The 26-Hour Day

Luxury sport utility vehicles loaded with three thousand dollar mountain bikes pulled into Phil’s Trailhead outside of Bend, Oregon as we geared up for our ride one early May Friday morning. As I looked around, I couldn’t help but wonder what all this mountain bike tourism would do for my own town, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Managed properly, tourism is a very eco-friendly industry on which to hang your economic development hat. I benefit directly from it, and I’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this community who wouldn’t be affected if tourism went away altogether.

Managed properly. That means having a plan, and clarifying the brand. The brand is the product and the overall experience. It is not a logo and a tagline. The brand is how we are perceived by our visitors. We can try to put makeup on it (logo and tagline) by people tend to be resistant to the influence of marketing language. Our visitors are going to think what they want once they come and experience it.

So let’s develop the product, the infrastructure, the experience. Let’s give our visitors exactly what they want.

What type of destination are we? Everyone will have different opinions on what a particular destination is (art, outdoor recreation, mountain biking, skiing, semi-retirement ….) because we are many things to many people. No single tagline will be able to capture that. Our job as a tourist destination is to make it easy for a visitor to come and experience their personal experience.

Back to my mountain biking example: Look at Moab, Fruita, Durango, Bend. I am not aware of a logo, a tagline, or a commercial for any of these towns. Who knows? Maybe they have one, but it doesn’t have any influence over my travel decision. If you don’t mountain bike, you may not have heard of them. And that’s ok. Anyone who does, has. And we all spend our working lives plotting our next trip to these destinations. Why? Simply because they have exactly what we want: great trails with beautiful scenery, a few good restaurants and bars, a good bike shop(s) to help us with local info and supplies, and other shopping and entertainment. I will spend my money in all those places. (Contrary to what many think, mountain bikers have cash to spend, thus my observation earlier at the trailhead)

Build trails, and people will come. Map them, get the word out, invite the media, collaborate with the bike shops and the local businesses. People will come. Get sponsorship money, build more trails and related amenities. More people come. Hotels will see their bicycle occupancy increase, and they will do more to accommodate this audience. More businesses will move to the area to cater to the audience. Even more people will come.

The experience will continue to improve. Visitors will go home and post their pictures on their social media networks. We’ll be sure and make it easy for them to post them on our social network pages. More people will come.

Now that is great branding and it brings tears to my eyes. Apply this technique to the other categories listed above and repeat. Help manage the logo population.

Technorati Tags: tourism, National Tourism Week, mountain biking, Sandpoint, Idaho, Moab, Fruita, Bend, Durango, branding

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It’s happening right now. People you have never met are reviewing your business online. Are you aware of what they are saying? and do you realize how many people are making decisions whether or not to patronize your business based on these very reviews?

As I write this, I’m on a flight home from Oklahoma City where I spent five days as a visitor and a guest at a wedding in the small town of El Reno, 40 minutes west of the city. I was not only a tourist, but I also needed services and goods while there. I needed a 24-hour dry cleaner in a small town, a men’s dress shirt, tennis rackets, public tennis courts, a great breakfast suggestion and a non-chain, neighborhood dinner in the city. I wanted to break out of the barrier that keeps tourists in one area and the locals in another. I wanted to find the authentic place.

I am your customer. And there are millions just like me.

I found everything I needed through the travel app yelp on my iPhone along with my GPS system in my car. (others use foursquare, TripAdvisor, gowalla and urbanspoon) I didn’t look at any print ads in any magazines, and i did not crack open a tour book. If you are not present on these apps, you are seriously missing the boat. And when I say you, I mean you. My friends who own a second home in Sandpoint used yelp to find a plumber, someone to repair the tile in their shower and a place to take their kids on a rainy day.

What does this mean for you, the business owner? I know many of you are pushing back on the idea of having a presence on facebook and twitter because you fear the amount of time it will take. And you’re right. It takes a lot of time to create a presence and attract your customers. If nothing else, you should be on these location-based social sites. Go where your customers already are, where they are talking about you and engage in that conversation.

Five things you should be doing (or rather, four things you should be doing and one you shouldn’t be doing)

1. Set up your page: Go to each of these sites and search for your business. There are likely already reviews of your business on there. Unlock your page by clicking on is this your business? and set up your page with a complete description. Include any specials, weekly happenings. Upload photos. Keep it updated regularly.
2. Respond to reviews: Publicly or privately. This is your opportunity to switch negative reviews around. Offer them an apology, and a return invitation, perhaps even a gift card or complimentary item depending on the gravity of the situation. If you respond to it, your prospective customers will see it and understand. Things happen. Learn from the feedback.
3. Encourage reviews from your loyal customers: Use your email database, in-store interactions, your facebook fan page and your website to encourage customers to review. Be sure and include a link straight to the page. Make it as easy as possible. The more reviews you have, the better it makes you look.
4. Learn from all this valuable data: You can now track traffic to your business page and learn all about your customers. When you have enough positive reviews, you’ll receive badges you can post on your website.
5. Don’t be a poser!!! Whatever you do, do not pretend to be a customer and post reviews on your own business. This is so totally uncool and you will be caught. And it will be embarrassing.

From a consumer perspective, we are in love with these sites because it allows us to better research where we want to spend our hard-earned dollars. From a business owner perpective, you should love these sites because it easily, allows you access to your customer base. for free. I’m sorry Yellow Pages and tour books, I’m not sure if we need you anymore.

What did I leave out? What other sites and apps do you use to find businesses?

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Millions of people are active on Twitter daily to learn, teach and network. If you, as an organization, are on Twitter to broadcast your news, sales and promotions alone, then you have likely been frustrated about “getting it”.

Following are some tips to help you build your community, and deepen relationships with your current and potential customers. This should be your primary goal for being there. Sales growth is the objective.

But first, some fundamentals. What is your strategy? Who is your target audience, and what do you want to accomplish? When I ask that, I don’t just mean “to increase sales”. That’s a given. Make a plan for what type of information you want to share with your audience. How can you be of help to your customers so they will purchase your service or product?

Secondly, a great profile pic (avatar) and a compelling online bio along with a link to your website or blog are a must.

A quick look at an organization’s twitter page and I can make a snap decision if I want to be following their stream or not.

Here is how I decide if I want to follow you:

• Is there relevant content in your twitter stream? Content that interests me, educates me, and/or entertains me?
• Are there any @ symbols in your twitter stream? This shows me you are interacting with us as individuals – answering our questions, engaging with us. If there are none, you are what I call Output Only. The boring guy at the cocktail party that talks non-stop about himself and then walks away. Sometimes I make an exception and follow these twitter streams, but with rare exceptions – like @breakingnews, for example.
• Who is tweeting on behalf of the organization? There should be a person behind the brand. I don’t want to tweet with a thing, I want a person and a personality to go with it.
• Is your feed full of links to your blog and YouTube videos? There’s a fine line between sharing your blog and videos, and again, mixing it with interaction. If you are using twitter simply to drive traffic to your blog, etc, you’ve lost my interest. If I want to subscribe to your blog, I’ll do that.

Are you harnessing the power of Twitter?

• If you’re using the web-based Twitter application, you’re missing out on many powerful features to help you reach your goals. Download tweetdeck or hootsuite. I promise you, you’ll start to get it now.
• Set up search columns for key words to your organization and industry. This will help you to respond to questions directly related to your business by people you are likely not following. I’ve seen a number of questions go unanswered locally, including my own, because you aren’t paying attention to the twitterverse.
• Watch what your competitors are doing on twitter. Set up a column pertaining to them, and their keywords.
• Go out and actively follow people. Use a directory such as twellow and search people to follow based on geographic location, or key words in your potential customers’ bios.
• Conduct market research: once you have a decent, loyal following. Ask them questions that help you understand your customer better.

Lastly, and I can’t say it enough: Don’t just talk about yourself. Balance with the following: Ask me what I’m doing, share news from your industry that I might find interesting. Retweet what others are talking about. Tell me something personal but not mundane – I love a good story.

Does this help?

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I am really looking forward to watching this scenario play out: Pepsi will replace it’s spendy Superbowl ads with a $20 million dollar social media campaign to make the world a better place. Remember how Coke wanted to teach the world to sing in harmony? It sounds like Pepsi is putting its money where its mouth is.

If this is news to you, read more about it here.

Now that is one vote of confidence for social media if I’ve ever seen one. I get a lot of questions here in the region, in our smaller communities about the longevity of social media. “Is it just a fad?”

Social media is not a fad. The technologies are.

According to Larry Woodard’s article, Superbowl ads reach 95.4 million viewers, or 42% of homes. Social media reaches 85 percent of the golden 18-34 demographic.

It’s more targeted and it’s more meaningful.

Of course, execution will be key. The $20 million campaign will center around their Refresh Everything website where, starting January 13th, you and I can submit our projects for funding. Site visitors can start voting February 1^st. The campaign will run for a year, rather than 30 seconds. Of course, after I submit my project, I’ll be plugging it for votes on all the social media outlets.

This signals a major shift in marketing strategy and I love the direction.

• Brands will have to be more interactive and develop more meaningful relationships with their customers in order to compete. Social media technologies make this possible and in fact, mandatory.
• It means no more talking at me, and telling me what to do.
• Maybe brands will see I don’t need a rock star to entice me to buy your product.
• Make me think, make me feel, make me be proud to support your brand.

What do you think? are you as excited as I am or am I just a geek?

Do you like Pepsi’s strategy? Any predictions on its success? Can we apply this lesson to our smaller communities and budgets?

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train wreck

Originally uploaded by woodleywonderworks

Is it over yet? Can I open my eyes? Sure, a lot of you did well in 2009, but I’ll be honest, the year was a train wreck for me and I am pretty happy to ring in a new year with some good lessons learned and a strong action plan in place.

I thought I’d share some of those lessons learned, and what I intend to be my recipe for success as I focus on my 2010 planning these last two weeks of December. They apply to any organization or sole proprietor, really.

Please add your ideas in the comments.

• Work ON my business: not just in it. I’ve increased the percentage of hours I spend working ON my business to about 25% of my time. It turns out this wasn’t hard to do since I lost a lot of client work!

• What is my vision? What do I want my business to look like in five years? I’m talking big picture stuff here, not the details. What type of clients do I want? Who specifically do I want on my client list? Where do I want to be geographically and do I want to add staff?

• Revisit and refine my positioning: I pulled out that business plan and walked myself through the exercise again. Where are the opportunities and threats? What markets are doing well right now? What industries? Why would someone choose me over everyone else? In other words, what is my positioning statement?

Based on that, I asked myself:

• Where are the Weak Spots? I love doing business development, and writing proposals. But I realize I haven’t been winning new business from those with whom I don’t have an established relationship. I am not winning trust from new contacts. Ok, then what’s wrong with my pitch documents? I’ve asked a few people I know and respect to critique them for me. It’s not easy to ask people for help. I worry about putting them out. But I’m honored when someone asks me, so I’m guessing they feel the same way.

• Expand my credibility and my exposure: I’ve defined my goals, my specialties and my target clients. Now it’s time to demonstrate my expertise. I am actively seeking speaking positions on pr and social media. I’m in the process of rewriting the copy on my website. I finally launched this blog.

• Tools in place, now lets actively use my networks to find that business. I can use all my efforts to drive traffic to my blog and my website. I’m finding strategic partners, and I’m reconnecting with old colleagues via traditional and social media outlets.

So I guess there is a bright side to this. 2009 has taught me to work smarter.

Please weigh in below in the comments section. What are some of the lessons you learned in 2009? What are you doing to turn it around? What advice do you have to share with me, and others in a similar situation?

Happy New Year!

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