, we don’t even recognize it. This phenomenon is quite common. In fact, it’s so common that we even have a term for it at Redpoint: vanillafication. That’s taking bright, colorful, tasty ideas…and wringing all the flavor out of them until they’re just vanilla.

Folks, there’s no harm and no shame in paring down ideas. Necessity (and the reality of your situation) often demands it. But if you pare down your ideas, you must proportionately pare down your expectation of results accordingly. Not doing so is just one way that tourism marketers often fool themselves…and then they’re disappointed.

2) It’s fine if we just replicate last year’s event as is.

No, it’s not. Whether it’s a trade or consumer event, whatever tourism thing you’re selling…it’s being sold to people. And people get desensitized so easily.

It’s essential that you add at least one new element to your annual events each year. It doesn’t have to be huge or cost a lot of money. Just something different than your audiences have experienced at that event before. It keeps the event fresh, makes an impression, and gives folks something to talk about…and maybe even post on social media or share in other ways.

Moreover, if you seek news coverage of the event, you actually need “news.” If the event is 100% the same as it was the last time they heard about it or attended, there’s literally nothing for them to cover. They need a nugget of something new to make their editorial coverage interesting and timely.

I know, I know. Tourism marketers are so busy and often stretched so thin that it’s a relief when you can finally put something on autopilot and not have to invest new creative energy or logistical planning into something that’s already “done.” Sorry, friends. This is yet another way tourism marketers often fool themselves.

3) We can wait to fix this website issue.

There are days when I feel like it would be easier to raise a child than properly maintain a website. Platforms evolve, things break, algorithms change, content gets stale… the list is endless.

The mission to keep everything current and in excellent working order is so relentless that it’s tempting to ignore some of the issues for a while. Like… “until I have the budget,” or “until I have the time,” or “until next year.”

Because of this, often tourism marketers fool themselves into thinking, “oh, it’s not that bad if that one part of the navigation is wrong,” or “it’s only a few broken links on pages people don’t use much,” or “yeah, the site is slow to load but it’s not that bad,” or – my personal favorite – “these photos aren’t the best, but they’re fine for now.”

This sort of ostrich mentality does your business grave damage. Why? Because it’s quietly and invisibly turning away potential customers…AND YOU DON’T EVEN HEAR ABOUT IT. Trust me, no one ever calls you up and says, “I was going to book with you, but your website annoyed me so much I decided against it.” They don’t do that…they just walk away.

Sure, if you look at your website analytics, you can see symptoms of this. But that’s easier to ignore (if you’re even looking…and many businesses, especially with DIY marketing, aren’t). Imagine if all those folks who walked away actually DID call you up and say that? You’d make fixing your website the highest priority instantly.

Your website is your virtual front door. Stop losing business because of it. On both desktop and mobile, it needs to be visually appealing AND fully functional. That means it’s fast, easy to navigate, informative, and current, with no broken links or wonky formatting. Users care about all of that, but as importantly…so do search engines.

Tip: here are six common website issues to look for on your site.

4) These photos are good enough.

I can’t tell you how many times tourism operators have handed me a brochure or a business card (sometimes even at a trade show!) and said, “This is us, but don’t look at the photos; they need to be updated.”

Here’s a story that puts that situation in perspective. During a website audit, we showed a hotel client that the highest number of people were leaving their site from their photo gallery page. Sweet lordy. A photo gallery page should inspire people to check dates and start the booking process, not leave the website.

Investing in a major photo shoot had seemed like something they couldn’t afford. But that audit showed them that they couldn’t afford NOT to do it.

Photos are an essential selling tool in tourism marketing. They can’t just be “good enough.” They have a job to do, which includes things like catching attention among cluttered social media feeds and capturing the imagination of website visitors. Ultimately, you want your photos to inspire action, whether it’s to read a caption, click a link, or inquire about booking.

Please don’t fool yourself when it comes to the quality of your photos. You will lose money because of it.

Note: for tips on this, see The Secret to a Great Tourism Photo and What Makes a Dramatic Tourism Marketing Photo.

5) It’s fine if no one else in our organization knows what marketing is doing.

In so many of the organizations we work with, marketing lives in a silo. And it’s sooo tempting to keep it that way. No scrutiny, no one chiming in with opinions, no questions about how budgets are being spent. We hear that a lot: “I just gotta keep my head down and churn out the marketing stuff.”

If this is you, hear me out. This is a major way in which tourism marketers often fool themselves. In the tourism industry, the relationship between marketing and all the other departments is crucial. Our product is experiential, and its delivery is dependent on operations, guest service, human resources, and more. It’s an ecosystem that needs to be in harmony at all times.

Because of this, EVERYONE needs to know what marketing is doing. Marketing is bringing in the guests who fuel the engine that delivers the experience. So, that engine needs to know what marketing is doing to make that happen…especially so they can live up to those promises.

Distribute a monthly update, make periodic presentations, even go door-to-door Erin Brockovich style and tell folks what’s happening. One business I know hosts a monthly “snack time,” at which they lure folks from other departments in with free snacks and share the upcoming marketing tactics while soliciting input for the future. Figure out whatever works for your organization’s culture and just do it.

~~~

Overall, it’s likely that time poverty and budget constraints are the two biggest culprits behind many of these unwise choices. So I get it… it’s not easy. But awareness is the first step toward change, so grab yourself a beverage and think about where YOU might be fooling yourself in your tourism marketing activities. Feel free to make that an adult beverage… you might need it. 😉

What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo?

March 16, 2023

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Social Media — @ 10:07 am

Your personal photos serve to capture a scene and a memory, but a marketing photo has another job: it must persuade and entice. But before it can even do those things, it has to catch someone’s attention. That means your marketing photos need to be arresting enough to stop thumbs and stand out among the sea of clutter that barrages people every day. Which begs the question:

What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo?

By “dramatic,” I mean it evokes emotion, piques curiosity, and/or makes a bold statement. This is done through strategic use of angle, lighting, perspective, and subject choice. A dramatic tourism marketing photo can tell a story in one glance. And it can also get someone interested enough to stop and read the caption or other accompanying message you want to convey.

In that latter sense, the photo is just a lure. It’s bait, if you will, that hooks your audience into hearing what you have to say. So for a photo to hook as many people as possible, that bait needs to be nice and juicy.

A picture can indeed be worth a thousand words. Here are five dramatic tourism photos I’ve come across in the past month, and what each one says to its audience.

Destination British Columbia

This says: private, remote, solitude, peace, quiet. It also says, “Breathe fresh air in the wilderness and get away from the noise and clutter of your daily life.”

In this sea of snowy bluish-white, your eye is drawn to two things: 1) that little patch of brown, where the cabin sits nestled in the woods, and 2) the blurry branches in the left foreground. And the rest of the image is just natural, uninhabited, snow-blanketed forest. In this photo, the perspective distance from the cabin and the upward angle that still allows the cabin to peek through the trees really nail the emotion here. The cabin alone or the blurry branches alone wouldn’t create the same impact. But they work together to hold the viewer’s attention, and that in turn communicates a message that viewers don’t even realize they’re receiving: this is literally “getting away from it all.”

Tourism Tasmania

This says: unhurried, no decisions to make, no responsibilities. It also says, “Be alone with your thoughts and slow down your speed.”

The curves and swirls that juxtapose white and blue are enough to stop someone’s scrolling thumbs, but then it’s the lone human walking near the water that really makes this photo. The aerial perspective, coupled with the person, convey the scale and context of the landscape in a way that neither a close up, nor the same photo without the person in it, ever could. And even though there’s a light frothy surf where the beach meets the shore, the timing of this photo evokes the feeling that everything on this beach is still and calm…and so the only movements are the ones YOU choose to make. The person in the photo is clearly walking, which is essential to the emotion of the photo. If the person were standing still, it wouldn’t create that same compelling dynamic.

Switzerland Tourism

This says: unforgettable, breathtaking, Instagrammable wedding memories. It also says, “If you’ve got joie de vivre and a fun spirit, we’re the right place for your wedding.”

A quick glance at this photo catches attention because the couple on the ski lift is clearly NOT wearing ski gear. And the “white space” around that couple ensures that they really pop…it makes a viewer want to stop and zoom in for a closer look. What helps here is that the background is SO majestic. It screams “classic Swiss Alps” for a wedding backdrop, and yet the mountains don’t dominate the scene. Moreover, the perspective looking up from the ground, and the simplicity of what’s captured in the frame, evoke the feeling that the newlyweds are high above and away from everyone… alone together, far removed from anyone and anything. I mean, could it get any more romantic than that?

Klahoose Wilderness Resort

This says: unusual experience. It also says, “Whatever that is, it looks cool.”

It looks like a shed sitting on a dock, and that might be enough for someone to stop and check it out. But then, it has steam coming out of the roof, so…what IS that? It’s the steam that really makes this shot because it piques curiosity. Then the caption tells you that this is a work-in-progress shot of the resort’s new wood fire cedar sauna and just like that…you want to be in that sauna. The downward perspective from an elevated viewpoint shows just enough context for the viewer to understand its cool location, and that super calm blue water surrounding it adds to the allure. BTW, you can see the finished sauna here.

Inn by the Sea

This says: “You want wine? We’re not playing around. We’ve GOT wine.”

Landscape and nature aren’t the only subjects for dramatic tourism marketing photos. Look at these wine barrels. The way the rows curve at the back, along with the perfectly aligned strips of oak and burgundy coloring, really nail the drama for this photo. They draw the eye and give the impression that the barrels continue on to infinity. And nothing says “we’ve got plenty of wine” like a seemingly unlimited supply of wine barrels. Even better: this photo was used to promote inn’s wine pairings and menus for Maine Restaurant Week. Why is that better? Because it’s soooo different than the usual photo used to promote such an event, like a glass of wine next to a plated dinner. This stands out.

What’s the bottom line? What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo isn’t necessarily having a dramatic subject. It’s CREATING a dramatic feeling by choosing how the subject will be photographed. It may take a little more investment on your part – time, money, expertise – but it’s well worth it to invest in this kind of marketing bait.

For more (undramatic) tourism marketing photography tips, find out the secret to a great tourism photo.

ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

February 13, 2023

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Crisis Communications, Effective Presentations, Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Social Media, Effective Communication — @ 11:24 am

Here’s why tourism marketers need tips for using ChatGPT, an online program that engages in human-like dialogue based on a prompt: because we’re all too damn busy to waste time. And messing around with a new tool we’re not sure we’d even use feels a lot like wasting time. Is it worth it? Should you invest the time to get familiar with ChatGPT because that investment of time will pay off?

Short answer: yes. You need to know what this tool can REALLY do before you decide to embrace or reject it. It has some uses that may surprise you.

So let’s jumpstart your learning curve with some practical tips for how tourism marketers can explore the benefits of using ChatGPT.

First, let’s get one thing straight. ChatGPT is just a resource and a tool. You’ve got a lot of tools to help you do your job. Google is a tool. Adobe Illustrator is a tool. Semrush is a tool. But the relentless media frenzy around ChatGPT has given it near-mystical properties that make it seem more potent than that. Chill out, y’all. It’s just a tool. It’s one more resource in your toolbox to potentially help you do your job better, smarter, and faster.

And like all tools [she says sheepishly, aware that she barely knows how to use 5% of the available apps on her iPhone], its usefulness is only as powerful as your knowledge of how to harness it. I’ll never forget years ago when an accounting mentor said to me, “If you’re doing any manual calculations whatsoever or taking a long time to manipulate data in an Excel spreadsheet, then there’s a shortcut, command, or function you just don’t know about. Excel is designed to make life easier. If it’s making it harder, go learn more about Excel.”

ChatGPT is the same. When you first try it out, you won’t be savvy at knowing how to coax the most effective results from it. So you’ll plug in a few basic things and the outcomes will be unimpressive. And then, because you’re super busy and there’s no mandate that says you need to use ChatGPT, you’ll dismiss it as unhelpful and go back to the familiar tools in your toolbox.

But what if I told you that…

You could paste a particularly legalese-sounding section of a vendor contract into ChatGPT and say “explain this to me like I’m an 8^th grader”…and it does?

It could produce a style guide for all your team members to follow, after you feed it several samples of a brand’s voice to analyze?

It could take your 400-word bio and make it fit that directory listing’s 100-word requirement in just one click?

It could give you a substantive list of story ideas for your content calendar…and then organize them into a seasonal schedule…and then create first drafts of each piece of content, in different formats for social channels, blog posts, email newsletters…and even website copy that’s optimized for the keywords you require?

It can indeed do all those things and more…if you know how to prompt it effectively.

Janette Roush is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital, for NYC & Company, which is the official DMO/CVB for New York City. And she’s one of ChatGPT’s early adopters and passionate champions who is learning to master the “art of the prompt.”

“If you want to get ChatGPT to give you useful answers, the key is in how you formulate your prompt,” Roush told me. “I was once advised to think of it like an omniscient three-year-old. It knows everything under the sun, but it doesn’t know who YOU are, WHY you need to know, and WHO you’re trying to talk to. You need to prompt it with details like that for it to return a result that’s written in the context you need. Otherwise the result will be very generic and way less useful to your purpose.”

Roush has honed her prompting skills through persistent trial and error. In fact, she even documents her journey with ChatGPT on LinkedIn, making regular posts about prompts she’s tried for a wide variety of uses and the results they’ve produced. (Pro tip: Connect with or follow her there. You won’t regret it.)

Inspired by Roush, I took ChatGPT for a three-hour test drive one morning, just giving it prompts for various tourism-marketing-related things. One thing I quickly learned is that a generic prompt yields a generic answer and specific prompt yields a specific answer. Case in point: Look at how it adjusted its responses for social media captions based upon my specificity:

And it did the same thing as I sought its help to generate story ideas for Northern California:

Are those story ideas all perfect with no need for tweaking? Perhaps not. But did it give me threads to follow where before I had none? Absolutely. And some good ones too.

So, in addition to writing copy, one use of ChatGPT is to think of it like you would a sounding board. Or a brainstorming partner. It can’t ideate on its own (it’s not designed to innovate) but it can work with the prompts you give it to hit you back with starter threads.

Roush shared some spectacular direction on how to prompt ChatGPT as a sounding board in one of her recent LinkedIn posts:

You may be thinking “well, why can’t I just Google stuff like that instead of using ChatGPT?” And you can. But Google (“regular” Google, not the emerging Google Bard version that’s trying to infuse AI into its experience but not quite succeeding as of this writing) will give you a slew of different links for you to go explore and assimilate all the information on your own. And ChatGPT will just…answer you. Not with “here are ten sources you can read to find story ideas” or “here are ten sources to see how other destinations are making themselves an attractive esports destination.” It delivers YOUR story ideas, and tells you how YOUR destination can achieve an attractive esports destination profile.

And then – mind blown – you can direct it to actually WRITE that story about ice skating in Northern California or OUTLINE that strategic plan to develop esports tourism in NYC.

Again…will they be final drafts that need no tweaking? Absolutely not. They will be FIRST drafts, but if you’ve prompted with care, they’ll be pretty damn good first drafts.

And THAT saves you time, which is the whole point of using ChatGPT for marketing assistance.

But wait, you say. When I use Google as a resource tool, I can handpick from among sources on the results pages that I feel are legitimate and credible. Without such references, how do I know the information I’m getting from ChatGPT is accurate?

Folks, I remind you again that ChatGPT is not supposed to be a mystical tool that sees all and knows all. You’ll need to check your facts, just like you would using any other source. Do you really think that something is accurate just because you got it from a source on Google that you consider “credible?” News outlets get details wrong, websites have outdated information, and inaccurate stuff has a way of floating around and perpetuating online. So, ChatGPT is no more nor less credible than any other source you use. And you should do your due diligence on its output when necessary.

And while we’re at it, I should also remind you that most of the output you get from ChatGPT will need tweaking and polish. Even with the absolute best of prompting, there will still be nuances and phrasing you’ll need to infuse. So it can’t hurt to brush up on your writing skills, and these tips will help.

If you want to explore how ChatGPT can potentially help you with your tourism marketing needs but you’re not sure how to begin, Roush offers these four tips to get started:

Commit to a finite time period for practice. You won’t learn how to use any new tool unless you devote time to using it. Roush recommends setting a challenge to yourself, with some kind of accountability built into the period. Take two weeks or a month or whatever, during which you commit to prompting ChatGPT on at least one topic every day. “I challenged myself to post a new ChatGPT insight on LinkedIn every day for a month, and it forced me to think of that tool daily,” she says. “It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after a while, as various needs arose throughout the day at work, I’d automatically say to myself ‘let me see how ChatGPT would handle that.’ And then I’d dive into prompting.”
Don’t think of it just for help with writing. With accurate prompting, ChatGPT is an excellent resource for organization, explanations, curation, and more. Roush says it’s helped her structure her lesson approach for her work as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College, and it’s helped flesh out her vacation itinerary in Montreal by finding cool things to do nearby to her already-planned stops. “I’ve also used it to help it explain things I don’t fully understand,” she says, “like when I understand 80% of a technical proposal and I want to understand 100% of it. I can ask ChatGPT to explain it to me in layman’s terms.”
Learn to become specific in how you prompt. You won’t be good at this right out of the gate. It takes time and practice to master the art of prompting. When Roush first dabbled in using ChatGPT, she – like most folks – prompted it with “silly things,” just trying out generic questions and commands, and receiving lackluster responses. “It wasn’t until I stumbled upon how to start being more specific that I began to see the possible uses of ChatGPT,” she says. “I had asked it to create an itinerary for my vacation in Montreal and it was pretty vanilla, just hitting all the major tourist sites. But when I fed it my existing itinerary and asked it to suggest enhancement additions using the right prompts for specificity, it really impressed me.”
Let ChatGPT create a style guide for you, so it learns to deliver responses in your own voice. Roush fed it around 40 of her previous LinkedIn posts and asked it to create a writing style guide for her… which it did shockingly well. Now she can instruct ChatGPT to use that guide when asking it to write stuff on her behalf. “It was surprising how well the style guide captured my voice,” she said. “If I had tried to analyze my own work and write up my own style guide, it would have taken forever and probably been less accurate.”

The bottom line is that the more you use it, the more uses you’ll discover for it. And with practice at the art of prompting, you can make ChatGPT something akin to a full-service virtual assistant who brainstorms, writes, organizes, and educates.

Or… not. You may end up hating it, but until you REALLY take it for a lengthy and diverse test drive, how will you ever know?

Related reading: Issac Asimov’s I, Robot. It was written in 1950 and well…here we are, folks.

Hotel amenities can have marketing value.

January 13, 2023

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool — @ 11:55 am

Travelers expect a lodging property to have a bed and a shower, but hoteliers should look beyond that to offer hotel amenities that also have marketing value. What do I mean by that? I mean the type of things that make a lasting impression. The kind that guests want to photograph and share on social media, and text to friends with an “OMG ISN’T THIS THE COOLEST THING EVER?”

The type of things that transforms guests into ambassadors.

Let’s face it. Travelers in 2023 will STILL be itching to make up for their pandemic travel pause. Call it revenge travel, rebound travel, or restorative travel…no matter the name, it means they’re seeking experiences memorable enough to feel like several vacations in one.

And extraordinary, unexpected amenities are one small yet meaningful way for hotels to deliver such standout memories. Better yet, they don’t have to be expensive or extravagant for either the hotel or the guest. They just need to be unusual enough to make an impression.

Here are five spectacular examples from around the world of hotel amenities that have marketing value:

The Toilet Paper at The View – Lugano, Switzerland

A roll of pink toilet paper sitting on a wood ledge that shows hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The View Lugano

With its breathtaking setting up on a hill overlooking the Lake of Lugano in Switzerland, The View Lugano already offers a lot in the “making memories” department. But with the hotel’s “Tailor Made Services” program, guests can customize nearly every aspect of their stay prior to arrival. And while there are plenty of the usual customizable amenities on the list of options – pillows, champagne in the room, breakfast choices, etc. – one thing is SO unusual, it’s likely a guest will never forget it: you can choose from among five different colors of toilet paper to have in your bathroom. It’s a small detail that makes a huge impact.

The Bookmarks at The Betsy – Miami Beach, Florida

A white colored bookmark (embedded with flower seeds) with a poem written in black sits on a white background, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Betsy

It’s pretty cool (so says this bookworm) that each room at The Betsy in South Beach has its own library, but then there’s the bookmark at turndown. Each night, guests receive a bookmark on their pillow made from recycled paper and wildflowers. Take ‘em home and plant them in your garden, and voila: you now have a tangible and lasting memory of your visit.

The Podcast Booth at The Sinclair – Fort Worth, Texas

The interior of a podcast booth with two chairs, a microphone and other recording equipment, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Sinclair Hotel

Every hotel is looking for ways to make it easier for guests to share their experiences with others. The Sinclair takes it to the next level with a fully-equipped podcast booth for rent during a stay. Open to both guests and the public, this quirky (but brilliant) amenity rents for $50 per session. So, from the hotel’s perspective, over time the investment they made pays for itself. But even if it didn’t…the press coverage alone upon opening earned them a worthy ROI. This is DEFINITELY a hotel amenity that has marketing value, on multiple levels.

The Coffee Maker at the Marriott Hacienda Belen – San Jose, Costa Rica

A traditional coffee maker with a wooden arm and white mesh strainer, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: Marriott Hacienda Belen

Paying homage to the glorious thing that is Costa Rican coffee, the Marriott Hacienda Belen provides some elite guests with a traditional drip coffee maker to use during their stay…and then gifts it to them to take home. It’s such a startling difference from the “tech-ification” of the typical in-room coffee amenity at hotels that it stands out in a lasting way. Not only is it highly Instagrammable and TikTokable, it also taps into the extreme passion of serious coffee enthusiasts. A win-win.

The 3D Cocktails at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac – Quebec City, Canada

A cocktail in an opaque black glass with a 3D model of sugar in the shape of a building sits next to a cocktail glass filled with ice and lemon. This shows that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac

Heaven knows that people LOVE snapping and sharing pictures of beautiful cocktails. Indeed, at the time of this writing, the hashtag #cocktails on Instagram had 36 million posts. The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac takes it one step further by making some of their cocktails video-worthy as well. The 3D cocktails feature a small model made of sugar and natural flavors (the one above is a miniature of the hotel itself). Once the liquor is added, the model slowly dissolves to create a perfectly blended cocktail. Delicious drink…delicious marketing.

The point is…not EVERY touchpoint of a guest’s stay needs to provide a snap-to-attention, memorable “wow.” Too many of them would just be desensitizing anyway. But strategic pops of surprise can capture a guest’s heart and make a lasting impression. Hotel amenities that have marketing value can be a low-cost way to do that. I mean, you have to give them toilet paper… why not offer it to them in pink?

For other ideas on how to make a lasting impression on guests, check out these two other resources:

Tiny design details can make big memories in hospitality.

10 Unexpected and fabulous guest service stories.

The use of experience guarantees in tourism marketing.

December 12, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 12:24 pm

With a looming recession in a post-pandemic world, you may – should? – be considering the use of experience guarantees in your tourism marketing. Why? Because travelers will be less willing to risk their precious dollars on an unpredictable experience.

A rare black Amami Island rabbit sitting nestled in the forest in Japan, showing how the use of experience guarantees in tourism marketing can be successful.

But offering a REAL guaranteed experience of any kind could be risky for you. Sure, you can say “we guarantee you’ll have a great time” (and by the way, here’s why you should never say someone will have a “great” time). But that’s quite different from “we guarantee XX will happen or we’ll give you a refund.” So much of the hospitality experience is subjective that it’s hard for you to TRULY guarantee that certain things will happen.

So what CAN you money-back guarantee without exposing yourself to excessive risk?

First, embrace these two key factors:

Most consumers don’t have a clue how much risk is involved to you. All they’re thinking about is the guarantee to them. So your low-risk guarantee – which may seem like a “duh” to you – still has marketing value.
The bolder the guarantee, the higher the risk. And the higher the risk, the more powerful the marketing proposition. You need to decide your comfort level on the financial-risk-vs-marketing-power spectrum, and it’s different for every brand.

Second, remember that tourism experience guarantees serve a MARKETING purpose, not an operational purpose. Indeed, marketing and ops departments often have polar opposite views of guarantees: marketing would love to guarantee everything, and operations would love to guarantee nothing (because they aspire, but what if circumstances don’t allow them to deliver consistently or are completely beyond their control?).

And since these guarantees serve a marketing purpose, they must be marketing-worthy…or else what’s the point? Such guarantees set you apart from your competitors and, if they’re cool enough, can attract hefty attention in both traditional and social media.

Gather food for thought from these examples:

No Brainer/Low Risk

There are so many whales in the Juneau, Alaska, area that Princess Cruises can offer a whale sighting guarantee on their paid shore excursions. You can spend 200 bucks on your ticket, knowing that if you don’t see a whale, you’ll get $100 back. VERY attractive for travelers, VERY low-risk for Princess.

Also on the wildlife front, tours on the remote Amami Island in Japan offer guaranteed sightings of the island’s rare black rabbit, an animal exclusive to that area. If you don’t see a rabbit, you’ll get a 50% refund. If you’re up for some light reading, check out this deep scientific study that assessed the benefit of these guarantees on both the tourism economy and the conservation of the rare Amami Island rabbit. The punchline: that guarantee is good for everyone…the tour operators, the visitors, and the rabbits.

A few years back, thanks to some crafty fine print, Priceline promoted a Sunshine Guarantee for its packages. The promotion covered a shockingly wide variety of destinations (really…July in Seattle?) and the bottom line is that if it rained more than the expected amount on your vacation, you get your money back. You’re probably thinking… were they nuts? No. They just had great lawyers that mitigated their risk:

Bolder Options with Financial Bite

One of the boldest and riskiest tourism marketing experience guarantees I’ve ever seen actually hails from Redpoint’s own client portfolio. Years ago, we launched a Sleep Guarantee for The Benjamin Hotel in NYC as part of its comprehensive sleep program that included a 12-pillow menu, a Sleep Concierge, and rooms specially designed for an ideal night’s sleep. The guarantee, which offered a full refund if you don’t sleep as well or better than you do at home, added MAJOR strength to the hotel’s sleep positioning and attracted the attention of high-profile media from Good Morning America and The TODAY Show to The New York Times (multiple times… here are two), The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and more. It was a strategic component designed to attract media attention and you know what? In the ten years we worked with them, fewer than 10 guests asked for that refund. So let’s say that total refund cost was (generously) $10,000. The PR value of the sleep guarantee easily exceeded $1 million in that same 10-year period. ROI: The hotel knew their high-end clientele wouldn’t be out to make a quick buck on this offer, so in reality it wasn’t as risky as it seemed.

And the Uzbekistan government also did the math. In summer 2020, they offered US $3,000 to any visitor who contracted Covid-19 while staying in the country. This seems like a hefty financial risk to them but 1) were people even traveling internationally at that time? And 2) It sounds mercenary but that potential $3,000 per person was definitely way LESS than the value of the marketing attention they gained. So, even if they ended up paying out the money, it was a sound investment.

Aruba also realized how skittish folks would be about booking travel amidst a pandemic, so they offered a “Happily Ever After Guarantee.” Billed as “the first postponable pandemic destination booking policy,” it allowed bridal couples and honeymooners to reschedule without penalty for up to a year if Covid-19 wrecked their travel plans. A bold move, for sure, as multiple properties had to agree to honor the policy. But it worked, and it set them apart from other Caribbean destinations.

If you’re considering the use of experience guarantees in your tourism marketing, heed this advice: be playful, be bold, and be strategic about your fine print. For example:

A Tastiest Tomato Guarantee? Lookin at you, Woodstock Inn & Resort.
A Freshest Lobster Guarantee? Lookin at you, Nova Scotia Lobster Crawl.
A Bird-Sighting Guarantee? Lookin at you, Trinidad & Tobago.
A Fresh Air Guarantee? Lookin at you, Tasmania.
A 24-Hour Music Guarantee? Lookin at you, Nashville.

When you evaluate carefully and do the math, such guarantees may not be so risky after all. Consider any claimed refunds as a “marketing investment.”

And hey, while we’re doing math and looking at your P&L, see here why you can’t find love on a spreadsheet.

How to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically.

December 9, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 10:43 am

Of course all brands want to promote their good side, but is it possible to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically? You bet it is. In many cases, there’s an upside to promoting your “bad side.”

The fact is, you’re not perfect and consumers know it. Today’s consumers are savvier than ever, and you know what they want from you? Authenticity. They don’t want you to gloss over your issues and they want to engage with you based on clear expectations. When you do this, it earns their respect. Indeed, TikTok is a channel surging in popularity precisely because it’s a home for authentic, unpolished content.

Many brands have leaned into this sentiment, finding ways to turn a negative into a positive. And in doing so, they reap the rewards…not just in engagement but often also in revenue.

Here are four strategic examples of organizations – from various industries – who promote their brand’s weaknesses strategically with great success.

Sun-Maid: Candy is better than raisins and we know it.

Who wants raisins in their trick-or-treating haul? No one, that’s who. And yet, for years, Sun-Maid tried to promote their raisins as a healthy alternative to Halloween candy. Recently, they finally realized that’s an uphill battle they’ll never win. As marketing director Fernando Herrara says:

So, they began a series of annual Halloween marketing activations and video campaigns to position Sun-Maid raisins as a trick-or-treat villain, scaring kids everywhere. The fun twist gets folks to laugh with them and communicates a cool, authentic vibe for the brand. Most recently, the brand took over an entire town, complete with Raisin Zombies and a ton of interactive elements. See the video and read about the seriously impressive results here.

Vancouver Island: Come here for the rainstorms.

Unless deliberately engaging in winter activities like skiing, travelers most often wish for sunny warm weather on vacation. But this creates a challenge for destinations, splitting their annual tourism calendar into high seasons and low seasons. That’s not ideal, as a destination wants (and needs) year-round economic stability. And if tourism is a key driver of their economy, they must make low season more attractive to visitors while still managing expectations and providing a worthwhile experience.

On the west coast of Canada, British Columbia’s Vancouver Island is far from a sunny warm climate during November through February. Yet, it’s also far from being considered a “low season” in the tourism industry because it’s Storm Season.

Two people in yellow rain gear stand at the edge of the ocean with rough seas as part of the Wickaninnish Inn's Storm Watching package, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Winter storms on this coast are breathtaking and dramatic, and the region has transformed storm watching into a key attraction during Storm Season. Properties like Tofino’s luxurious Wickaninnish Inn have made a booming business out of Storm Watching Packages from November through February. Guests get outfitted with full rain gear and are treated to a host of cozy and warm amenities when they come in from the storm. And with average nightly rates from CAD $553 – $833, it’s hard to believe that would be considered low or off season.

Hockey Legend Denis Potvin: I don’t suck…buy my socks.

As sports rivalries go, the hockey divide between the New York Islanders and New York Rangers fans ranks among the most intense. So much so that Ranger fans are STILL pissed about something legendary NY Islander Denis Potvin did to one of the Ranger players back in 1979.

How do we know they’re still pissed about it? Because to this day, more than 40 years later, Ranger fans still chant – loudly, as one – POTVIN SUCKS every time the Rangers play the Islanders. And yet Denis Potvin retired in 1988.

It seems that after 40 years of being booed, Denis has finally figured out a way to earn their respect…if not exactly shut them up. He launched a collection of “Potvin Socks.”

Three pairs of Denis "Potvin Socks" in orange, blue, and white, which are excellent examples of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Ranger fans may still hate both Denis and the Islanders, but there’s no denying this bold and sassy move adds some fun spice to the rivalry. And the best part? A portion of the proceeds from each sale goes to the NY Islanders children’s foundation. Come ON, Ranger fans… it’s for the kids! Get them here.

Destinations Everywhere: Mud is good clean fun.

Colorado. New York. Vermont. Utah. New Hampshire. Maine. And a slew of other creative destinations have aligned with the motto “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Mountainous destinations with snowy winters end up with early spring seasons that are a muddy mess. As the snow and ice melts and runs off down the mountains into the surrounding areas, there’s simply mud everywhere. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t make for attractive tourism brochure photos.

Unless… we make mud the “reason to come?”

A land rover car driving on muddy terrain in a forested area with blue sky, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically by capitalizing on mud season.

Mud season packages and activities can offer a compelling draw for tourists, and the concept of “mud” has a wide latitude. There’s mud outdoors, like you’d experience with off-road driving. But there’s also mud treatments in spas, mud pie, muddy cocktails, even “get dirty in the mud” team-building activities for groups and weddings. I mean, what bridal party doesn’t want to enjoy a tug of war and obstacle course in the mud as part of their lower-priced wedding package because it’s not high season?

Mud season is not a new tourism angle, but it sure is popular with the media. So even if consumers don’t book, it has legit marketing value and good press never goes to waste. I’ll never forget when, years ago, Redpoint orchestrated an entire mud season campaign for the New England Inns & Resorts Association. Dozens of the association’s member hotels participated by offering creative mud-themed packages for consumers. And one of them told me that a gent called their reservation line to inquire about the mud package after seeing it here in the newspaper…and he ended up booking a $3,500 engagement package before getting off the call!

That just further proves that PR is essential in tourism marketing.

The bottom line is that even though you naturally want to promote your “good side,” it’s also possible promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically too. You just have to be thoughtful and clever about it, and you can’t be afraid to have a little fun. Because consumers will get what you’re doing and applaud you for it.

But one parting thought: if you’re going to go this route? Don’t skimp on photography. Here’s what happens when your tourism photos suck.

Marketers and mental health: taming stress triggers in the marketing industry

October 13, 2022

Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Marketing Strategies, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 4:26 pm

In this article on Marketers & Mental Health, we review how to tame four common stress triggers that marketing professionals face: Proof of ROI, Rejection, Tool Updates, and Never-Ending To-Do Lists.

The marketing industry is a hotbed of stress triggers, which can put a huge strain on your mental health if you’re not prepared to tame them.

Any good mental health expert will tell you this: if you can’t change the circumstances, all you can do is change how you react to them. And lordy, that should be every marketer’s mental health motto. Get a tattoo, crochet it on a pillow, make it your screensaver. Just embrace it.

Marketing EVOLVES, every single day, in ways that are often unwelcome. Things that were once free now have a price. Platforms that were once popular are now passé. Tracking and targeting for ads now have fences that can shut you out. New marketing channels pop onto the scene without warning. Stuff changes all the time. And change causes stress. And the stress is relentless. I’ve heard marketing compared to a never-ending carnival game of whack-a-mole, and it’s not an outrageous analogy.

But marketing can also be exhilarating, rewarding, and immensely satisfying. Marketers are entertainers. We are educators. We are influencers. And we possess – if we’re good at our jobs – an insightful perspective into what makes people tick and how to push their buttons.

So why are we, as an industry, generally so unsuccessful about managing how WE tick? We live in triage mode, crisis mode, gearing-up mode, and launch mode. Why aren’t we more conscious of adding a few modes to our professional lives that are kinder to our mental health?

Here are four of the most common stress triggers in marketing, and some thoughts on how you can tame them to foster better mental health. And it all starts with awareness.

Proof of ROI

The Stress Triggers

Your resources – both time and money – are precious and finite. Yet the quest to prove ROI for every marketing dollar spent goes unfulfilled. Should you put your dollars “here” because you can track clicks and trace sales, at the sacrifice of putting them “there,” which is more important but less or not trackable? These are constant, stressful choices for you.

But more than that…bosses and bean counters demand to see ROI before approving budgets. Few of them will equate a rise in sales with successful marketing unless you can show a direct link. And even fewer of them feel comfy with the fact that “increasing brand awareness” is a worthy marketing spend if it doesn’t lead to instant, tangible revenue.

The Taming Method

You need to embrace The Dark Funnel, and you need to educate all your stakeholders on it. This visual should hit home for any marketer (and hat tip to The F Company for creating it):

A visual showing steps in the dark funnel of marketing, which is a critical solution for taming a stress trigger.

Faith in the dark funnel is critical for every marketer. Some people still print out travel articles they see and stick them in a “bucket list” folder. Two years later they visit your hotel or destination from an article in that folder, and how will you know that article was the origin? You won’t. But that sort of thing happens all the time. Faith in the dark funnel is a stance you must cultivate…and champion. Marketing is a cumulative endeavor. You can’t just do ONE thing. A litany of things must be deployed to penetrate awareness and incite action. You won’t be able to track them all, but they ALL matter. So educate your stakeholders. Show this visual at every budget meeting. Remind them that the leads and sales they ultimately see are only the final step on a long and necessary runway.

And remember: you can’t find love on a spreadsheet. And getting folks to love your brand is priceless.

Rejection

The Stress Triggers

Social posts go unopened. Emails go unread. Ads get skipped. Media pitches get ignored. Shall I go on or is that depressing enough? We put our souls and creativity into our work and when it lacks response, the feeling of rejection is deflating. This is doubly true if you’re an agency marketer: you face rejection by your clients AND you face rejection by your marketing audience. Lovely. Why even get out of bed in the morning?

The Taming Method

Cultivate your resilience. Marketing feels SO personal to you, but to your audience, it’s just one more piece of noise vying for their attention. Their lack of response is not personal, and we all know that folks need to be told something around a dozen times before it starts to penetrate their awareness. And they may not even see 10 of those attempts because of clutter, algorithms, spam filters, and other obstacles.

So your job is to give them that repetition. The more you get up to bat, the more hits you get. Learn from your strike-outs. How could you swing differently next time? Or adjust your stance? The point is… change your perspective. It’s not rejection. It’s all just data collection and a foundation for opportunities to change what you do next. One of my favorite quotes about resilience comes from the Harvard Business Review:

Every bit of so-called rejection is an opportunity. Now you know what didn’t work. So get up to bat again and find something that WILL work. It’s just a necessary part of the process.

Tool Updates

The Stress Triggers

Major software or platform updates. New marketing channels your competitors are already crushing. System upgrades. New boss brings new methods to the mix. It is beyond stressful to keep pace with the evolution of marketing tools. Even marketers highly specialized in one particular field face this. SEO experts blow a gasket whenever Google does a surprise update that requires them to shift their strategy, pronto. Imagine what marketing generalists feel like in that circumstance? Stressed, overwhelmed, and frequently…frozen. These things don’t feel comfortable to us, and change is hard to embrace, especially at the pace it’s thrown our way in marketing. We often view such things as disruptors (and not in a good way) that are hijacking our valuable time away from being productive. Learning curves and unfamiliarity drag us down.

The Taming Method

If tool updates are putting a strain on your mental health, you need to recast your thinking on what marketing is all about in order to tame this trigger. Marketing IS evolution. By its very nature, it MUST evolve because methods get stale and people get desensitized. You want to break through all that clutter you know exists? You won’t do it by remaining stagnant and using the same old tools the same old way. Annoying? Possibly. Reality? Definitely.

Marketers must not only embrace change…they must seek it proactively. And this isn’t easy because humans like to stay in their comfort zones, where we feel safe and in control. In our marketing comfort zone, things are predictable: the time each task will take, the steps each process has, the results we can expect to see. But y’all…that might feel comfortable but it’s not successful. To be successful, you need to get yourself into the growth zone:

A diagram that shows the journey from the comfort zone to the growth zone, which is one way to tame stress triggers for better marketing mental health.

As you progress through the fear zone (hardest) to the learning zone (a little easier transition), that next step into the growth zone is where marketing THRIVES. That’s where new ideas are born, calculated risks are taken, and the rewards are higher. Find a way to make peace with journeying from your comfort zone to your growth zone and stop thinking of tool updates as disruptions. They are the lifeblood of marketing.

And if social media updates are your particular nemesis, here are four tips to conquer your frustration when social apps get an overhaul.

BTW, hat tip to whoever created that comfort zone diagram, which I screen-shotted months ago and stuck in a folder in my phone. It had no credit listing on it and I have no idea where I stumbled across it. See “Proof of ROI” section above…I rest my case, but I wish they had put their logo on it.

Never-Ending To-Do List

The Stress Triggers

Is this category not self-explanatory? You’re…never…done. The work generates itself and never stops. If you’re in PR, there’s always one more journalist to pitch or one more angle to try. If you’re in visual design, there’s always one more version you know you’ve got in you to create. And if you’re a department manager or a solo marketer, it’s even worse. You put it on the website, but then you have to tweet it, post it, email it, promote it, pay for clicks, share onsite, educate staff…and keep doing it. Do we have the right video? Was the photo arresting enough? Is the copy punchy enough? If it’s not getting attention, how can you spin it a different way so it sounds new? It’s exhausting.

And here’s what happens: burnout, 12-hour days, and really stressful Sunday nights as you look at the week ahead. Also: to-do lists that mock you, task management software that dings you so much it’s become white noise, and a persistent, oppressive feeling you could be doing more.

But who sets the boundary on where “more” ends?

The Taming Method

You do. YOU set the boundary on where “more” ends. Marketing is – while lives aren’t usually at stake – a lot like triage in an emergency room. Not everything is a heart attack requiring a triple bypass. And at some point, patients you’ve tended for a long time need to be released. New projects, tasks, and opportunities fly at you daily and you’ve got to make quick judgment calls on what gets attention now, what can wait until next week, and what doesn’t merit a single brain cell of thought.

Let me be crystal clear and super blunt: you will never do all the things that “could” be done. So you need to get super choosy about selecting things that “should” be done. This is about managing expectations, both for yourself and for your boss/stakeholders. And this is about TIME, the only non-renewable resource in marketing.

Marketers are often people-pleasers and over-achievers, and that makes us want to do it all. But that’s physically, emotionally, and mentally impossible. Yet, setting boundaries for ourselves – hours worked in a week, limits on campaign legs to pursue, tasks we agree to take on – is something that many marketers find incredibly difficult. So, if that’s you, here are a few resources to help you out:

Learn how to stop chronically overcommitting your time here.

Learn how to recast your time to spend it more productively here.

And learn how to embrace JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out – here.

Overall, there’s no denying that marketing can have a strong negative impact on your mental health unless you learn to tame the stress triggers. Awareness is key: what are YOUR stress triggers and how can you tame them? Of course, the four stress triggers explored above are just a few of the most common. Because if I listed them all, that would make this article way too long to read… and that would only stress you out more. 😉

Four character traits that foster good timing in marketing.

September 20, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Crisis Communications, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Effective Communication — @ 12:58 pm

One of marketing’s most critical tentpoles is timing, and there are four character traits people (and businesses) should possess that can help foster good timing in marketing. You should know which of the four are your strengths and weaknesses, and then understand how each is impacting your marketing success.

Why? Because in marketing, you should play to your strengths. And if you want to execute the kind of marketing campaigns that aren’t a good match for your weaknesses, you’re going to waste time and money…guaranteed.

Do a little soul searching about yourself and your company’s traits and behaviors to see where you stand on these four essential character traits:

1. The Decisiveness to Act Quickly

For some marketing concepts, especially those tied to a trend or current events, you need to act NOW. The power of social media only heightens this urgency. Your window for success may only be 24 hours, and even launching something just two days later will fall flat and yield you zero ROI.

A fabulous recent example of this comes from startup coffee company Cometeer. When investment bank Goldman Sachs announced it was ending the free cold brew perk previously offered in its NYC HQ, Cometeer had a free coffee table set up right outside of the bank’s building just 16 hours after the announcement was made. Here’s how they made it happen. Had they done it even just a week later, the news value would have been too low to make it worthy of notice. It HAD to be linked in time to the announcement that the cold brew perk was being discontinued.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? Steer clear of marketing concepts and campaigns that will be a complete failure without tight, precision timing. You may want to do them oh-so-badly, but you’ll just be frustrated that they didn’t work as well for you as they did for other companies you envy. Years ago, on the day American Airlines announced it would now charge a $25 fee for checked baggage (an industry first at the time), we put our client Loews Hotels in the media spotlight by announcing ON THE SAME DAY that Loews would give a $25 credit to all incoming guests who flew American and checked a bag. That Loews Baggage Buy Back Program was in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and more the moment we pitched it. Media wanted to share it in conjunction with news about the American Airlines fee. Had we pitched it a week later, the airline fee story would have been old news, and no one would have cared.

At the time, we had another hotel brand client who saw what we did for Loews and said, “we want an idea like that for us!” And it’s just not that simple. That was a client who took four weeks just to approve a simple weekend package press release. They would never be able to turn around such operational decisions across dozens of hotels (and approve the pitch copy) quickly enough to catch the news wave. So we’d be doing them a huge disservice and wasting their money if we forced them to try. A business that can’t make decisions quickly has more success with marketing concepts that have a nice long runway and lots of wiggle room for timing bottlenecks.

2. The Willpower to Wait

OK so maybe you’re awesome at making decisions and acting quickly, but sometimes good timing requires that you have the willpower to wait. Jumping the gun – before the facts are in, before the campaign is REALLY ready, before details are agreed – can not only tank your marketing ROI, but it can also cause you real harm. A few examples we’ve seen in our time as marketing and PR counselors:

A government official at a destination wouldn’t wait for talking points following a violent hate crime against a tourist. Instead, he insisted on speaking with the press immediately and gave his opinion on the situation without knowing the facts. Turns out, the facts belied his opinion in a BIG way, and the destination suffered immeasurably for it…not to mention the fact that they had to pay us a fortune in crisis management fees for damage control.
I can’t even count the number of times a hotel has pushed us (against our advice, I promise) to launch a package – through PR or an email blast or social post – BEFORE they’ve got all the details finalized on the website and BEFORE they’ve shared it with their reservation and front desk agents. They want to “get it out there and start selling,” but they don’t seem to get how much this harms them. When consumers want more information (or to book) and can’t make it happen, they get frustrated. So not only does the hotel NOT get the sale, now they’ve pissed people off.
I also recall a colleague being traumatized by the fact that she was “forced” to announce a huge brand partnership in the media and on social channels before the contract was finalized. The owners were trying to secure more hotel management deals and felt it would be a huge feather in their cap to have that cool partnership announced as they were engaging in other negotiations. When the partnership fell through before the deal even got signed, the harm to their image – and their business – was excessive under the circumstances. They earned an unwelcome gold medal in backpedaling, for sure.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? This one’s tough, because it’s psychological and personality driven. You need to be aware that it’s in your nature and admit to yourself that your impulsiveness can do your marketing great harm. In this case, you need to surround yourself with cool-headed sounding boards who can objectively rein you in when you’re about to go rogue. And then – sorry if this is super blunt, but I say it for your own good – you need the humility to listen to them.

3. The Resistance to Complicate Things

Lack of this resistance is definitely the most common weakness we see (when it comes to marketing), and often goes hand in hand with not being able to act decisively or quickly.

The more complicated you make something – too many goals for a single campaign, too many decision makers, too many layers in a concept – the harder it will be to nail successful timing. For some reason, it’s an incredibly common human trait to overcomplicate things. Part of it is time and resource poverty. Our resources are so precious that we try to force them to serve many masters at once.

But a HUGE part of it in the business world is the (often misguided) need to get multiple people involved in various projects and decisions. If I had a nickel for every time we were ready to launch a campaign for a client, and at the eleventh hour someone said “hey, let’s get Jeff’s opinion on this before we flip the switch.” Inevitably, Jeff has something to add that derails the timeline and – I’m sorry to say – is most often not helpful. But we made Jeff happy by looping him in so… Politics 1; Marketing Success 0.

There’s a principle called Brooks’ Law that was originally created to address communication challenges among software project teams. But it really applies to ANY type of team working and making decisions together, like a marketing team and its extended family (executives, operations, etc.). Visually, it shows lines of communication necessary for various team sizes, like this:

One of the four character traits that foster good timing in marketing, this diagram of Brooks' Law shows how larger teams require exponential lines of communication.

In associations, governments, and large companies, it’s not unusual to find a committee of 10 or more involved in projects and decisions. Do you see how complicated those visuals are? That’s an accurate reflection of the logistics required to get consensus. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that these types of organizations find it hard to achieve perfect timing…it’s just too darned complicated.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? There’s no easy fix for this one, other than to say steer clear of marketing concepts that require tight timing or “drop dead precision launch dates.” You may not be able to capitalize on current events or hot news topics, but you CAN give yourself a lengthy runway to get ducks in a row long before an important event will take place. See how we did this for the four provinces of Atlantic Canada, making a social media splash the moment the Canadian border opened during the pandemic.

4. The Discipline to Stay Abreast of the News

Marketing needs to sit well within the context of what’s going on in the world. Being oblivious to current events can have unfortunate timing consequences, from ill-timed insensitivities to launching a product/service you claim is “a first”…when it’s been done before.

A recent, cringeworthy example of this is when the television show Canada’s Drag Race tweeted “This crown is up for grabs” on the day Queen Elizabeth II died. Obviously, they meant the drag race crown, but ugh… the tweet was pummeled with criticism and had to be deleted. This is a helpful lesson that pre-scheduling social posts can be a useful tool, but unless you stay abreast of the news, it could backfire.

Redpoint nearly fell prey to this once with our popular tourism marketing newsletter Tickled Red. For the March 1, 2022 issue, the subject line was supposed to be “Bubblegum and Tombstones in Tourism.” Tombstones referred to the brilliant concept of Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard… but the issue’s timing was just after the war in Ukraine started and casualties were piling up. The newsletter draft was written before the war started, but we pulled that story (and the subject line) the day before it was scheduled to send. It was not the right time to be celebrating tombstones of any kind.

Tip: What if this is your weakness? If you’re not someone who immerses themselves in news every day, and you don’t have a marketing agency at your disposal to help stay abreast of news, here’s a quick fix for one-off marketing plans. Just before you’re about to launch something, hop on a social channel like Twitter or LinkedIn and see what news is trending. Also, do a search online for keywords related to your campaign or concept. A quick Google search will likely reveal anything glaring that may conflict with your plans. And then either make your changes accordingly…or have the willpower to wait (see #2 above).

If you’re scheduling social posts in advance, however, then it’s super risky for you to NOT stay abreast of the news. So if it’s not in your nature to keep up with current events, it’s best to just change your habits: either stop scheduling posts or start checking the news often.

Folks, the bottom line is…no one is perfect. You and/or your company may claim some of these character traits as weaknesses and there’s no shame in that. But you’ll have more success and achieve a greater ROI in marketing if you choose concepts that play to your strengths instead. It will make timing your friend and not your enemy. Reflect on these four character traits to see how well (or not) you foster good timing in marketing.

Want more tips on how to get the most out of marketing? Check out these 20 tips we assembled from our 20 years of experience as tourism marketing counselors.

Six cool examples of marketing.

September 19, 2022

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies, Effective Communication — @ 12:16 pm

At Redpoint, we geek out over marketing success and recently, we’ve discovered these six cool examples of marketing worthy of applause.

Utterly Unexpected Trade Show Booth

When we were kids, those claw machines at arcades and amusement parks were irresistible. But as adults? Imagine BEING the claw, and swooping into a giant tank to grab as many prizes as you can. Hats off to Squishmallows for this standout trade show booth at VidCon, where fans waited in line for four hours just for their 20-second turn in the Human Claw Machine.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this image shows a trade show booth filled with Squishmallow stuffed animal toys and a person hanging above them ready to grab as many as possible.

Seriously Clever Video Ads

It’s quite reasonable to assume that not EVERYONE will be interested in watching The History Channel’s documentary series about the Roman Colosseum. But their marketing folks have produced a series of video ads that give it wider appeal and the best possible chance of luring in non-history buffs. Meet Gaius Falco, head groundskeeper of the Colosseum (by way of New Jersey?), in these two ads.

Brilliant Branding Concept

OK, we can’t even breathe because this concept is so absurdly PERFECT. Follow me on this: Heavy metal band Metallica has a famous song called All Within My Hands. In 2017, the band created a nonprofit organization called All Within My Hands Foundation. And one of its signature programs is the Metallica Scholars Initiative. This initiative partners with the American Association of Community Colleges to support scholarships and fund programs for students to learn trades working with their hands, such as welding, electrical engineering, HVAC, construction, and more. The program supports 32 community colleges across 27 states. We’re talking millions of dollars in funding here. BRAVO, both for the initiative and the sheer branding brilliance.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this logo for the Metallica All Within My Hands Foundation shows a light blue hand with a keyhole and guitar neck.

Most Relatable Billboard (possibly of all time)

Score one for “good old fashioned” Timex, who managed – with just ten simple words and a photo – to instantly communicate how their product provides a solution to one of the most popular, gut-wrenching problems on the planet.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this Timex billboard shows a picture of a watch and the caption "check the time without seeing you have 1,269 unanswered emails."

Smart…but Creepy?…Product Launch

This product came out a few years ago, but we just stumbled across it recently. The Shelves of Life product is a bookshelf that can be repurposed into a coffin, so you can be buried in it when you die. Wait…what? Indeed, this is true and it can be purchased, and it comes with visual instructions and diagrams for making the shelf-to-coffin transformation. More about it here, and more about the designer, William Warren, here.

One of six cool marketing examples, this set of bookshelves can be transformed into a coffin when the owner dies.

Video Storytelling That Steals Your Heart

Bravissima, Barilla! This video tells a story about Izyan Ahmad (“Zizou”), a young tennis player who had a dream of playing against Roger Federer when he was 11 years old. Watch what happened five years later.

And in addition to these six cool examples of marketing, here’s one of our throwback faves. When the baker hired Simone, it started a seriously cool chain reaction.

Four tips to conquer your frustration when social apps get an overhaul.

July 28, 2022

Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Social Media — @ 3:28 pm

When a social media app does a major overhaul of its format and features, frustration ensues. Most marketers go through six stages of emotional grief: anger, resentment, resistance, resignation, petulance, and… eventually… acceptance. This is ESPECIALLY true of DIY or “one man band” marketers, who are drowning in general marketing tasks and have little time to learn the new rules of the game in one particular specialty.

Instagram is on a path to emulate TikTok, and even though it’s been a rocky start, they are committed to getting there. Twitter is rolling out a “notes” feature, which lets you tweet long-form content. YouTube Shorts was launched in 2021 and yet many brands have been slow to tap its potential (even though the platform gets an average of 15 billion daily views).

For marketers, changes like that can be utterly exhausting. Sure, if you’re an Instagram marketer (for example), and that’s ALL you do… you’ll dive in immediately and figure out how to harness all the new opportunities. But if managing a brand’s Instagram account is only one of your 100 diverse responsibilities, a dramatic overhaul of the app is a roadblock that can tank your productivity and wring you out emotionally.

Resentment and resistance can only be indulged for so long before results start to suffer. So give yourself a brief period to pout and then figure out how to embrace the changes in a way that works best for you.

And if you’re NOT a social media specialist whose entire job is to immerse yourself in these apps, here are four tips to help you get past your frustration when social media apps do an (annoying) overhaul:

Divide & Conquer: There are two things contributing to your exhaustion. One is figuring out what the new features are and if they’ll benefit you, and two is learning how to use them. Both things take time, which is likely in short supply for you. So, don’t do it all at once…research first, worry about learning the skills later. The world won’t end if you don’t adopt the new features quickly. In fact, if social media is only a fraction of what you do, your presence isn’t likely to be that robust and so your audiences won’t be expecting cutting-edge marketing here from you anyway. Take your time. It’s ok.
Do Research: The best thing about the internet is that someone, somewhere will have written a helpful article within a day of the overhaul. You can find summaries of what’s changed, how to use the new features, and why they’re useful (or not). A Google search for things like “Instagram update” or “Twitter Notes feature” (or whatever) should bring you to the latest articles the day overhauls are announced. Wait a few days and “how to” articles are bound to follow. You can also check sites like Social Media Today and Search Engine Journal.
Create and Use a Test Account: Part of the emotional frustration you feel comes from worrying you’ll screw up and not use the new features correctly…and your audience will see it. This is where having a secret “test account” comes in handy. Setting up a second account on a channel that’s private, with only you and a few friends/colleagues as the audience, is an easy way to play with all the new features until you get comfy with them.
Watch and Learn: You may not have the bandwidth to do EVERYTHING a social media app allows you to do, but you can certainly cherry pick features that make sense for you. So, watch what other accounts do and try to recreate them in your test account. This means you may need to follow more than just your local or regional competitors, because if they’re in the same time-poverty boat as you, then you won’t learn much by watching their accounts. Follow BIG brands, that are bound to have expert social media teams using the latest cool stuff.

And above all, relax. I know it’s frustrating when overhauls like this disrupt your routine. Suddenly things you finally learned how to do efficiently are no longer efficient to do. It’s annoying as hell. But social media apps will continue to evolve constantly…it’s just the nature of that marketing medium. So if you’re going to have a presence on those channels, this is a necessary evil.

Just remember: It’s perfectly OK if your social media marketing isn’t robust because you’re spread too thin. As a marketer, you have to make choices…and as long as you’re choosing to be robust in OTHER areas that bring you a strong ROI, it’s fine for social media to get less attention. In fact, we flagged that as #17 in our list of Top 20 Tips for Tourism PR & Marketing Agency Clients. It’s worth a look.

Because really, at the end of the day, success in marketing is about how much time you can spend on it.