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Tourism Best Practices – Week of July 11

  • 3 min read

Tourism professionals at Convention and Visitors Bureaus – CVBs (or Destination Marketing Organizations – DMOs) are implementing some innovative programs to increase visitation in their destinations. We call them Tourism Best Practices. Start this week with talk of visitor centers… Shenandoah CVB Grand Reopening Unveils Modernized Center Originally a part of the Montgomery County CVB, the Shenandoah CVB was housed in City Hall until relocating in 2010. The city has since remodeled the facility and adopted state-of-the-art, interactive technology to help visitors plan their stay. (Video) Bryan College Station Goes Mobile with Visitors Center The Bryan College Station Convention and… 

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Social Media – Best Reads Week of July 4

  • 2 min read

You’ve started your social media accounts. You’re posting. You’re tweeting. You’re pinning. Wondering though if you’re doing it right. Perhaps the Simple Social Media Guide for Small Businesses from the SBA can help. Small businesses can leverage different platforms for a variety of reasons to either expand visibility, increase sales, or inform their audience. Whether you’ve been active or considering a brand refresh, focus on a few best practices when approaching social media. There’s also these 5 Things To Do Before Your Startup Launches A Social Media Marketing Campaign Social media is no magic potion. It takes a lot of time and effort to make… 

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Customer Service – Best Reads Week of July 4

  • 3 min read

Customer service is at an all-time low and customer satisfaction in dealing with a product or service issue is just as low, about 40 percent. Two of three consumers are likely to experience rage during an interaction with a customer service rep. In addition, 63 percent of consumers are likely to experience no satisfaction whatsoever in dealing with a product or service complaint. For retailers the outcome is not good as it is putting about $202 billion in revenue at stake and can slash consumer repeat business and loyalty to shreds. Multiple good reads on improving customer service. We start with Why Great… 

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Email Marketing – 12 Tests To Optimize Performance and 28 other Tips

  • 2 min read

Email marketing is consistently ranked as the best channel in terms of return on investment. 68% of companies rate the channel as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. (1) For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (2) Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. (3) So now that you’re convinced (or perhaps you were already,) let’s optimize your performance: Step It Up: 12 Tests to Optimize Email Performance These 12 tests will take you to the next level in truly optimizing your email performance: 7 Tips For Turning Your Subscribers Into Loyal Customers Apply these… 

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Tourism Best Practices – Week of July 4

  • 2 min read

Tourism professionals at Convention and Visitors Bureaus – CVBs (or Destination Marketing Organizations – DMOs) are implementing some innovative programs to increase visitation in their destinations. We call them Tourism Best Practices. Bill Geist pointed out St. Paul’s marketing genius last week. I believe it’s so brilliant, I’m sharing it as well. Plus there’s this full story on St. Paul’s campaign here: St. Paul Sings ‘Hello’ to Minneapolis in Adele Parody Video So much for conventional CVB wisdom huh!? What Travel & Tourism Marketers Can Learn from Discover LA At a tourism conference in Melbourne, Don Skeoch, CMO of Discover Los Angeles,… 

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Social Media – Facebook Changes (Again) Three Options

  • 2 min read

The biggest news this week in social media is surprise, surprise! Facebook is changing – again! Big change though especially for those who maintain Facebook pages. You may see a further drop in traffic and post likes, shares, and comments. Facebook Changes Mean You’ll See Even More Friends’ Posts Facebook announced Wednesday it is limiting the amount of content from Pages, or the public profile created for brands, celebrities and media publishers a user follows. The News Feed will feature more posts from friends and family instead of posts from news companies. Who are the winners and losers of this change? Here’s… 

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Customer Service – Best Reads Week of June 27

  • 2 min read

Customer service is at an all-time low and customer satisfaction in dealing with a product or service issue is just as low, about 40 percent. Two of three consumers are likely to experience rage during an interaction with a customer service rep. In addition, 63 percent of consumers are likely to experience no satisfaction whatsoever in dealing with a product or service complaint. For retailers the outcome is not good as it is putting about $202 billion in revenue at stake and can slash consumer repeat business and loyalty to shreds. Multiple good reads on improving customer service. We start with How to… 

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Email Marketing – KPIs, Gaining Subscribers and 19 other Tips

  • 2 min read

Email marketing is consistently ranked as the best channel in terms of return on investment. 68% of companies rate the channel as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. (1) For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (2) Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. (3) Read more about the significance of email marketing in Reports of Email Marketing’s Death? Greatly Exaggerated When conducting email marketing campaigns, what are the key performance indicators (KPIs)? 8 Crucial Email Marketing KPIs How can you tell if your efforts are producing results? Well, read (the article above) to discover… 

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Tourism Best Practices – Visitor Centers and Power of a Lapel Pin

  • 2 min read

Tourism professionals at Convention and Visitors Bureaus – CVBs (or Destination Marketing Organizations – DMOs) are implementing some innovative programs to increase visitation in their destinations. We call them Tourism Best Practices. After reading this first story, every tourism professional will be giving away their lapel pins… Mayor Gives Own Lapel Pin to Random Cruise Ship Visitor, Gets Long Letter A mayor’s passing personal gift to a random visitor resulted in effusive thanks and the promise of a return visit. Read the positive story and watch the video – What a Cruise Ship Means to Muskegon A couple CVBs getting new… 

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