I’m sure a customer has asked you that before and your answer was (probably) yes. Indeed, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app out right now. With 1.5 billion active users a month, it’s the biggest messaging platform, ahead of Facebook Messenger by more than 200 million users. As a leisure activity business, you understand the significance of being engaged on platforms where your customers are active and where you can stand out. WhatsApp is one of those platforms.

This article will show you why WhatsApp is an important component of your marketing strategy and provide you with 10 tips and tricks on how to use it effectively to reach your audience.

Let’s get started.

Why Should WhatsApp Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy?

WhatsApp’s power as an instant messaging app is well known around the world. However, most businesses fail to realize the platform’s growing power as a marketing channel.

WhatsApp is part of the Facebook family, along with Instagram – it was purchased for $19 billion in 2014. When Facebook rolled out Snapchat’s stories feature to Instagram, they also rolled it out to WhatsApp and gave the app its first social feature.

In addition, to quickly emerging as a social media network, a Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism survey found that a large number of countries view WhatsApp as a trusted source of news.

WhatsApp indeed recognizes its current power and future potential to be a powerhouse for marketers. They even made an announcement about their plans to turn WhatsApp into a more functional marketing platform.

Building A Campaign on WhatsApp

It might be a good idea for you to start planning a WhatsApp marketing campaign now.

Here’s why.

There is no barrier to entry on WhatsApp: all you need is a smartphone. And there is plenty you can do on it to market your business. For example, you can:

● Use it as a messaging app to send event updates and exclusive offers.
● Send multimedia content.
● Use it to survey and get customer data.
● Record your data and messages by backing them up to Google Drive.

Are you convinced yet? If so, one of the first things you need to do before you start building your marketing campaign on WhatsApp is to stop thinking of it as a messaging app. Think of it like any other marketing platform like Facebook, where you can post messages and statuses. There are three main ways you can use it as part of an effective marketing strategy:

1. Broadcast Messages
Using the broadcast messaging feature, you can send a single message to multiple people on your contact list. Think of it as an SMS marketing campaign. However, WhatsApp currently only allows you to send to 256 contacts per message.

2. WhatsApp Status
If you’re already using Instagram and Snapchat stories, you are probably familiar with how the status feature works in WhatsApp. Using it, you can post videos and images to engage your audience with your brand for 24 hours. After 24 hours, your stories delete themselves.

3. WhatsApp Text Status
This feature was temporarily removed from the app when the Status feature went live. It allows you to put up a text status to broadcast discount codes, invite your audience to have conversations with you and any other call to action you want to make.

Now that you know why you should use WhatsApp to market your leisure activity business, here at 10 tips and tricks on how you can effectively use it to reach your target audience.

1. Create Broadcast Lists

You should create lists that are related to specific topics or audience segments. Once the lists are prepared you can send one-way communications that are specifically tailored to increase engagement, just like you do on Twitter.

You can include offers, links, or invitations in your messages. For example, if you are having an event or launch that will interest your audience, broadcast lists are the way to go.

Let’s assume you are a leisure and spa business. Then your audience will be interested in anniversary celebrations, summer and bank holidays. So you can use those opportunities to send them broadcast messages.

2. Use Group Chat

Group messages are shared with members of a group, and also include responses from group participants. That comes in handy when you need to conduct focus groups or market research before launching a product or service.

The group feature is also the best way for you to grant exclusivity to specific customer groups. It is also a way to encourage your customers to interact with one another and perhaps introduce other existing customers to try a new service or product that they’ve never tried before.

WhatsApp group chat provides benefits for both you and your customer: Your customers can easily interact with you and one another and you can easily connect to an international audience.

3. Offer Customer Service on WhatsApp

Providing immediate customer service is a luxury for many small businesses, particularly leisure activity ones. However, WhatsApp can help you and your staff to answer and address customer queries quickly.

Since WhatsApp features multimedia messaging, you can provide personalized customer service by using text, audio, or video. You can even provide live-video help or tutorials on WhatsApp, which will further streamline the customer support process for both you and your customers.

Also, remember that WhatsApp has a desktop application. So if you are using other customer support software on your desktop, you can easily merge the two and provide even faster customer service.

4. Get Feedback

Instead of calling customers for feedback, consider sending questions to your customer list via WhatsApp. Especially since the open rate for WhatsApp messages is 70 percent. It is marketing research at its optimum and it is also free.

When you receive the feedback, you can directly respond to their requests within the app and improve on the products or services that you offer.

And don’t just stick to traditional questionnaires. Develop entertaining and creative ones that are both a reflection of your brand and also enable you to interact with your customers in a non-intrusive way.

Since their feedback is of great value to you, you can reward them with coupons to encourage brand loyalty, and as part of a customer retention strategy.

5. Personalize Communication

If you’re doing WhatsApp marketing correctly, your groups will continue to grow. And as they grow, you can personalize your interaction with customers by directly communicating with them on the platform – one-on-one.

This is particularly helpful to small businesses because direct interaction with their customers makes it much easier for customers to directly message them if they need a specific product, have questions, or need customer support.

6. Call Your Customers

In addition to interacting and marketing to your customers via messaging, you should directly engage with them via phone calls.

For example, when you get a customer request (perhaps someone is interested in talking to a salesperson or simply wants more information), you can respond right away, within the app, by calling them.

7. Use WhatsApp Statuses to Share Promotions and Flash Sales

The new WhatsApp Status Update feature enables you to widely share special promotional codes for customers to redeem at your business.

You can use the instant photo and location feature to distribute the promotion codes to let everyone in your groups know about the special promotions you are running.

This can be a two to three-hour flash sale or one-day event to drive traffic or create buzz. If you have success with it, you can keep it exclusive to WhatsApp.

8. Partner with Complementary Businesses and Influencers

When you collaborate with businesses that offer complementary services or influencers in your space, you are increasing your audience and the number of WhatsApp groups you belong to. The partners do not need to be in your industry; the goal to become part of more conversations across various WhatsApp groups.

Even if people in other groups are not interested in your products or services, they might mention your brand in other groups or social channels; and those within their circle, who are interested in your business, will find you.

9. Create Quality Content

Yes, even on WhatsApp. Just as quality content is important for your site, it is also important for messaging in WhatsApp.

In WhatsApp, your messages need to be short and powerful. But you don’t have to worry as much about the length as you do on Twitter, but every single word should count. Your style and word choices should resonate with your audience or you’ll risk seeing very little engagement. Keep it simple, engaging, and focus on the benefits for your customers.

10. Use Third-Party Analytics

Just as with any marketing campaign, the most important part is analytics. You need to track and analyze your traffic so you can fine-tune and optimize your campaigns.
There are many thirds party apps and software that provide WhatsApp analytics.

Tracking software like Google Analytics can provide WhatsApp analytics data to help you optimize your social media strategy and fine-tune your strategies for reaching the right audiences.

Conclusion

Just as WhatsApp continues to evolve from a messaging app into another social media platform, so will your marketing efforts.  We recommend that you start incorporating it into your marketing strategy today. Not only because it is a versatile platform that you can use to distribute files, videos, images, and texts about your products and services. But also because it is a free way to spread the word about your brand; and to better understand your customers’ needs so you can serve them better in the future.

The key is to measure your interactions and ensure that each message you send provides value. Track your analytics and keep optimizing your campaigns.

The post 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks to Market Your Leisure Activity appeared first on Regiondo.

For me, it’s a hammer.

It’s mighty hard (not to mention painful) to beat a nail into a piece of wood using your fist.

So it’s easy to see why humans invented the hammer and countless other ways to make life better.

Since the internet came about, thousands if not millions of people have been working hard on building a different type of tools – ones that live entirely online.

And while we can’t touch or hold them like a hammer, they still make life and business much easier.

A few weeks ago, I asked a group of tour operators about the online tools they can’t live without. Today, I’m going to share the results with you.

Ready? Let’s go.

Tools for Customer Service and Sales

Tawk.to

Tawk.to is a live chat software that is absolutely free.

And that’s not just at the beginning – there are no paid plans for using Tawk.to’s live chat tool.

Instead, they offer a $1/hour agent service so you always have someone replying to customers on your website – in case you need to.

But why would you have live chat at all?

Well, there’s the element of better and faster customer service. In fact, people prefer live chat over any other contact channel (according to this article).

In addition, live chat lets you boost your conversion rates when you use it as a sales channel. Here’s what Michael from Boutique Traveler says about Tawk.to:

“It’s great for customers who have a quick question and we’ve been able to convert a high percentage of inquiries.”

Tawk.to can be used on the web but it’s also available for Android and iOS so you never miss an opportunity.

Streak

Streak is a CRM system for Gmail – Google’s popular email client.

So if you’re using Gmail to communicate with customers, Streak will give you a built-in spreadsheet to manage your sales and customer service process directly from Gmail.

Of course, it comes with a number of other features that make email much better. Check this out:

• Track when people open your messages.
• Schedule messages so they send later.
• Save frequently used messages for faster customer service.

You can try Streak for free here.

Project Management Tools to Boost Team Productivity

Asana

Asana is one of the most popular task and project management apps for teams.

It lets you break down your projects and recurring operations into manageable tasks, each with their own due date, subtasks, assignees and other attributes.

This way, you can keep track of all your tour operations in one place instead of keeping things on paper, sticky notes, whiteboards and so on. In addition, you can adjust Asana and use it in a way that makes the most sense to you. As Marta from ForeverBarcelona Tours put it:

“I use Asana to keep track of my admin tasks and ticket reservations for each tour. I couldn’t live without it!”

With its Kanban boards, Asana is now even more flexible so you can organize your workflow in the most logical way for your business. Check it out in the video below:

You can sign up at Asana.com and use the tool free of charge for up to 15 team members. Certain advanced features are locked but you’ll have everything you need to get started on the free plan. There is also a mobile version available for Android and iOS to keep track of things on-the-go.

Trello

Similar to Asana, Trello is a platform for team project management.

However, its main focus is on kanban boards and ease of use.

Typical Trello board setup.

If you find Asana’s learning curve is too steep, then Trello is a good way to start organizing your team projects and tasks.

It allows creating boards, lists, cards and checklists next to each other so you can see the big picture in one place.

In fact, this is what we use at Regiondo to keep track of our work across the whole company. With over 50 employees, we use Trello to synchronize projects across different departments so we can efficiently build and deploy our online booking system.

MS OneNote

OneNote is a Microsoft service for taking notes (doh) and organizing personal and team information.

Okay, “notes” is an understatement here.

You can clip web pages, take photos, attach audio files, draw directly on your screen – in addition to a host of other features.

You can use OneNote for managing your personal workload or invite your team to share ideas, plans and tasks.

You’ll need a Microsoft account to use OneNote but that’s free to create and you most likely have one if you’re a Windows user. Just head over to the Microsoft store and search for “OneNote” to get started (or use the web version here).

Internal Communication

Slack

Slack stands for “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge”.

It started off as a way to replace emailing between colleagues but now it’s a full-on team collaboration hub – complete with thousands of integrations and built-in productivity features.

In fact, it became the fastest growing enterprise software… ever.

With Slack, you can send private messages, create thematic channels, handle project discussions and much more. Su Sandi from Mira Travels says the whole team uses Slack to handle internal communication.

At Regiondo, we also use Slack to stay in sync across 8 countries in Europe and 3 different time zones.

You can try Slack for free on their official website.

WhatsApp

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you probably know about WhatsApp and even use it every day.

And while it’s mostly used to send text messages and make voice calls for free with friends and family, WhatsApp is a surprisingly good tool for business.

Similar to Slack, you can collaborate with your team and it’s probably an easier alternative. And due to WhatsApp’s reach, you can use it to talk to your customers as a tour operator. For example, here’s what Tung Do from XO Tours says about WhatsApp:

“We use WhatsApp to send tour assignments to our staff. Our tour leaders also provide a tour report through WhatsApp at the end of the tour. And many international customers contact us using WhatsApp.”

The free calling feature is a great way to avoid international rates so your customers feel more comfortable calling you directly.

WhatsApp is available for your Android or iOS phone but you can also use it on your computer. Just head over to WhatsApp.com and choose the version you’d like to download.

Marketing Tools for Tour Operators

Google Analytics

If you have a website, my guess is you also have Google Analytics (GA) installed.

But are you making the most of it?

People tend to check GA every once in a while to see if they have a spike or a drop in traffic. That’s alright but there’s so much more to this free tool by Google.

Using GA is a big topic and there’s no way to cover everything in this article. However, I’m going to give you 3 tips that will get you ahead of most people who use GA.

Set your conversion goals

GA is not a place where you find passive information. Use the tool to get actionable data that leads to more visitors, leads and sales for your tour company.

The way to do this? Set conversion goals.

Conversion goals help you track key actions on your site such as purchases and email sign ups. Once you have this set up, you’ll be able to see which of your channels perform best based on the actual conversions they bring, not just traffic.

You can learn more about setting up conversion goals in the video below:

Monitor your top pages

The Behaviour report shows you the top pages people visit on your site.

That’s nice because you’ll know which are the most important areas to improve on. Small adjustments in your homepage (usually the top page on most websites) or product pages can lead to big improvements in your bottom line.

But don’t just guess – use GA to find where you have the biggest leverage. Go to Behaviour>Site Content>All pages and sort the table by Unique page views to see which ones are the most visited.

Rank your top channels by conversion rate

If you set up goals properly (see above), now it’s time to utilize this information.

It will likely take a while before you have adequate data on conversions (perhaps at least two weeks, depending on the amount of traffic you get) but you’ll soon see some patterns in the channels that drive the most conversions for you.

Go to Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels and sort your channels based on Goal conversion rate to find the top channels for you – not just in absolute numbers but also in terms of effectiveness.

You can take this a step further and go to the Source/Medium section to see the exact websites that bring the best results for you.

That’s all in addition to the Audience Report which can tell you crucial information about your most interested prospects – such as the country they’re from and the language they prefer to speak. As a tour operator, these are important details to know about.

If you don’t have GA yet, head over to their website and login with your Google account. Then, you’ll need to set up the Analytics tag (here’s how) and you’re good to go.

MailChimp

MailChimp lets you automate your email marketing so you can stay in touch with your former (and future) customers.

Building a strong tour business involves word of mouth and in today’s world, this is largely done online with sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor.

The problem is – people don’t always leave reviews, even if they loved the experience.

This is where email automation works best – reminding people to leave a review without having to manually monitor past customers and sending them an email yourself.

Better yet – you can distribute discount coupons which they can send to friends and family or redeem on their own in case they want to take the tour again (if that’s the situation – kudos to you).

And let’s not forget – tools like MailChimp come with a host of related features such as building landing pages, online forms and managing your overall customer relationships.

You can get started with MailChimp on their website and then even download their mobile app for Android or iOS. There’s a free plan too – you can send up to 10,000 emails per month and 2,000 a day for free.

Proof

If you go to Proof’s website, you’ll see a small pop up in the bottom left telling you that someone signed up recently.

How Proof works. You’ll get a similar pop-up on your own website which visitors can see.

That’s leveraging the power of social Proof (get it?) – the platform lets you have the same type of notification on your own website so your visitors can see other people are buying your tours and taking action as they browse.

The idea is to create a sense of urgency and credibility – and it seems to work pretty well. Proof claims that conversion rates for its customers increase by more than 10% almost instantly.

The setup is very easy and fast, you don’t need to be tech savvy for this.

There is a 14-day free trial period – you just need to install the Proof marketing pixel on your website (here’s how) and see if it gets you more sales.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a Social Media management platform that lets you manage your social accounts in one place, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

So instead of posting on each network individually, you can set and schedule a post once and it will appear everywhere. This can save you a good deal of time when promoting your content or new offers on social media.

You can sign up for free at Hootsuite.com or check out two of its bigger competitors below:

• Buffer
• Planable

Recommended reading: 12 Free Marketing Tools To Boost Your Online Sales

Graphics and image editing

Canva

Canva lets you create cool graphics for your online and offline marketing materials – without being a design wiz.

It’s super easy to create graphics with this tool and you can start creating great materials within minutes (they have thousands of templates and free elements to get you started).

So whether it’s a new promotion you want to run, a brochure you want to design or an image you’d like to edit, Canva has you covered.

You can check it out at canva.com.

TinyPNG

As a tour operator, your photos need to be top notch.

Well, there’s one drawback here – good photos are typically quite large in terms of file size. When you upload them to your site, this can slow down your loading time and… frustrate visitors with slow internet connections.

TinyPNG lets you compress images so they load quickly without compromising on quality.

The service is free but if you have lots of images to compress at the same time, you might choose the PRO version.

Conclusion

So there you have it – that’s our list of the best online tools for tour operators.

You can see there’s a suite of tools to help you in every area of business – from sales and marketing to design and internal communication.

And while these are all nice to have – try to minimize the number of tools you use to keep things simple and manageable. The best approach is to think about your current processes and find the right tools to fit your workstyle.

Don’t fall into the trap of finding a tool you like and then creating more work for yourself just so you can utilize it. If it’s not crucial to your work, it’s best to leave it out.

All in all – I hope you found at least one tool that will help you run your tours more efficiently.

Finally, this list is subject to change and I’d love to learn about the tools you use on a daily basis to run your business – comment below with one piece of software you can’t live without and we might include it above.

Recommended for you:

• 10 Free Apps To Boost Your Personal Productivity
• 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks to Market Your Leisure Activity
• Website Best Practices for Tour and Activity Companies
• How to Market a Tour Company for Free: 7 Big Platforms You Should be on

The post 13 Online Tools Every Tour Operator Should Know About appeared first on Regiondo.

Some of them are cheap and easy to implement, while others can be costly.

Luckily, there are also many options to promote a tour company for free.

In this post, we’re going to look at the top digital platforms to drive traffic, engagement, and sales for your tour company – without spending a dime.

There will be no big surprises on this list. The goal here is to check if you’re making the most of your online presence and using each platform to its maximum potential.

Ready? Let’s go.

Internet marketing for tour operators

Before we dive in, let’s briefly recap the benefits of using internet marketing for tour operators.

The biggest factor here is consumer behavior. We know internet usage is consistently increasing while young people tend to book travel almost exclusively online. So it makes sense to optimize your sales and marketing for the way people research and buy nowadays.

Aside from this factor, there are other benefits of internet marketing for tour operators that are not as obvious:

• It’s easier to calculate ROI: web analytics let you track where your customers are coming from and which channels work best.
• You can reach more people at a lower cost: when compared to traditional advertising, online ads are as much as 6 times cheaper so you can get in front of potential customers for less.
• Efficient communication channels: with tools like Facebook and WhatsApp you can provide world-class service and connect with customers 24/7.
• It’s easier to convey your messages and offers: your website, images, and video content all make it easier to convey that compelling offer you want to make and excite people about your tours.

With that in mind, what are the specific online channels you should use to reach your customers on a reasonable budget and without going nuts?

The new TripAdvisor

You’re probably using TripAdvisor already but it’s worth mentioning now that they updated their website. The user experience has changed which means you might need to adapt.

In summary, here are some of the key updates:

• Travel feed – TripAdvisor users can now see a personalized feed with travel-related content from a variety of sources.
• Follow the experts – In addition to the user-generated reviews, certain travel experts and brands have been invited to share their tips with TripAdvisor users. People can now follow these experts for inspiration about their next trip.
• Follow your friends – As with most social networks, you can now follow your friends and get updates on their activity.

The new TripAdvisor feed.

Of course, you still need a consistent inflow of positive reviews to rank high on TripAdvisor.

Collect reviews on Yelp

While Yelp is not as popular in the travel industry, it could still bring a lot of value for tour companies.

The site has a big authority and millions of people visit Yelp each month to get local business recommendations.

And it’s not all about restaurants too.

Virtually any type of business can create a free Yelp profile and get in front of the site’s users. Not only that, but you’ll also be more visible in search engine results because of it.

But undoubtedly the biggest use case for Yelp is collecting reviews. If we run a quick search for tours in Paris, you’ll see a good deal of results with dozens or even hundreds of reviews.

That’s a good opportunity to collect feedback from customers and reach an audience that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Facebook – the Swiss army knife of tour marketing

Well, Facebook is still one of the biggest names around and we can’t ignore it here.

You can do plenty of things with Facebook. In fact, its biggest strength is probably how universal it is.

From reviews to promotions and even sales, you can use Facebook to your advantage in many ways.

But it’s not just the features.

Facebook has a universal appeal and its user base is practically everyone. This is why your customers are likely on the platform – and why you’re there too (well, at least I hope you are).

While advertising on Facebook is a big deal right now, one of the best ways to utilize the platform is by providing customer service.

Messaging, reviews, and comments are all convenient communication tools – for you and your customers. If you keep your customers happy on the platform, it can become one of your biggest sources of free marketing and referrals, second only to TripAdvisor.

And of course, let’s not forget the direct commercial benefits of Facebook. More than 800 million people use the platform to buy and sell products… every month.

Regiondo customers can integrate a complete ticket shop with Facebook so people can book tours directly on your page.

Research your market with Quora

Quora is a question-and-answer site that has been around for several years but has generally focused on tech matters.

Over time, this changed. It’s now possible to position your company and brand as an expert in other areas.

With its capabilities that allow you to add images/photos, links, and rich-format text, it has become a good platform for travel and booking companies to market services to potential customers.

But the real advantage here is market research.

Millions of people visit Quora each month with questions they can’t find an easy answer to.

In fact, it’s many millions.

So while you can answer questions in your space and build more awareness for your tour, it’s a good idea to look at what people want to know about your city and use it to generate content ideas.

This approach can fuel your entire strategy across social media and your website – there is no shortage of questions on Quora. Here are just a few examples:

A quick search about tour companies already gives us some interesting questions to consider.

But even if you don’t use Quora for its advantages in market research, the site’s 670 million+ monthly visitors are a good indicator of its free marketing potential.

Use Instagram to store your photos and short videos

Instagram is a visual way to connect with your audience.

It’s one of the fastest-growing social networks and it’s dominated by millennials. If you target young people, Instagram is a great place to find them.

As images and videos are at the core of this platform, you can use it as a storage solution for all tour-related footage.

The content you put out is then easy to find and share across other places online.

Keep in mind that videos can be up to 30 seconds long. For longer footage, you’ll need something else…

Increase your reach with YouTube

As the second biggest social media platform after Facebook, people use YouTube for more than music and funny videos. It’s now a big influence on travel decisions as people use it to explore destinations.

In fact, travelers make up more than 100 million of YouTube’s unique visitors. In addition, “three in five travelers who watch online video use it to narrow down their brand, destination, or activity choices.”

Even though travel vlogs are the most viewed and most engaging type of travel videos, only 14% of vlogs on YouTube are created by brands.

This is an area with huge potential if you’re keen on using video to raise awareness for your tour and drive people to your website.

Share inspiration on Pinterest

Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is also focused on the visual aspect of social networking.

And it’s for much more than recipes, crafts, and wish lists.

Today, Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool, especially for travel and tourism companies where the visual appeal of the destination is paramount.

Think of it as the new version of print brochures. Only you can “pin” it all over the world.

This is why tour companies like Rabbie’s can reach thousands of monthly viewers on Pinterest simply by uploading visual and inspiring content there.

With over 700 million website visits per month, there is good reason to consider focusing on that platform.

Conclusion

Having a solid presence online is a must for tour companies these days.

While each platform has its strengths, you need to focus on the ones your customers use.

If you’re targeting a broad audience, then Facebook could be the way to go.

Or if your customers are from a young demographic, consider Instagram as your focus.

And if you’d like to emphasize the visual elements of your tour, why not try Pinterest as your next big marketing channel?

Whichever platform you choose, make sure your decision is based on a sound understanding of your customers and try to avoid spreading your attention too thin.

You might also like:

• The Complete Guide to Online Advertising for Tour Operators
• 8 Underestimated Tactics for Successful Tour Marketing
• Marketing Mix for Tour and Activity Operators

The post How to Market a Tour Company for Free: 7 Big Platforms You Should be on appeared first on Regiondo.

Pinterest lets you find and share interesting videos and images across the web. You can organize pins into boards which are visible to your followers and people can browse them in their feed. In addition to cooking classes, arts, and crafts, travel content is a huge part of the platform.

As such, marketing on Pinterest can bring great advantages for tour and activity operators. With more than 250 million users, it’s one of the most relevant places to interact with potential customers in a super visual way.

There are many ways to use Pinterest and here we’ll look and how and why you should use Pinterest for business.

Ready? Let’s go.

Why use Pinterest for Business?

Apart from personal usage, Pinterest offers some great advantages for businesses.

First and foremost, you get access to more than 250 million people on the platform. The majority of Pinterest’s users are female which is good for tours and activities – as we all know, the ladies tend to make the purchasing decisions when it comes to travel.

In addition, you can reach people while they are looking for products and services. According to Hootsuite, 93% of Pinterest users plan purchases on the platform.

Also, Pinterest claims 80% of its users access the site from their smartphones. So it’s a great channel if you want to reach people in the consideration stage and get more exposure on mobile.

As a business, you get a bunch of extra features too. These include Rich Pins, the Widget Builder, and the Save Button for websites.

Rich Pins allow you to add extra information on a pin. For example, you can include pricing, availability, and information about where to buy your tour or activity.

The Widget Builder lets you create special modules that you can embed on your website. For instance, you can embed things like pins and even a whole board on your website to highlight interesting content.

Similarly, the Save button is also used on your website. It allows your visitors to save media from your website and pin it to their boards where their followers can also see them. This can be really powerful, especially when done by a travel influencer, as the pin will include a link to your website.

How to use Pinterest for business effectively

It’s clear that Pinterest can be a powerful platform to connect with potential customers. It also offers special business features that are tailored to helping you increase sales. So how do you utilize all this information? Below are 7 steps you can take right now to start marketing your business on Pinterest.

1. Sign up and complete your profile

Well, first you need to sign up (if you haven’t already). To get started, go to the business sign-up page and submit your email, business name, website, and industry.

We recommend completing your profile by adding all the necessary information to your account and connecting to the rest of your social networks. According to Pinterest, claiming your YouTube account helps you grow followers by 5x.

2. Start Pinning

Pins are at the core of Pinterest. To get started, create a board and upload your first image. Pinterest will give you some guidelines about this but the most important thing is that it’s relevant. Depending on your tour or activity, make sure that you upload content your customers are going to love. For this, you need to understand their profile.

For example, if you offer a hiking tour, your customers are likely outdoor enthusiasts. You can post a series of the top places to hike in the world (including your local area too!) and link back to your website from each pin. Other relevant pins can be mountaineering equipment and accessories like backpacks – ideal opportunities to partner up with relevant brands who can link to your hiking tour in exchange.

3. Promote pins

With Pinterest for business, you can also promote pins so they reach a bigger audience. As Google and Facebook get more crowded, you might find Pinterest to be a cheaper alternative. You can promote pins to reach more of the people who don’t follow you and draw attention to important promotions and giveaways.

4. Add the save button on your website

As already mentioned, there’s a good chance your target customers hang out on Pinterest. You can give them a chance to pin your website content and therefore reach their followers too.

Just connect your website with Pinterest from your account and they will see a Save button when they hover on images on your website.

For this, you’ll need to go to your profile settings and scroll down to “Claim”.

Once you enter your website domain name and hit “Claim”, you’ll get a chance to add an HTML tag to your site or upload an HTML file to your website’s root directory.

If you’re using WordPress, it might be faster to install this Pinterest plugin instead.

5. Engage with people

To make Pinterest a successful marketing channel, you’ll need to put in some ongoing effort. It could be as little as 5 minutes a day but can bring big results for you.

As with places like TripAdvisor, it’s important to engage with people by replying to comments on your pins. Make sure to comment back on theirs and get more exposure this way.

Another thing you can do is follow relevant people by joining popular boards in your industry. You can follow travel influencers where you will often find the exact market you’re after. Here are a few profiles and boards to get started with:

• The Travel Hack
• Travel – Tips! Tricks! Hacks!
• TravelThings

6. Get the Pinterest browser extension

It can be hard to devote time multiple times a day so you can find and pin relevant images.

To make it easier, you can install the Pinterest browser extension and save images as you browse the web. If you happen to find something that’s worth pinning, just click the Pinterest browser button and save it to one of your boards. This can save you a good deal of time in the long run.

7. Measure what works well with analytics

Another bonus you get from Pinterest for business are more detailed stats. You can see things like the number of people you reach and engagements with your brand.

With Google Analytics, you can also track all the people who come to your website from Pinterest and how many of them become customers.

This is the best way to measure if Pinterest is giving you a good return on the time invested.

Conclusion

There you have it. Now you know what Pinterest is and why it can be a valuable source of new customers. You also know how to reach people there effectively.

So what’s next? Well, if you haven’t already, try out Pinterest. It’s free so you have nothing to lose.

And if you want to learn more selling tours and activities using digital platforms, check out these articles on the topic:

• The Top Online Travel Agencies for Selling Tours and Activities
• How To Sell Tours and Activities with Facebook
• What is Instameet and How To Use it for Business
• 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks to Market Your Leisure Activity
• How to Market a Tour Company for Free: 7 Big Platforms You Should be on

The post Why Pinterest Can Be Your Next Big Sales Channel appeared first on Regiondo.

But of course, you already know that. It’s been a long time since Facebook became a household name and, consequently, an important business platform.

More recently, the tech giant started to face strong competition, losing users to the likes of Instagram and WhatsApp (then bought them over).

Although there are signs of the consumer segment slowing down, the company is putting a big effort into tailoring its propositions for businesses.

With that, Facebook is constantly innovating and many “hidden” features exist that can help you sell more tours and activities – both online and offline.

In this post, we’re going to look at the best ways to utilize Facebook so you can get bookings from left, right and center.

Ready? Let’s go.

With Regiondo, you can integrate a complete ticket shop in your Facebook page. No account yet? Book a demo with us. 

Why should you use Facebook to sell tours and activities?

Okay, we know Facebook has a gazillion users and some of them earn lots of money. But what are some more unconventional reasons why you’d turn to Facebook for boosting your tour or activity sales?

Reach travelers at the right time and place

Travelers love Facebook. When they get to the airport, they have to check in three times:  first with the airline, secondly with customs and last (and most importantly) – with Facebook.

”Okay Mona Lisa, I’m on my way. Paris, I’ll be seeing you soon… and your little macaroons too.”

But the fun doesn’t stop at check-in. Along the way travelers love to share their journey by posting photos and statuses regularly. This is the perfect opportunity for people to learn about your brand – while they’re in your location and seeking out their next adventure.

Gain exposure on mobile

In January 2018, more than 90% of active Facebook users have accessed the site from their smartphone. This compares to just 31.8% for laptop/desktop and 8.8% for tablets.

Device usage of Facebook users worldwide as of January 2018 (by Statista).

This means that if you’re on Facebook, people are likely interacting with your company via mobile. That’s a great way to gain exposure among smartphone users, especially if you don’t have a mobile-optimized website.

Learn more about your customers

Apart from extra reach, advertising on Facebook comes with detailed statistics and information about your best customers. After running ads on their platform for a while, you’ll know the type of customer who is most likely to buy from you – including their location, age, interests and other attributes. This information can help you adjust your offers and bring them to the people who are most likely to buy from you.

A small part of the stats you can see about your customers.

Show up on the “search” radar

You can post all sorts of information about your business on Facebook – including your contact details, pricing and transport directions. This makes it easy for people to find you online, especially given that Facebook is a website with high authority. If people search for your brand on Google, your Facebook page is likely to pop-up as one of the first results on the page.

Get online even if you don’t have a website yet

As you can see, much of the information that you would normally post on your website is also relevant on Facebook. This makes it a great substitute until you get your online presence up and running.

Recommended reading: How To Set Up an Online Store for Your Leisure Business

The best ways to reach your customers on Facebook

So, contrary to popular belief, it makes sense to spend some time on Facebook. Now let’s look at what to do with that time.

Advertise

Did you know with Facebook Ads you can target casual travelers, honeymooners, business travelers, road trippers, frequent travelers and just about any other target group you can think of?

Using Ad Targeting with Facebook Ads gives you the advantage of reaching travelers and locals who are looking for tours and activities in the area.

Fancy a cruise on the Thames?

What Is Ad Targeting?

As a tour provider, you’re already familiar with Facebook and know you can create a business page to connect with your customers, network within your industry and post content to showcase your offers.

But there’s more to Facebook that you may be missing out on if you’re not taking advantage of Ad Targeting. Ad Targeting is the magic behind Facebook Ads and helps to ensure you don’t miss your target audience each time you run a campaign. It allows you to customize your ads to target a specific group of your interest – which is why it’s so effective. By successfully reaching your target audience, Ad Targeting allows for a larger return on your investment – and we all love getting our money’s worth.

With Ad Targeting, you can get really specific and not only include a special audience, but you can also exclude certain people or groups. You can target people according to location, language, age, gender, interests, behaviors, and more.

Using Location Targeting

With Location Targeting, you can showcase your ads to a group of people in a specific area that you choose to target. Once you know where your visitors come from, you can specifically target a location by zip code, city, state or country, and run your ads to that demographic.

This means you can save time, money, and effort because you are only investing where it truly counts. You can also combine your location targets so that you mix up the right groups to meet your specific needs.

Hitting Your Target: Travelers

With Ad Targeting, you can specifically target travelers. Facebook identifies a traveler by someone who has recently posted a status update on a mobile device in your destination, but whose home location is listed as more than 100 miles from your area. This is perfect for increasing your last-minute bookings. When travelers arrive in your area and are looking for something fun to do, they’ll see your ad if they fit your target.

Are you looking for honeymooners in your location wanting a couple’s massage? How about recent graduates doing their gap year abroad and seeking out adventurous activities like bungee jumping or skydiving? Or maybe you’d like to target women, couples, or bachelorette parties looking for wine tours or cooking courses?

Whatever your target audience is, you can reach all these groups and many more, with Ad Targeting.

Promote your content and offers

As the undisputed master of network effects, Facebook is one of the best places to share your content, giveaways and promotional offers. Spend some time crafting a good offer and you might just “go viral” like this Tasmania walking tour which got 594 entries for its Early Bird promotion.

Example of a giveaway to generate early sales for a walking tour.

Announce updates

When you acquire a good number of followers on Facebook, the platform becomes a great way to announce holiday changes and updates. Whether you’re hiring staff, changing your opening times or expanding in a new city, a simple post can reach thousands of locals within a few hours.

Provide customer service

People can send you messages directly from your Facebook page (if you enable the setting). That’s another chance for you to provide outstanding customer service. The live chat option lets you build trust with your customers, answer their questions and even accept bookings.

Connect with your customers directly to answer questions and accept reservations.

Increase sales with the “Book Now” button

You can list all sorts of contact information on your Facebook page like your address and phone number. But what’s even better is the “Book Now” button.

This small detail leads people directly to your website or specific offers – you choose the destination. The “Book Now” button turns Facebook into a powerful distribution channel without charging you any commission fees.

Get free marketing with check-ins

Facebook’s location-based tagging can be a great way to get free advertising. Customers can tag themselves enjoying your tour or activity and this instantly pops up into their friends’ news feed. This way you can generate awareness without spending a dime. Consider adding some incentive for people to tag themselves, such as a small discount or free gift.

Apparently, people like to check-in.

Highlight your reviews as social proof

Apart from seeing which friends have visited, potential customers can see your reviews from strangers. You can even add your TripAdvisor reviews before you acquire a big enough following on Facebook.

This is obviously a “double-edged sword” so make sure you avoid negative reviews.

Show busy hours so people can book at a convenient time

As people share their smartphone location with Facebook, the platform can estimate how busy you are on any given day of the week. This information is available on your Facebook page so people can decide on the best time to book your tour or activity. In addition, it can help you with planning your resources, especially if you’re starting out (by looking at your competitors’ busiest times).

Tuesday morning it is!

Conclusion

Facebook is still the “big shot” when it comes to social media and we all know it’s a crucial selling tool. But there are some hidden features that you might not know about as the platform continues to release new business offerings.

Whether it’s through highly targeted advertising or simple promotions, the platform is sure to get your offers in front of the right people. Not only that, but you’ll also get to understand your customers better and boost your sales with Facebook’s tailored propositions for businesses.

With Regiondo, you can integrate a complete ticket shop in your Facebook page. No account yet? Book a demo with us. 

You might also like:

• 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks to Market Your Leisure Activity
• How to Start a Tour Company With (Almost) No Money
• How to Market a Tour Company for Free: 7 Big Platforms You Should be on

The post How To Sell Tours and Activities with Facebook appeared first on Regiondo.