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.  😉

Six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

October 13, 2022
Filed under: Customer Service, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 8:40 am

The tourism industry changed dramatically when platforms like VRBO and Airbnb enabled travelers to forgo hotels for a vacation home rental. But not only did this change traditional tourism lodging models…it gave “regular people” a thirst for renting their stuff to tourists, thrill seekers, and folks looking to relax.  I mean…why stop at lodging?

And suddenly, the apps and online matching platforms were born.  Here are six surprising things you can rent by the hour, from regular people who have something you want and don’t/can’t own yourself.

A Garden

Love gardening or want to try growing some veggies, and don’t have your own patch of land for the pleasure?  The platform Shared Earth matches people who have plots of unused land with aspiring gardeners in their area.  Through the in-app messaging system, you can get information about the sunlight, soil quality, and other pertinent facts to help you determine if that particular land is suitable for the types of things you want to grow.  Tourism professionals…take note here.  Got some land you could share with the community this way?  Worth considering.

A Swimming Pool

Want an escape but can’t afford the time/money for a vacation?  Rent someone’s swimming pool and yard by the hour through Swimply (which might be the most perfect brand name on the planet). You plug in your desired location and time and voila…a list of pools for rent and their photos are shown.  Then you just book and go.  One gent raked in nearly $200,000 just renting out his pool over the course of two years.  The only downside to such a perfect brand name comes when you want to develop new revenue streams:  Swimply is beta testing Swimply Spaces, through which you can rent people’s tennis courts, private gyms, and more.  Cool idea but it dilutes the power of the name.

An aqua blue swimming pool with a stone waterfall feature is just one of the six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

A Boat

Why buy a ticket for a boating experience with lots of other tourists?  Rent your own for an hour or two – even with a private captain and/or crew – from someone who has a boat to rent out as a side hustle.  The Boatsetter app will match you with your perfect boating experience in your preferred location.  Yachts, fishing boats, party boats, pontoon boats, sailboats…even jet skis are available.  And the locations are pretty diverse, with both ocean and lake options across the US.

Outdoor Sporting Gear

In another example of a perfect brand name getting diluted through expansion, Spinlister began as a way for folks to rent bikes of all kinds, from touring to mountain and everything in between.  Over time, it grew to feature a wide range of outdoor gear like surfboards, stand-up paddle boards, skis, and more.  This makes total sense for folks who are casual outdoor enthusiasts that have neither the inclination nor the storage space to own their own gear.  Tourism professionals…take note here:  there’s a Spinlister Pro version available for businesses, so if you want to lure in all those folks staying in Airbnb’s around your community, this might be a gateway.

A Yard for Your Dog

The brilliantly named Sniffspot – and please for the love of branding, Sniffspot…don’t you too start renting out other things that make no sense for your name – will allow you to rent someone’s backyard for your dog to play in by the hour.  And not just a backyard…the listing options include private hiking trails, fenced in/roam free areas, yards with pools the dogs can use, yards for private use, yards for playing with other dogs, yards with doggie agility courses, and more.  At prices that range from $5 – $20 (ish) per hour, it’s an incredible value…even if you have your own yard for your dog, but occasionally want to rent one with a pool or agility course to give your pup its own mini-vacation.

A black dog and a brown dog running fast in a large yard, one of the six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

Your Driveway

If you’re fortunate enough to have a driveway, garage, or any kind of owned area that could be a parking spot in a densely populated area (where scoring a parking space is like winning the lottery), you can rent it out through SpotHero.  At first glance, the website looks like it’s only used by big companies and parking garages, but regular folks can rent out their home spot here too…by the hour, day, week, or month.  It’s a super helpful service for people who don’t have time to waste looking for a parking spot, but don’t want to pay the exorbitant fees often charged by garages, stadiums, and (sorry tourism industry) urban hotels.

And in addition to these six surprising things you can rent by the hour, here’s a bonus:  Fat Llama.  Want to rent a painting?  A photography lighting umbrella?  A scooter?  A sewing machine?  A ukulele?  A drone?  A power drill?  You can find it all (and more) at Fat Llama.

Now THERE’S a brand name that can handle expansion into any category.  Because…random.

For some memorable examples of when tourism businesses treated me with the same kind of personal relationship vibe you get from these “regular person” rentals, check out these 10 unexpected (and fabulous) tourism guest service stories.

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).

A blond woman in a blue dress holds her head in frustration over the latest social media app overhauls.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

What’s a “newsworthy” animal experience in tourism?

June 20, 2022
Filed under: Public Relations, Observations From the Field, Media Relations, This is Cool — @ 5:00 pm

In our role as PR counselors, we’re often asked how to make things newsworthy, and tourism animal experiences are no exception.  It’s a valid question because the answer requires more than just adding discounted zoo tickets to a hotel stay to create a package.  To be newsworthy, there must be something extraordinary, unique, unexpected, or timely about it.

Before I review some examples to illustrate the point, let’s just be clear on this:  being “newsworthy” in ANY subject is not easy, nor is it often achieved passively.  You have to pursue it deliberately, and in most cases jump through some hoops to make it happen.  Proactive investments are usually required, whether financial, creative, or both.  Risk – often high risk – is usually involved.  And a thoughtful runway of time and planning is key.

This means that, as a tourism marketer or owner/operator, you must have both vision and patience if you want to create concepts that are newsworthy.

And these folks did.

Here are four illustrative examples from around the world of newsworthy animal experiences in tourism:

Jamala Wildlife Lodge

This hotel is set within the National Zoo & Aquarium in Canberra, Australia. And by “set within,” I mean the accommodations are organically nestled into the entire experience, not a stand-alone hotel that happens to be located on the grounds.  Rooms and suites offer exclusive viewing perches, or share glass walls with animal habitats, allowing guests unrestricted viewing from the privacy of their own space, like so:

A woman taking a bubble bath while watching tigers prowling on the other side of a glass wall is a highly newsworthy tourism animal experience at Jamala Wildlife Lodge.

 

From jungle bungalows to giraffe treehouses and rooms that put guests up close and personal with sharks, meerkats, capuchin monkeys and more… it’s no wonder the website prominently features a “join the waitlist” option.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

  • The financial and architectural investment to create unique accommodations that offer rare 24/7 access to animals.
  • Only a small handful of hotels like this in the world provide such an atypical experience.
  • Dramatic, unexpected photos/video to promote the experience.

 

The Biosphere at Treehotel, Sweden

The entire concept at Treehotel is extraordinary and newsworthy… a collection of dramatic, high-design treehouses distinctively different from each other.  But one – The Biosphere – takes your breath away both visually and experientially:

A photo of a hotel room suspended in the air from a tree, adorned with 340 birdhouses on the outside is a newsworthy tourism animal experience available at The Biosphere at Treehotel in Sweden.

 

Adorned with 340 birdhouses attached to its exterior, guests enjoy a front row seat to some of the most spectacular birdwatching possible.  The Biosphere’s design is meant to protect and foster the local bird population.  But lordy, it manages to be a showstopper in the process.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

  • Well, 340 birdhouses to start (duh). Pretty sure it’s the only accommodation in the world with THAT distinction.
  • It’s visually arresting, and photos of it stop people in their tracks, even when mindlessly scrolling on social media.
  • The bold, complex design earns news attention for both its financial and creative investments.

 

Caiman, A Brazilian Ecotourism Retreat in the Pantanal

The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland, and its 42 million acres spans across Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay.  Caiman Ecological Refuge, with 18 lodge rooms and two private villas, is within the Pantanal in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.  The 150 miles to get there from the airport are fraught with dirt roads that have no internet or GPS access, but it’s worth the drive because this:

A photo of a jaguar with mouth wide open, showing sharp teeth, is part of the newsworthy tourism animal experience guests can have at Oncafari and the Caiman Ecological Refuge in Brazil.

 

One of Caiman’s conservation partners, Onçafari, is dedicated to the conservation of once-endangered and now near-threatened jaguars with research, protection, education, and repopulation.  Guests can go out with guides to learn more about these elusive animals through up-close interaction.  Nocturnal guided exploration is also an option for those feeling brave.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

  • The confluence of the Pantanal, jaguars, and deeply meaningful conservation efforts.
  • The Caiman Ecological Refuge itself, which offers guests education and interaction with many other options for sustainability education…from livestock ranching to conservation projects for endangered and illegally trafficked birds.
  • The remote location. There’s no convenient airport shuttle and no public transportation.  You need a special kind of car that can take the dirt roads or a turbo-prop aircraft to get there.  Basically… you have to really WANT to get there.

 

Natural Habitat Alaska Bear Camp

It’s true there’s no shortage of “bear viewing” experiences in the tourism industry, especially in British Columbia and Alaska.  So it takes an unusual one to stand out.  Once again, we lean into the “hard to get to” element here.  With Natural Habitat, you fly in a private bush plan over volcanoes, glaciers, and icefields to get to this remote Bear Camp:

An aerial view of the Natural Habitat Adventures Bear Camp, which is a highly newsworthy tourism animal experience.

 

The weatherproof tent cabins are surprisingly designed for comfort, with climate control, lighting, hard floors and a solid door.  It’s not glamping…but it certainly ain’t “roughing it.”  The three days you spend at the camp gives you extraordinary up-close access to Alaskan brown bears with experienced Expedition Leaders who both educate and safeguard you.  This is no “quick tour to a viewing platform” so you can take a selfie and prove you were there.  This is a full-on bear immersion.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

  • The remote location. Any place “only accessible by plane or boat” already piques media interest.  The harder one must work to get there, the more interesting it becomes.
  • The layout and design of the Bear Camp. Just one spectacular aerial photo (as shown above) is enough to capture a traveler’s imagination and interest.
  • The collaboration with World Wildlife Fund (WWF). There’s no denying that such respected brand recognition adds credibility to the experience.

These four experiences aren’t all newsworthy for exactly the same reasons, but two things are certain with all of them:

  1. They’re not “news-washing,” which is when a business tries to put a slick bow on something to make it seem newsworthy, without making the under-the-hood investment needed to give the angle true, credible substance. When a program, package, or experience focuses more on “looking good” than “being good”… a credible journalist can sniff that out in a heartbeat, and it’s a turnoff.
  2. They all have extraordinary photo/video opportunities to help tell their story…and the business has invested in capturing the BEST photography/footage at likely a hefty cost to them.

Investing in “hero shot” photography is essential to developing a newsworthy story, as you can see with these tourism animal experiences shared here.  Journalists NEED photography, and it’s only natural that they’d want to use ones that tell the story visually, in just one glance…and that cut through the clutter to get people’s attention.

For more tips on this crucial news element, see these tips on the secret to a great tourism photo.

Save time with the proper use of the email cc.

June 20, 2022
Filed under: Writing Tips, Effective Communication — @ 1:36 pm

A meme poking fun at excessive "reply all" responses, as a lesson in how to save time with the proper use of the email cc.

Proper use of the email cc can save you tons of time and aggravation.  It’s a useful tool, but its power has been diluted by misuse in the workplace.  Here’s how to redefine your relationship with the email cc and give your productivity a boost.  The tips below will help.

First of all, why should you care about this?  An email cc seems like such an insignificant thing in the wide landscape of productivity and time management techniques.  And yet, proper use can:

  • Reduce unnecessary inbox clutter.
  • Reduce concentration distractions.
  • Free up mental bandwidth for other things.

It may seem like taming cc habits will only save you a few minutes a day, but in reality it’s more than that.  If you cc or get cc’d a lot – and I’m affectionately looking at you, tourism organizations, with your 74+ “necessary” stakeholders who regularly share information – you could face unnecessary distractions of 30-60 minutes a day.  You need to get that time back.  Just think about how many times someone has “replied all” just to say “OK!” or “Thanks!”…and you stopped what you were doing to read it.

Most of us have lost our way on the original intent of the cc:  it’s simply an efficient, passive way to inform people who are tangentially involved in the subject, without having to take an extra step.  (Note for all you young folk:  “cc” stands for “carbon copy,” which originates from the pre-computer days.  We had to type things on a typewriter and could put a piece of carbon between two sheets of paper to make a second copy simultaneously as we typed. Ah, the Dark Ages.)

However, the email cc isn’t always used solely for its simple, original intent.  Today, it can be a ridiculously complex concept fraught with psychological nuances, like being weaponized to prove a point, annoy, intimidate, or – yikes – tattle on others.

Tame the aggravation tail whip caused by email cc’s with these five practical tips:

  1. If you require a response from someone, they go in the “to” field. This is super important. Don’t put these folks in the cc field because it creates ambiguity and dilutes the accountability of who should respond.
  2. Anyone you don’t require a response from, they go in the “cc” field.
  3. If you’re cc’ing a bunch of people and you want to prevent unnecessary responses from them (because perhaps THEY don’t realize that when you cc someone, they’re not required to respond), lead with some version of “Those cc’d here, this is just an FYI. No need to respond.”
  4. If you’re often cc’d on emails that are unnecessary, respond only to the sender and say some version of “thanks for keeping me in the loop but I don’t need to be cc’d because (this).” “This” being the reason why… like you don’t need the play-by-play as it unfolds, you just need the punchline.  Or that topic isn’t really a focus on your radar.
  5. Sometimes, a more effective way to share your information with those tangentially involved is to send the original email without a cc, and then forward it with a message to the tangential folks. Psychologically, it can take the burden off them of feeling like they need to respond “because everyone’s watching.”

These tips will definitely help you save time and regain the proper use of the email cc.  But you can’t control how others tend to approach being a cc sender or recipient in their own lives.  So giving clear direction on whether or not they should respond to you – and when you personally should/shouldn’t be cc’d – will significantly streamline communications and cut down on YOUR email waste.

Yes, these seem like small things, but they actually add up to have an impact on your time.

It’s funny… we rarely think about how or why we use such long-standing digital communication tools like the email cc.  We often just use them out of habit, without deliberate purpose.  And so things become unwieldy and messy and we just keep allowing it to happen.  For other tips on digital communication bloopers that may be sabotaging your effectiveness, productivity, or success, check out this excellent book Digital Etiquette:  The Future of Good Manners.

And – cc’ing aside – to improve the quality of your emails overall, check out these five opening lines that sabotage your email’s success. Number one?  “I hope you are well.”

How an understaffed tourism operation can avoid disappointing guests.

May 23, 2022
Filed under: Customer Service, Effective Communication — @ 9:18 am
A picture that shows the legs of people waiting in a long line, which is something understaffed tourism operations need to avoid to prevent disappointing guests.

Is this going to be the line at your check-in desk this summer?

How can an understaffed tourism operation avoid disappointing its guests?  This is the challenge facing the tourism industry right now, especially with the busy summer season approaching.  Hotels, airlines, attractions, tour companies, destinations, restaurants and more… all are bracing for a hot mess of substandard guest service this summer.

This timing is unfortunate, though.  It’s a cruel joke by the travel gods to plague the industry with unprecedented staffing issues just when travelers are coming back in droves.  They’re eager to shed the restrictive chains that have bound them for the past two years.  They want MORE – freedom, choices, amenities, pampering – while you’re trying to figure out how to even deliver your bare minimum experience with LESS.

Sadly, this is a recipe for disappointment.  And negative reviews.  And social media complaints that need to be managed.

There’s no magic bullet to solve this.  Sure you can offer pay that’s double (or more) what everyone else is paying.  But that will obliterate your bottom line (and set a risky precedent), so it’s not a reasonable solution.

But you can’t just pull the covers over your head and let chaos take its course.  Be proactive with these three tips that will help an understaffed tourism operation avoid disappointing its guests:

Training & Communication

I was in line at the pharmacy recently and the line behind me was growing at an alarming rate while the sole staff person worked with a customer on a tangled issue.  She never looked at the line and never said a word to us.  I could feel the fuming and resentment building behind me and hear the muttered complaints and huffy breaths.  After 20 minutes, it felt like there was going to be a mutiny.

All she had to do was look up and smile every once in a while and say “Folks, I’m so sorry for the wait but I’m the only one here today and I need to give each one of you the attention you deserve when it’s your turn.  Thanks for your patience.”  That would have diffused 90% of the frustration.

The moral here is… train your people to diffuse frustration.  Don’t leave them unprepared to handle difficult guests or situations.  Your team should be fully aware of how challenging this summer is likely to be, and you can’t send them into this battle unarmed.  They need clear and practical training for handling complaints, lack of service/amenity availability, slow service, supply chain issues, and more.  Help them to not fear it and not ignore it.  Give them the communication tools they need to address these situations before they become irreversible nightmares for you.  And reward them when they deliver.

Sweeten Pain Points

Ski resorts plagued with unavoidably long lift times on peak days often provide entertainment, hot cocoa, and other fun distractions to make the wait more bearable for skiers.  This is precisely the concept you need to deploy this summer.

Based on your staffing shortages, you’re likely able to predict where the trouble spots will be and when they’ll occur.  Have a plan ready.  True, in some cases (like the ski resort example) you might need to devote a staffer (from the already depleted team) to implement the plan, but focusing that precious resource to the challenge is a smart strategy. Stunting frustration before it can build will enable guests to be forgiving in other areas where you have less control.  Otherwise frustrations just keep mounting until diffusing them is impossible.

So whether it’s surprising guests with a refreshment cart during long lines, giving a discount or complimentary item for slow room or table service, or providing entertainment where none was expected, be proactive. Have solutions and plans ready to go.  And empower your staff – with training and guidelines – to address such problems on the spot.

Choose Where to Make an Impression

I vividly remember the time (pre-COVID) when I was at the Wequassett Resort & Golf Club on Cape Cod two weeks after Labor Day.  Knowing that such resorts often employ high school and college kids during the summer – and now they were back at school – I was prepared for moderate service levels.  Imagine my surprise when a staffer made the rounds at the pool to polish guests’ sunglasses!  That was completely unexpected and impressed the hell out of me.

This season, hospitality operations need to apply a critical lens to the services and amenities they usually offer and say, “What guest touchpoints make the biggest impression and how can we protect them at all costs?  Or at the very least, modify them so they STILL make an impression without fumbling?”  If you can’t do everything, don’t bother trying or you’ll just do everything poorly.  Better to choose some things that get your full attention and do them flawlessly.

This means your entire staff needs to understand where the priorities are, so everyone knows where corners can’t be cut.  So once again, clear and direct communication with your staff is essential.

The bottom line is that there’s no simple way to solve this problem.  It’s not easy for understaffed tourism operations to avoid disappointing guests.  But proactively addressing the situation with a plan and training your staff to be prepared will help mitigate the damage.  It might even win you some loyal guest ambassadors.

And by the way, the solutions don’t always have to cost money or require a full staff.  These 10 Unexpected (and Fabulous) Tourism Guest Service Stories will give you some inspiration.

What’s the best way to reengage email subscribers?

April 4, 2022
Filed under: Digital Marketing, Effective Communication, Uncategorized — @ 10:01 am

If a segment of your subscribers isn’t EVER opening your emails, it’s time to get them to reengage or…what?  You’ll kick them off the list?  A strong ultimatum (see below) can indeed be one of the best ways to inspire reengagement among email subscribers.

But lordy, that sounds harsh.  And on the surface, it also seems like it would hurt YOU more than it would hurt them.  They clearly won’t miss you, but your list size decreases.  Shouldn’t your goal always be to make your list as big as possible?

No, actually.  It shouldn’t.  Your goal should be to have a healthy list with as many engaged subscribers as possible.  Subscribers who never open your email – for whatever reason – are hurting your overall email program’s success.

That’s not just my opinion…it’s a fact.  If you’re skeptical of that fact, then before proceeding down to the real purpose of this article, pop over and read this article from HubSpot. They do a brilliant job of explaining why you should prune your email list regularly and the steps to make that happen.

But that’s not why we’re here.  We already KNOW that you should prune your list.  The question is…what’s the best way to reengage email subscribers before you take the drastic step of booting them from your list?

When faced with that challenge, you have one laser-focused goal at hand:  getting folks who always ignore your emails to open just ONE of them.  This will determine their fate.  If they open it (or them, if you’re doing a reengagement series), they stay.  If they don’t, they go.

If your emails are not being opened because they’re going to spam and subscribers just never see them, ultimately those subscribers should be removed from your list.  Any reengagement email you send will also go to their spam, so no matter how provocative or seductive your bait, they won’t bite.  Cut them loose.

But the rest of the never-openers?  THAT’S the high-potential pond where your bait matters.  These folks signed up for your email at some point, but they’ve become apathetic toward you:  not disenchanted enough to unsubscribe, but not interested enough to open anything you send.  They’re in “engagement limbo.”  And if you can jolt them into opening just one email, you instantly increase your list’s health AND inspire them to care about you again.

So here’s the million dollar question:  how can you successfully deliver that jolt?

Grabbing the attention of these apathetic recipients relies exclusively on the email’s subject line.  It’s the only tool you have to influence their behavior in these circumstances.  If the subject line doesn’t grab them enough to open it, the email’s content doesn’t matter.

Reengagement subject lines (and their corresponding body content) generally fall into one of three categories:  gentle nudge, rewarding lure, or strong ultimatum.  Which one/s you should use (or whether you should combine them as a series) depends on your brand’s personality, the transactional nature of your business relationships, and how determined you are to stringently prune your list.

Gentle Nudge

This is some version of “we miss you, where have you been?”  It’s a subtle tactic with no hard bite, but it could work with subscribers who are only mildly apathetic.  You could give this tactic a better chance by personalizing the subject line: “Joan, we miss you…where have you been?”  The content in the email body may or may not contain additional lures/rewards to inspire clicks (a special discount, time-sensitive offer, etc.).  But the overall vibe of this approach is soft and subtle, gently reminding them that they once pursued an email relationship with you and why they should stay in that relationship.  It’s often used as the first volley in series of reengagement tactics.  If they respond to this, there’s no need to pursue them with further measures.

Rewarding Lure

This is some version of “bribing” subscribers to reengage.  That sounds severe (and desperate, if we’re being honest), but engaged email subscribers are precious marketing assets.  It’s perfectly reasonable for you to trade something in exchange for wooing them back to caring.  Plus, if you give them a special offer (discount, value-add, etc.) that inspires a purchase, that’s revenue you wouldn’t have had anyway because they were previously ignoring you.

This lure has to be meaningful enough to matter, or the subject line won’t grab them.  So if you send 20% off specials to your general list all the time, this one-time offer to spark their reengagement must be significantly more appealing than that.  Again, personalization matters here to help cut through their desensitization.  “Victor, here’s 50% off just for you until (deadline).”  Don’t get hung up on the use of 50% in that example. The point is to make the offer exclusive and ultra-special, beyond the types of offers you usually share.  Free stuff, exclusive access to something, special perks and more…all can inspire that holy grail behavior you’re seeking here:  open that email.

Strong Ultimatum

This one’s not for the faint-hearted marketer, but it can be incredibly effective.  Here, you essentially threaten to remove them from the list by giving them one last chance to show you they want to stay.  You want to deliver a shocking jolt?  Human nature compels people to want what they can’t have.  So telling them they’re being removed from the list unless they deliberately request to stay is bound to grab their attention.  This tactic is the most direct and yields the most definitive action.

But be prepared, because this tactic comes with risk.  If not done with situationally-appropriate grace, you risk sparking a negative reaction/perception of your brand…whether or not they choose to stay on your list.  No one loves being threatened, so while you may get the initial result you want (they stay), you may have some branding repair work to do there.  Their affection for you may have taken a hit.

Ironically, a helpful “real life” example of this comes from HubSpot, the same folks referenced above for their brilliant explanation of how/when/why to prune email lists.  The irony is that the tactic worked, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I’ve been on HubSpot’s daily email list for ages and hadn’t opened one in a while.  One day, I got an email from them with this subject line:

“We’re signing off.  Here’s why…”

Of course I opened that immediately because I thought they were closing up shop (as I’m sure they intended).  Turns out, when I opened it… they were threatening to break up with ME because I haven’t been opening their emails:

 

a copy of an email that shows the best way to reengage email subscribers

 

Now, I’m a marketer and this was a marketing newsletter from a marketing company.  So I get why they did this and don’t begrudge them the tactic.  They got their “open” from me, and that was the primary goal.

But I have to admit…despite that allowance for marketing kumbaya, the email’s execution just rubbed me the wrong way.  Telling me that “my subscription habits are bigger than my capacity for reading everything” is rather obnoxious.  It seems to be accusing me of poor time management skills. Like it’s my fault for not being able to keep up with reading their emails…not their fault for sending emails whose subject lines don’t pique my interest enough to open them.

The rest of the approach in the email body is on point.  There are plenty of lures in there to catch my attention, and a nice big button that says “Re-Subscribe,” which is another emotional tactic designed to move me to action.  It’s as if I’ve already been booted from the list, and now I need to proactively do something to get back on it.  (Hilariously, this wasn’t true because I didn’t click on anything and still kept getting their emails.  Yet another thing that annoyed me – the empty threat.)

The point is…be careful how you approach the strong ultimatum tactic.  This is especially true if you’re in the hospitality business.  Threatening to kick someone off an email list because they haven’t engaged with you in a while can come across as VERY inhospitable, no matter how gracefully you word it.

Overall bottom line:  quality over quantity is always the best pursuit with email subscribers…and indeed with most marketing efforts.  For another highly illustrative example of this, check out the time we had to break up with Google because it was sending TOO MUCH traffic to our website.

20 Tips for Tourism PR and Marketing Agency Clients

March 22, 2022
Filed under: Marketing & Mental Health, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Media Relations, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 2:32 pm

a red colored lightbulb with illumination marks signifying 20 tips to help tourism PR and marketing clients get the most out of their agency.

We’ve been serving PR and marketing clients in the tourism industry for 20 years.  Big global brands.  Tiny obscure companies.  Obscenely huge budgets.  Shoestring budgets.  Individuals with personalities that range from Type A to Zen.  Doers.  Procrastinators.  Screamers.  Huggers.  Savvy marketers.  Marketing agnostics.  Marketing skeptics.  No two clients are the same…and there have been thousands of them in our history.

So, we’ve learned a LOT about what it takes for a client to get the most out of both marketing and its agency.  Here, drawn from our extensive experience, are 20 tips to help tourism clients succeed in public relations and marketing:

  1. Changing marketing goals too frequently, or lacking them completely, can only achieve short term results for your efforts. Either be ok with that or make a solid plan and stick to it.
  2. If you water down a BIG BOLD idea, adjust your expectations down from BIG BOLD results. All too often, circumstances cause a client to dilute an idea’s execution…but then expect the same powerful results associated with the original concept.  That just ain’t how it works.
  3. If you feel you have to micromanage your agency, they’re not the right match for you. Let ‘em go, even if it’s us.
  4. Positivity works magic in PR. If you have faith it will produce…it will.  If you don’t…it won’t.
  5. It helps results tremendously if your entire organization is aware of your marketing plans. Devote resources to educating and engaging them, and you’ll see a greater ROI in marketing.
  6. Make the time to collaborate with your agency. If you skip meetings, miss deadlines, and sit indefinitely on things awaiting approval, you’re only tapping around 50% of their potential.
  7. If your boss doesn’t understand marketing, won’t leave, and remains skeptical about every campaign… dude, find a new job. We’ve seen it.  It never ends well.
  8. Tourists want visuals. Invest continually in photos and videos…every itinerary, every package, every story angle.  Without them, you’re losing marketing opportunities…which means you’re losing money.
  9. If you have “marketing envy” and always wish your organization could do things as cool as your competitors (or your agency’s other clients), learn what it takes operationally to execute such things. Then decide if your organization can make it happen.  You may not be nimble enough, your pockets may not be deep enough, or the concepts may be the complete wrong match for your brand.  If your organization is not equipped for it, stop being wistful.  Invest your energy in what will work best for YOU.
  10. It’s totally OK to put some marketing initiatives on a steady low flame temporarily (or even permanently) while you focus your resources elsewhere. Just make peace with it and don’t expect them to yield big results.
  11. It is totally NOT OK to turn PR on and off completely. It’s the one marketing medium that doesn’t respond well to fits and starts.  Either do it consistently (at any flame level) or just don’t do it.
  12. Use tailored landing pages for your digital campaigns. Without them, you’re losing a ton of business.  For some organizations, this is a no brainer. For others, it’s like pulling teeth.  Every. Single. Time.
  13. If your guest service and/or guest experience is inconsistent or subpar in any way, marketing will not help change that. In fact, the more guests we drive to your door, the more money you’re going to waste.  The damage those guests will do through social media, review sites, and lack of referrals/return quietly sabotages the positive benefits that marketing brings.  And a business can’t survive on new guests alone, who are more costly to acquire than referrals/repeats.  Fix the foundation, and you’ll see marketing pay off in spades.
  14. You can’t find love on a spreadsheet.
  15. A website should be both beautiful and functional, but if you had to choose where to put more resources…choose functionality every time.
  16. Forget what we said in #15 entirely.  Stop thinking of “beauty” and “functionality” as two different things.  Together they comprise “user experience,” and if your website doesn’t deliver equally in both areas, you’re losing money.  Period.
  17. Social media is more demanding than any other marketing medium. If you want to deeply succeed here, be prepared to staff it fully and keep up with the breakneck pace of ever-evolving rules, features, and channels.  Doing set-and-forget style marketing only taps around 20% of social media’s potential.  It’s fine if you choose to do it that way in the context of your overall marketing plan.  Just expect your notable results to come from other sources.
  18. If your risk tolerance is low, then PR is not for you. Often in PR, the greatest risks yield the highest rewards, but there are no guarantees.  That’s what makes it so exciting!
  19. There’s a reason creative, clever tourism packages and programs get a ton of press and social media love. Boring things just don’t command attention.
  20. Consistent indecision will tank your marketing ROI more than making a definitive poor choice ever will. That sounds dramatic, but history generally proves it to be true.

And here’s a bonus item, since we kinda negated #15.  Be candid with your agency at all times. Issues and concerns can be overcome easily with open communication. A good partner – as all agencies should be – will welcome the candor.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed the client experiences we’ve had, and every relationship has helped us grow. And it’s enabled us to help brands of all sizes achieve their marketing and business objectives.  Big shout-out to all our clients for putting their trust in us, and here’s to the next 20 years!