Badguest = Good Advertising. 7 March, 2007

It’s never a good time, but now that the tourism show season has begun (many of my clients left yesterday for this year’s ITB in Berlin and all of them are preparing for the Tourism Indaba in May), it’s probably just as well to sit down and think about whether your marketing rand really works for you.

If you’re spending your money on the internet, it probably is. Spending it wisely, of course.

I’ve been a fan of the net from the day I first heard about it: I realised straight away that here was an immediate and personal tool that would change the way we communicate, live and work. And I was right (I like that, being right). But what I didn’t realise was how effective the net would be.

That’s something that only really struck me during the past week.

To illustrate my point, I need to tell you that, excluding the cost of research and writing my articles, the direct costs of mailing This Tourism Week to more than 6,200 names in the industry is - wait for this - a whopping R450.00.

That’s all. Just four hundred and fifty bucks.

Now last week I wrote about a new web site that’s going to become an important crime fighting tool. www.badguest.co.za is a database on which owners can record the names and details of people who trash their properties or who do things like making off without paying. Bilking and vandalism are huge problems for the tourism industry - and up until the launch of www.badguest.co.za there was no way of knowing who you were welcoming in.

Obviously this struck a chord - I always knew it would - but it was only when I read the stats from ChakariNet (the guys who send out my mails out for me) that I realised how loud that chord really was.

“A Pro-Active Site For Fighting Crime” (This Tourism Week Number 60) was sent to 6,230  tourism people as well as to 230 people in the media - and the results were overwhelming.

Only 7 of those 6,230 people asked to be removed from the list; more than 19% of recipients opened their mails, more than 88% of media recipients followed the link to the www.badguest.co.za site and more than 30,000 people visited the site in the first few days of its existence.

A spokesperson for the developers wrote that, “Unfortunately we do not have a way of tracking all the news articles that may have appeared” - but we do know that the story was carried in  Die Beeld, Die Burger, the Cape Argus and in the Eastern Cape’s The Herald. “We were interviewed on 702, Cape Talk and Radio Sonder Grense (RSG) and at least one magazine called to ask if they could carry the story in their May edition,” he said.

“Another powerful medium is IOL and we had a full page article on there in the Travel section with a link from their Front page.

“We got a ton of emails, with a lot of strong interest generated.

“I think what is significant is the quality of the list (with only 7 unsubscribes from 6,000-plus e-mails) and the quality if the response we got.”

… “The quality of the response we got” - how’s that for a complement? And to think that ONE MAILING (which cost a few hundred rand) generated all that interest. 

Now THAT’S - if you’ll forgive the cliché - real bang for your marketing bucks.

Just a reminder that Mossel Bay Tourism (please visit the site: we’ve just re-designed it), The Point Hotel, Buffalo Hills Lodges & Safaris and all the usual suspects will be exhibiting together with Garden Route Marketing at the International Tourismus Bourse (ITB) in Berlin this weekend.

If you’re at the show, go along to Stand 118 in Hall 20 and say - “I read about you in This Tourism Week” - and, just by saying it, you’ll be demonstrating to yourself the power of internet marketing.

 Want To Be Read By More Than 6,200 Names In The Tourism Industry?

Want to tap into the power of internet marketing? Want to speak to my audience? Mail me if you have a product or service that’s of interest to the tourism industry - and let’s see how we can use This Tourism Week to better tourism in the Beloved Country.

 …Have a Great Tourism Week! MARTIN HATCHUELBarefootWriter 

Visit www.barefootclients.co.za

BarefootClients provides communications services (copy writing, advertising, printing and that kind of stuff) as well as strategy planning and creative thought for select clients who share our Barefoot On The Beach approach to business.

It’s simple. We believe that successful marketing creates relationships - friendships - between businesses and their customers. Our job is to help you develop friendships with your clients: to make them so comfortable with you that they’ll happily walk Barefoot On The Beach with you … Because business works best between friends. That’s the BarefootBenefit.

Want it? Visit www.barefootclients.co.za

Telephone +27(0)44 384 1810 | Cell +27(0)84 951 0574 | martin@thistourismweek.co.za

 PROUDLY BAREFOOT. FULLY SOUTH AFRICAN 

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