linking & interactive media

Linking & Interactive Media

Felix Laboy & Paolo Torchio – September 2006 39

Reaching the Online Consumers: Linkage & Interactive Media

• Best Practices Media Placement – Consult an expert in the filed to provide "must place" media placement opportunities for your local market

• Search Engine Optimization Linking - directly leverage linkage popularity for the Search Engine Optimization program

• Competitive Set Linking - evaluate where your competitive set is placing online media. Your competitors may be taking advantage of media placement opportunities that are ideal for the marketing of your company.

• Market Segment Specific Media Placement - Research market segments from SEOP program, and find media placement specific to each market segments.

• Destination Specific Media Placement - Focus on your media placement in relation to your Website's geographic location.



Need some carribean linkage

examples



Linkage & Interactive Media Website partners worth considering:• WheretoStay.com

• TurquoiseNet.com

• Caribbean-On-line.com

• Jamaicans.com

• Islandbrides.com

• caribbean.com

• ResortsOnline.com

• HoneymoonLocation.com

• Hotelrooms.com

• TheKnot.com

• TripAdvisor.com

• ResortsandLodges.com


Reaching the online Consumer: Web2.0

• New frontier in linkage & brand awareness building

• 27% of travelers extremly infuenced by online cunsumer reviews & blogs

• 45,000,000 MySpace.com users

• IgoUgo – over 800,000 visitors per month

• Forty-eight million American adults have contributed some form of user-generated content on the Internet, it found.

Participant survey: What is Web2.0 ?How many read blogs; blog; visit social media sites?

Handout article


Reaching the online Consumer: Social Media & RSS


http://www.tripmates.com/- social network & reviews



Some strategies for taking advantage of Social Medi a phenomenon

Blog:• Develop a Blog for your destination that can be linked from the website and will offer

the visitors the ability to subscribe via RSS to be notified of new entries.

• Local Celebrities or Subject Matter Experts post commentary of their own or information about local events etc to the Blog on a regular basis to engage subscribers on an ongoing basis

• Intersperse this information with local events and promotions

• The Blog can also be leveraged to post past visitor testimonials or destination reviews.

• This can be done via the same Blog or by promoting the feature as more of a testimonial message board.



Some strategies for taking advantage of Social Medi a phenomenon

Leverage the Blog community to build awareness:

• Contact renowned niche Bloggers by market segment (eg: gourmet food and wine, spa, golf etc) with promotions, events or PR items.

• The objective is for these bloggers to in turn mention the item in their blog and promote visits to the hotel or resort website.

Campaign to promote blog and RSS opt in:

• Due to the emergent nature of high quality travel Blogs there is an opportunity to capitalize on the general interest in consumers receiving destination information via RSS & Blogs

• Email campaign to current opt in database to notify of the availability of the new feature (RSS & Blog). SEA campaign to promote the existence of the new website feature



• Emergence of Blog and Feed Search Engines

– www.feedster.com

– www.technorati.com

– www.daypop.com

• Great opportunity to leverage this for:

“online reputation management”

Handout article


Reaching the online Consumer: Blog Sites

• Blog Search Engines/Directories

– www.feedster.com

– www.technorati.com

– www.daypop.com

– www.blogcatalog.com

• Travel Blogs

– www.hotelchatter.com

– www.gridskipper.com

– http://blog.travelpost.com

– www.travelblog.org


Reaching the Online Consumers: Pay-Per-Click

Website URL60%

Search Engines

25%

Linkage Partners

15%


Reaching the Online Consumers: Pay-Per-Click

• Define Objectives:

• Branding to drive traffic

• Specific target market (feeder market)

• To fill specific need periods

• Generate interest in a specific promotion


Reaching the Online Consumers: Pay-Per-Click –Campaign Types

• Branding

– General branding campaign with the objective to drive as much traffic as one can afford to the website

– General ad copy

– Keywords

• Brand

• Destination

– Users directed to the homepage or interior page of the website



• Specific Promotion

– Rate-Driven offer or package driven

– Use an enticing, low rate and/or a value added incentive to encourage users to book the promotion

– Mention Special offer for users who come through an SEA listing

– Customized ad copy focused on the offer

– More targeted keywords using value add of the promotion

– Users directed to a customized landing page

– More enticing and effective



• Bidding

– Avoid bid jamming by performing daily campaign maintenance and keeping track of competitors who are also advertising for the same keywords

– Constant maintenance to improve traffic and click-through rates

– Don’t overspend on one keyword – 2nd or 3rd place may be enough?

– Measure effectiveness of each keyword by comparing impressions, to click-throughs to calls to action



• Metrics

– Impressions

– Clicks: 2% to 5%

– Call to Action: 10% to 15%

• Impressions / Clicks = Click Through Rate

• Clicks on desired items / Click = Call to Action Rate



• Geotargeting

– Not always recommended for the travel industry since users can be searching to travel from any location

– Users looking to book are also becoming more Search Engine savvy, knowing to type in a destination term rather than a general travel term such as “spa resort packages” vs “spa resorts in Jamaica”


Reaching the Online Consumers: Promoting the brand: URL

Getting consumers directly to your website: Building your Brand

– Offline campaigns : unique urls & redirecting

– Direct mail marketing

– Email Marketing & Newsletters

– New Tecnologies: RSS & Podcasting


Reaching the Online Consumers

Website URL60%

Search Engines

25%

Linkage Partners

15%

Brand Awareness & Offline Marketing

Acquisition

&

Brand

Building

linking & interactive media

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