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• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  Tourism BC 2010 Online Olympics activities: #9 – inspiring people new to BC

  02.22.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  I’ve covered what we’re doing with Olympic related websites and how we drive interested people to our websites. To make sure the traffic we receive during the games is maximized we’ve worked for a long time on making the website the best it can be. The next few days are dedicated to it these activities.

  

  Purchase cycle (well, the one we use)

  HelloBC typically receives a lot of visitors who already know something about BC. In the purchase cycle, they are beyond the awareness stage and are already considering or intending to take a trip. What we’ve learned over the years is that these people are in planning mode and need information first, inspiration second. That’s why content is a huge priority for us (more about content later this week).

  During the games, a lot of people will learn about BC for the first time. We call these people the newly aware. People earlier in the cycle need to learn about the destination and be inspired to visit. Everything related to the Olympics will provide a lot of inspiration and when they visit HelloBC, we’d like to continue to inspire and educate the consumer about everything BC has to offer in the process.

  

  In order to meet the needs of the consumer in the early stages of the planning process, we created a new section for the newly aware. This section is different from the rest of the website. It contains large imagery, videos and is created in a way that encourages exploration. It was designed and created by our technology partner T4G in collaboration with Fjord West and the result is also technically interesting because it high interactivity but contains no Flash thanks to T4G’s HTML/CSS/Javascript wizz Larry.

• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  The Role of DMO and CVB Websites – Start with your website user

  09.07.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  The role of our website is a favourite topic among senior management at Tourism BC and has been for a long time. PhoCusWright’s Destination Marketing: Understanding the Role and Inpact on Destination Marketers flared up another round last summer. I’ll spare you those details but here are some of my thoughts.
  PhoCusWright rightfully notes that almost every DMO is different they way they’re structured, funded and organized but that key issues and challenges are very similar. I’ve been talking to my peers around the world for 10 years now and that’s definely true.

  And it’s becoming more challenging all the time. Online innovation continues are a rapid pace while a DMO website is now at the heart of all marketing activities. My perspective a user centered one. If you don’t meet your website user’s goals, there’s no hope you’ll ever meet any of your organizational or stakeholder objectives, because your visitors won’t stick around.
  One place to start is to figure out where a person’s place is in the planning (or purchase) cycle.

  Find out if somebody:

  1. knows about the destination but is not considering a trip yet
  2. is considering a trip but doesn’t have concrete plans yet
  3. has decided to visit but hasn’t booked yet
  4. has booked and it filling in the details
  5. is in the middle of the trip, continuing planning

  The answer to the question posed above could radically change the approach you should take. If most people are in the first group, they’re looking for a reason to visit. They need to be inspired. Big imagery, videos that connect on an emotional level and experiential stories work really well in this phase. Most DMO websites serve consumers in this phase very well.

  But if somebody is in the third group, the role of the website is not to lose the sale. They’re already inspired and motivated. Most DMO websites don’t do very well here. When somebody visits a DMO website in this phase, it probably means there’s just a few nagging questions and they need answers. Details. How long does it take to drive there? How expensive is everything?Is the museum open on Mondays? Is there enough to do for the whole family?

  Forget the emotional video and big images. The website can look like Craigslist. They just want detailed information (they could also be looking for a deal by the way, but that’s another poll to run).

  PhoCusWright has polled consumers and their report includes valuable information about where consumers say they visit DMO websites in the process. We’ve polled our website visitors about this for a while now and our numbers are a bit different from PhoCusWright’s. This leads me to believe that it might vary based on the destination.

  It’s super easy to find out where your visitors are in the process. Poll them. Find out. And use it internally as you discuss the role of your website. And get the PhoCusWight report, it’s worth the money.

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog