Growvember 2019

What a couple of days we’ve had! Thank you to everyone who participated – we can all agree that our eight incredible speakers provided us with some awesome insights.In case you missed any of the sessions, this is your one stop shop for all the resources you need to catch up and start applying the information to your business!

Recordings

Below you’ll find links to all 8 recordings for you to watch at your convenience:3 Keys That High Growth Companies Use to Succeed - Evan Tipton8 Steps to Building a Universally Accessible Website - Andrea LopezAutomating Your Operations for Explosive and Sustainable Growth - Allan Graves5 New Ways To Grow Your Business On Peek Pro - Matt OsterhausGrowing your Conversions Using Google Adwords & Call Tracking - Steven EdwardsSystems that Scale, Profitable Distribution and Driving More Sales - Josh Oakes & Kelsey TonnerMore Direct Bookings - How We Reduced Our Reliance On OTAs - Kyle Davidson

Avital Ungar has been leading food tours since starting Avital Tours in 2011. She has served as a judge at the International Chocolate Salon, the Best of the West Rib Competition, the Good Food Awards and has been featured on CNN, the Travel Channel, Travel+Leisure and more! In this post, Avital takes us through some of the ways in which tour operators can work to make their experiences truly stand out in a fast-growing, competitive industry. In the tours and activities space, it can be hard to stand out.You might be lucky enough to offer a totally unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience that can’t be found anywhere else in the market. But for many operators, you might be offering a similar activity, or hitting up the same spots, alongside many of your competitors in the area.If you run food tours, for example, it might be that you visit the same neighborhoods, or even some of the same restaurants, as other tour operators in the area. So — how do you create an experience that is truly unique for your guests? What can you do to differentiate yourself from the competition? For me, it has always been about the customer journey. Taking steps to differentiate our tours at every single stage of the experience, start to finish. In this post, I’ll lay out just a few ways in which you can achieve this, and create an experience that is totally unique to your business.

Remember that the experience begins as soon as the booking is made

Many operators tend to focus on the experience that they offer on the day of the tour or activity. It makes sense — it’s the most important part. But by doing so, you could be missing an opportunity to build up anticipation and hype for your tour. Why not set up automatic emails to be sent out before your tour or activity to really get your guests excited? This is not only a happy reminder of their upcoming trip, but a chance to offer some little tips and recommendations in the area. That way, you’re showing your customer that you’re thinking about them and enhancing their experience before they’ve even arrived for your tour!As an owner-operator, I understand that these details are often low priority as you juggle the day-to-day tasks of running a business. But, by investing a little time in emails like this, you help plant the seed of your incredible experience and create a relationship with your guest before you meet them! They won’t forget it.

VIP is what you make it

Everyone loves a little VIP treatment. For tour operators, offering exclusive access is a great way to set you apart from the rest. As a food tour, for us this could be meeting a chef or restaurant owner who can offer their story and a little something special. But what happens when the restaurant owner has to leave for an emergency dentist appointment? Things like this can happen all the time, so it’s important to manage the expectations of your guests when offering these exclusive experiences. VIP can definitely mean exclusive access, but it doesn’t have to. Consider the easiest way to make your experience special: service.Take hotels. Most offer the exact same service; there are only so many types of beds! The real difference for them however, lies in the service. What can you do to shine?Why not use custom questions in your booking flow to learn more about your guests ahead of time and provide great service right off the bat? We cater for all forms of dietary restrictions, but knowing this ahead of time means we can go the extra mile to provide great service and accommodate those guests.

Did you know that in Peek Pro, you can ask custom questions AFTER the guest has paid? This means you can collect relevant info without sacrificing conversions!

You can also offer discounts for repeat guests, and incentives for them to go back to the places or landmarks on your tour. This makes them feel like they’re getting a deal that’s not available to just anyone and helps your partners feel recognized for the value they bring.If it’s a special occasion, point it out. Have the group sing Happy Birthday to them. On Mother’s Day, hand out roses to all the moms on the tour. It’s minimal effort on your part, but it could make their day — and that happy atmosphere will also rub off on the other guests.

Being dedicated to incredible levels of service and VIP touches helps to give us a unique advantage in our niche

Your guides are your biggest asset

If guides are part of your business, use them wisely. They are a huge part of the uniqueness that you offer. In San Francisco, everybody wants to see the Golden Gate Bridge — but the stories they’ll hear along the way are what they’ll talk about when they tell their friends and family about their experience. That’s why I focus on hiring guides with strong presentation skills. I’m looking for people that I would want to go and get a beer with after the tour or talk to at a cocktail party — since they have no issues with being the center of attention! Depending on the style of your tour and balance and type of content you share, you might want to think about how guests interact with your guides. Do you want your guides to talk with the guests or at the guests?

My guides’ relationship with our guests is a top priority, always!

You should also think about how much content should come from management, versus the guide themselves. There is no right answer. It’s all about trade-offs. Find where your tour falls, and how relevant it is to have that spontaneity on your tour. Think about your guide turnover, and the type of people you generally hire. Remember that the more tailored the experience is to each guide, the more the experience will change if that guide moves on.Not everyone will have the capacity to create a whole tour themselves, or possess a deep, all-around knowledge of the area. But they will always have different interests that can add color to your experience. I suggest digging to find these and encouraging them to use them! Maybe you have a guide who’s an architecture buff, or has a strong understanding of the area’s LGBTQ scene. Use your guides’ personality and life experience to your advantage.

Know your brand — but don’t be afraid to shake it up

A brand is an evolution. It’s never static. When I started in the Mission District eight years ago, guests would be often be nervous to visit the area. To many it seemed dirty, unsafe, just on the wrong side of ‘quirky’. One of the values we offered was that we knew where to go. We offered a safe route into an unexplored area to show our guests the hidden gems.Now, eight years later, the Mission is totally different. Everybody knows about the food, they’ve already read up on the hotspots and many of the locales are well-known by tourists and locals alike. If I was still trying to lead the same tour I was a few years ago, there’s no way it would work. I have to evolve with my surroundings and adapt my tours to ensure they are always offering something unique.

A tour cannot be stagnant. You have to constantly be on the lookout for new and exciting opportunities the city has to offer, and mould you tours to fit the evolution of neighborhoods and towns.Which brings me to this: don’t be scared to kill an experience. I’ve built products that I thought were phenomenal. But sometimes, they don’t age as well as you’d like, or sadly, the market just isn’t there. I recommend specializing — focus on what you do well, and make it fantastic. You can’t be everything to everybody. The whole industry is moving that way, and that’s what will help you truly shine in your niche. Have you signed up for our SheTalks webinars yet, bringing you more exclusive tips and content? If not, sign up here! You can also check out all of our SheTalks content from the month of March by clicking here! And for more tour operator inspiration make sure you check out Avital’s website featuring her incredible food tours in San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles!

Social media marketing expert and founder of Amore Social, Samantha Hardcastle, is a sucker for a great story. She understands the power storytelling has on consumers. In this post, she offers some tips on how to leverage your social media platforms and promote your experiences in a way that engages and connects with readers. The result if done correctly: more sales for your tour business! Hit 'em with the goods, Samantha! Storytelling has been a buzzword in marketing for as long as marketing has been around. And rightly so: stories transport us and make us feel like we’re actually part of the experience. A participant, rather than a spectator. What better way to engage with your customer than to pull them into your experience, the very thing you’re selling?Storytelling evokes strong emotions within your customer, creating a deeper, more profitable bond. Narratives cut through this noisy online world like nothing else. That’s why you should start looking at social platforms like Instagram and Facebook as a micro-blogging platform to tell stories (visual and written). Don’t just use them to promote your experience.“But if I’m not constantly selling on social, I won’t get any customers” – right? Wrong!First, 92% of consumers want brands to make ads feel like a story. By giving people what they want, you’re already way ahead of the competition who is spamming them with boring or unwanted messaging.Second, emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as “highly satisfied” customers. By taking the time to tell stories and create connections with people on social media, you create more lucrative relationships!Stories carve the quickest path to the heart and the mind. Storytelling comes naturally to most people (we often do it without even realizing!). But it sometimes can be hard to wrap your head around in terms of your business. The good news is, you can keep it simple - and still get results.This checklist will help guide you towards better storytelling on social. Not EVERY post has to follow this formula, but the more you do, the more you’ll see results.

This is your starting point. Now let’s dive in to some of the strategic details of storytelling, so you can get the most out of it!

Create Flow with Purpose

Like all good stories, make sure there is a clear beginning, middle, and end. There are so many storytelling formulas to follow, that it can be overwhelming. Take some time to familiarize with all of the different formulas, but don’t overthink it or you’ll never get a message out.For social media, I find it’s easiest to take each story through this framework, and then fill in the rest of the details after:The Feelings You Want Your Reader to Have:Since people are prone to putting themselves into the stories they hear, then where is this story taking them? Does it align with their wants & needs? First Sentence Hook:Capture their attention and let them know that there’s a story coming. Aha Moment, Turning Point, or Takeaway:This will ensure that your story is always going somewhere. Don’t just post to post! What is the purpose of this story? In the example below, you can see how this comes together. We wanted the reader to feel sentimental and nostalgic:

You know when the water sparkles so bright, you start to wonder if there’s a million diamonds underneath the surface? That’s how the water was today, and, well, we jumped in and looked around. No diamonds. 😞 But from the way our guests were laughing, singing, and splashing around in the water, you’d think they had found their own sort of treasure!Are you ready for a sparkling sail with us?

Takeaway: Our boat tour and the closeness/memories it delivers are priceless (and possibly worth more than an ocean full of diamonds). Experiences bring us closer, help us develop better relationships and memories, and are worth more than tangible things that won’t really bring you happiness.It’s important to note that the image you choose should tell a story in its own right, enough so that it encourages people to stop scrolling and start reading. If your image isn’t enticing enough, you’ll never get people to the point of reading.BONUS TIP: Messages delivered as stories can be up to 22x more memorable than just facts, so find a way to turn your facts into stories.

Communicate Shared Values

As the leader of your organization, you have values. Your organization has values. And your customers have values. When you can clearly tell stories about these values that your customers resonate with, you are leading them through your funnel, establishing that ever-important Know, Like, & Trust factor.What is your organization’s “why”? What statement are you making that people will nod their heads to? Tell stories that embody this, rather than making statements. Example:

Statement: we keep it local & sustainable!Story: Meanwhile, down the road at the orchard, thousands of apples were being hand-picked for our first batch of applejack…

Evoke Emotion

When you show (through your stories) that your experience can lead a customer to their desired “after” state by making them feel that way NOW, it instills a sense of confidence in them. It says to them “I can trust this tour/activity to give me what I am looking for.”How can you use stories to evoke emotion? Share sincerely, be vulnerable and tell stories that allow you to laugh at yourself. Paint a vivid picture. Don’t shy away from tales of struggle, failure, and overcoming barriers. This is what it means to be authentic in today’s modern marketing world.Magazines have been doing this for decades, and they have taken to social media to extend their emotional storytelling. Look to tourism and travel magazines for inspiration. The more stories you read and hear, the better storyteller you can become!

Don’t Forget the Call to Action

While storytelling is powerful, a Call to Action (CTA) gives it a serious boost. There’s nothing wrong with “asking for the sale” if you’ve delivered an immense amount of value through your storytelling. By the time you’ve ‘warmed up’ by storytelling, they will be eager to get in on your experience.The next step you want your customers to take should never be a mystery. Show them how your experience results in a happy ending, and then tell them how they can take the steps to get there.

Embody Your Story

Great stories surprise and delight people. They are unique, unexpected, and should challenge our perceptions of reality in some way. Just like your experience. Does your current experience have all the makings of a memorable story? With twists and turns and moments of wonder? Make sure every story you tell matches up with the experience you deliver. The most common cause of bad review and unhappy customers is unmet expectations. If your story is epic, your experience should be just as epic (if not more!).And there we have it! Perfecting the art of storytelling won’t happen overnight, and every single post won’t have a killer story behind it. But just getting into a storytelling mindset instead of a selling mindset makes all the difference.Start looking at social media marketing as storytelling instead of promotion. The more you understand people and the feelings they want, the more you’ll be able to create irresistible on and offline experiences that draw people in.Check out Samantha's website, Amore Social, for more great marketing tips and tricks and to find out more about Samantha's awesome services. Have you signed up for our SheTalks webinars yet? Register for live links and recordings here!

Tourism Tim Warren is no stranger to helping tourism businesses succeed. The founder of Adventure Business Consultants and host of top industry podcast Travel Business Success, Tim and his team have helped thousands of private and public sector tourism & hospitality businesses start, grow, scale and exit profitably. In this post, he lets us in on a few key tips to help capture the attention of your website visitors - and give your sales a boost in the process.“If only I had a better search ranking, or more traffic to my website, I would surely be booking more trips.”If you’re a tour or activity operator, I’m guessing this thought has crossed your mind on more than one occasion. It’s natural to think that if your website is more visible, your traffic will increase, and your bookings will rise.The problem? This is a mostly false perception. It’s not to say that these things can’t ever give your business a boost. The issue is, things can get real expensive real fast when dealing with search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. And the worst part? Many operators are not earning many leads and those all-important conversions from this form of investment. Okay, so where’s the good news? What should you be doing instead? Well, since it often seems like only the great Google Gods know what’s next in terms of changes to their search engine algorithms, here’s my recommendation:Focus on learning about the Profitable Powers of Conversion.In this post, I’ll be laying out some core tourism marketing principles that will help you more than triple your leads and bookings. All without ANY increase in ranking or traffic. By understanding and applying the following ideas, your tourism marketing efforts will yield a better return on investment -- one that you are in control of.

The Profitable Powers of Sales Conversion

Here’s a sad tourism website marketing fact.You’re probably missing out on 97% or more of potential leads that visit your tour or activity website. A huge percentage of operators websites worldwide, including many I have consulted with, suffer from this problem.Not sure if this is true for you?Check out your website visitor stats with Google Analytics. Take a look at your “Bounce Rate”. This is the percentage of people who visited your site, and left in less than 10 seconds. If over 60% or higher of your web visitors are leaving in less than 10 seconds, how can you possibly convince them to book with you?So, you need more time to show your customers how great your experiences are. But you also need to make sure you’re making those first 5-10 seconds count when someone enters your website. Before we talk about how to do that, let’s take a look at the possible results from making small, simple changes to your bounce and conversion rates. These three realistic examples show what it can do to your bookings - and profits:Graphic #1 represents a tour operator with 1,000 monthly website visitors and $500 revenue per booking. Just by lowering the bounce rate from 70% to 50% and increasing sales conversions from a conservative 1% to 2%, increases bookings and revenues 333%. These small improvements that I am going to show you - that you can do too - are worth an extra US$42,000 a year in this example.

Let’s look at two more scenarios to show you how you can increase bookings up to 500%.Graphic #2 represents an average Peek tour operator or attraction with 5,000 monthly website visitors and $85 revenue per booking. Again, by lowering the bounce rate from 70% to 50% and increasing sales conversions from 1% to 2%, bookings increase 333% with $35,700 in additional revenues. Pretty nice!

Graphic #3 represents the same Peek tour operator or attraction with 5,000 website visitors monthly, $85 revenue per booking. Again, we lowered the website bounce rate from 70% to 50%. But in example #3, we increased sales conversions from 1% to a still pretty conservative 3%. This same operator now sees bookings increase by 500% and a revenue boost of $61,200. Sweet!

These examples show that lowering your bounce rate and increasing your sales conversions means more profits for you. And best of all, this can actually be done while lowering your marketing costs.All this could mean a 233% - 500% increase in your revenues with 2 simple website improvements.

Successful Tourism Marketing Establishes Trust & Credibility Fast

Ok, so what are some of the ways in which we can lower that bounce rate and increase conversions?Based on a Nielsen study on effective advertising with over 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, the #1 reason why a stranger might stay engaged in your tourism website, and decide you may be a good choice and want to book is – trust.Establishing this trust is called “social proof.”Remember your bounce rate from above? Well, it means you have less than 7 seconds to establish trust and credibility – especially on your tourism website. This is one of the most important lessons I have learned in 25+ years of helping tourism, travel & hospitality companies worldwide increase bookings, profits and business value. When you can communicate trust effectively and quickly, you will generate more leads and sales. Guaranteed.I’ve found that a key part of establishing social proof revolves around what I like to call “Credibility Statements”.Some of the things you need to communicate fast are your:

• Years of experience
• Number of happy guests
• Any special recognition or awards you have received
• High social media review ranking and any celebrity endorsements

Let’s take a look at some examples: On this website, Alaska Fishing Lodges, they have managed to convey their depth of experience, satisfied customers and third-party ranking all at the top of their page. This helps to draw the visitor in and immediately gives them credibility.

Why not include some impressive stats too? Customers will feel more at ease - and more confident about booking - if they know that this is an area in which you’re experienced and established.

Don’t forget to also convey this through your Google “snippet” (or meta description), which you can edit through sites like Wordpress.

I have also created a free 25 point tourism website marketing checklist to help you build more social proof, lower bounce rate and increase bookings. This quick and easy self-assessment will show you how your tourism website scores, whether or not you currently have a “tourism website that sells”, and what you can do to improve it.

Tap Into the Psychological Triggers That Create a “Tourism Website That Sells”

To achieve a Tourism Website That Sells you must tap into travel shoppers’ psychological triggers around trust. Remember, a large percentage of your website visitors may be leaving your site fast. That means you need to establish trust and clarity in what you do – FAST.You need to show visitors a few key things within the first 7 seconds of them entering your website. Here are the “Big Three” that you should make clear in this time window:

1. You are experienced.
2. You provide quality service.
3. Their safety is your #1 concern.

Of course, there are a number of ways to boost conversions on your website. A powerful online booking system is also key - particularly one that uses these proven principles within their system.The good news is that these ideas work across all of your tourism marketing - the benefits extending way beyond your website. These are proven, powerful principles and should be used EVERYWHERE.They are guaranteed to help you communicate trust fast and convert more strangers into prospects (and prospects into bookings). The cool thing is, these tips are simple and easy to implement. When you fully understand and apply the power of social proof in your tourism marketing, magic happens.I would love to hear from you and find out how you have or will integrate “Social Proof” into your tourism marketing and how you scored on the marketing assessment. Want to hear more great tips from Tourism Tim? Check out the recording of his most recent webinar with Peek, where he gave even more tips on how to increase your leads and conversions.You can also check out his online course, Tourism Marketing Success, for even more great insight into your tourism business.

Growvember is officially over, and the whole Peek team is excited to see how you take the learnings and apply them to your business. It’s time to put these tips into action! We hope you enjoyed the content from all eight of our incredible speakers - don’t forget, if you missed any of the sessions, or just want to rewatch, you can find links to all of the recordings right here. Don’t know what Growvember is? Where have you been?! Growvember brought some of the top minds in the tour and activity industry together to deliver some top-notch workshops to operators like you. All for free! Pretty amazing, right? We highly recommend you watch all of the sessions in full to get the most out of this awesome free content. But for those of you in a hurry, here are eight of our favorite learnings from across the two days. Enjoy!

Collaborate with your competitors!

In Douglas Quinby’s session, Top Travel Trends for 2019 andBeyond, he goes over why activities are the fastest-growing sector in the industry right now. So why are they?Activities are the why of travel. Travellers may be booking flights and reserving hotels like never before, but tours and activities are the things that really make a trip special. The research that Douglas and his team at Arival has done backs this up. From a survey of over 4000 travellers from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany they found that on average, travellers will engage in around 7activities while on their trip!Let’s take a look at the breakdown of that:

Source: Arival, 2018

So why is this important, and how can you use this information to your advantage? One word: collaboration.Why see other operators in your area as your competition? With so many different types of activities on offer, this is a great opportunity for you to partner up with some other local attractions and cross-sell their experiences. Is there a hop-on, hop-off bus tour in your area that could promote your tour to guests? Could you partner with a fellow operator and offer mutual discounts to encourage higher bookings? Douglas says that more and more travellers are making purchasing decisions in-destination - so make sure you’re creating a strong on-the-ground presence for yourself and have a plan to sell people while they’re in the area. Why not explore the options in your area, talk to local attractions and other activity providers and see if you can find a mutually beneficial partnership! This is an easy and immediately effective to spread the word even more about your tour or activity to travellers who are already in the area. Want to learn more from Douglas? Watch his full session here.

Protect yourself from the dreaded cancellation

Next up we heard from Delamon Rego, COO of tour operator marketing/software heavyweight TOMIS. During his session on how to boost your 2019 revenue, here’s something that caught our eye…Cancellation insurance.Do you have it? If not, Delamon tells us why it’s something worth considering: Cancellation policies are often tricky waters to navigate for many tour operators. When guests cancel their tour after the allowed time, you don’t want to be losing money or ending up with empty seats that you don’t have time to fill. On the other hand, when you enforce your policy, you worry about seeming like the bad guy and damaging your reputation - even if the policy is clear as day. Delamon suggests that cancellation insurance could be the answer to your troubles.Giving customers the option to purchase this insurance during the checkout process means that those customers who were going to cancel anyway are likely to purchase it. It also helps you to enforce your cancellation policy without seeming like the bad guy. It seems way more reasonable when you say you tried to run their refund, but the system says no cancellation insurance was purchased - your hands are tied.The other great bonus to this feature is it can actually start to make you money, with any unused cancellation insurance going right into your bottom line.As a general rule, Delamon recommends charging 12-15% of your ticket price for cancellation insurance, which you can adjust if you have particularly low or high ticket prices. Want to find out other ways to boost that revenue in 2019? Check out Delamon’s session here!

Post that job - even when you’re not hiring

Kelsey Tonner is your one-stop-shop for everything tour guide education. A former guide himself, he now provides amazing training for tour guides and leaders across the world, helping  you to create incredible experiences. In his session, How to Recruit and Train Extraordinary Leaders, he gives some awesome tips for those who have to hire tour guides for their business. We think this little nugget is worth doing right now!Create a permanent job profile on your website.You may only hire a few times a year, but you could be getting hits on your website from potential candidates every day! Why not wet their appetite and let them register their interest by creating a job profile page for them to check out! Why is this such a great idea? For one thing, when the time to hire comes around, this page will already be indexed by Google, hopefully giving your chances of finding someone great a boost! Not only that, but by allowing interested candidates to enter their email in a form on this page throughout the year, you start to build a relationship before your search has even begun. They can get to know you and hear about what you’re up to, and this will hopefully make them even more passionate about working for you! Be sure to include a detailed job description, include responsibilities, and highlight any awesome perks that come with the job! Why not also build up an FAQ section, adding questions as they come in from potential hires? By allowing your website visitors to register their interest in working for you all through the year, what happens when it comes to hiring season? Boom. Your life just got a whole lot easier. Need some more hiring tips? Check out Kelsey’s full session!

Make friends with your local hotel concierge

Former tour operator and founder of The Sunshine Tribe, Josh Oakes, had some truly awesome advice for us on the important of selling through offline channels. Here’s our favorite tip of his from that session - get ready to use this one right away! As Josh was starting out with his tour company, he needed to find some channels that were going to start boosting his revenue right away.What was the solution? Hotel concierges.Josh took the time to “pound the pavement”, hitting up local hotels in the area and building some great relationships with local concierge desks. He then made sure he was revisiting them, following up with phone calls, and keeping himself front of mind. This way, Josh was able to work his way up to the top of many concierge’s lists, and started to see those phone calls rolling in. The best part about this tactic? It doesn’t cost anything but your time.Most hotels take very low or even zero commissions; so by taking a little time to build some solid relationships, you can open up a whole new market and become the go-to operator for hotels in your area! This one sounds like a winner to us. Hear about more ways to sell through offline channels by watching Josh’s talk here.

Use video to sell yourself - and your destination

Digital marketing expert and director of Tourism Marketing Agency Chris Torres kicked off day 2 of Growvember this year. He gave us an info-filled session on using video to market your tours - and how to do it on any budget. Here’s just one of his tips that you should bear in mind if (or better yet, when!) you create your next marketing video…Don’t forget to showcase your destination - not just your tour or activity. Chris gave us some pretty mind-boggling stats on video - like how an average user watches 32 videos a month (!), and how 79% of travellers will search Youtube for ideas before they book their trip. But that’s not all. Of those travellers, a huge 67% still haven’t decided on a destination for their trip. So you shouldn’t only be selling yourself; why not include some beauty spots, local businesses and people from your area in the video? Make your video about the magic of where you’re located, with your tour or activity at the heart of it. That way, you might just persuade those indecisive viewers to choose your destination over their other options -- and book your experience in the process!Get some great tips on how to achieve great videos on all types of budgets from Chris here.

Use Facebook to target in-destination travelers in the best way

Tourism marketing extraordinaire and founder of Blend Marketing Jeremiah Calvino brought us an incredible talk on the importance of “At Home vs In Destination Marketing”. These tips are so important for operators who need to focus their ad spends and target customers as wisely as possible. Here’s one of our favorite tips from Jeremiah’s session that is SO easy to implement…Facebook lets you target those who are already traveling in your area. Sounds obvious, right? Well, think about it. Almost every marketing platform out there lets you target specific locations for advertising. But what about all of those people who live in your destination? If you’re a tourist attraction or you primarily serve travelers from outside the region, your ad spend may be wasted on those people who live in your town or city. Thankfully, Facebook has broken down their users in a way that lets you filter your audience but are currently there.Take a look:

This is an awesome tool to use when running a Facebook ad campaign. Make sure you’re targeting the right kind of people and seeing some great returns on whatever your marketing budget is! To hear more on this and a bunch of other awesome location-based marketing tips, check out Jeremiah’s presentation here!

Make a clear CTA your top website priority

Andy Mott knows what he’s talking about when it comes to websites for tour and activity operators. As Head of TigerCare at TourismTiger, a top industry website provider, his session was full of tips and tricks to supercharge your website. Here is one of our favourites…Make sure a clear call to action is the main focus of your website.Will your visitors know what they need to do when they arrive at your site? Don’t underestimate the power of simple, clear messaging. Not only this, but make a strong call to action your best friend. Not sure what a call to action is? It’s essentially a button - a button which shows the user what they need to do and takes them where they need to be. Let’s see one of Andy’s examples in action. Before TourismTiger gave their website an overhaul, this operator’s homepage looked like this:

Attractive? Sure! But imagine a visitor had no idea what this company does before they visited the website. Where is the instruction to show them what to do next? Take a look at the after result:

Okay, now we can see exactly what our options are. These buttons, or CTAs, guide the user to make a choice and hit that button. So - don’t assume your visitors will know that they need to book, or how to do it. Let a CTA guide them to where they need to be - your booking page! Get some more great website tips from Andy by checking out his presentation right here.

Don’t be afraid to ask for phone reservations

Rounding off our Growvember event was the great Dustin Hoyman of Outdoor Adventure Marketing. Dustin gave us insights into a topic that is still so important in the tour and activity industry: phone calls. While online booking is certainly gaining more importance as we change the way we book, plenty of tour operators still take many of their bookings over the phone.In his workshop, Dustin gives a few great tips on how to make the most of those incoming calls. But here is our personal favorite - it’s so simple, and yet could have a major impact on your business.Don’t be afraid to ask for a reservation on every phone call.Remember, a lot of people call because they want more information - but ultimately, their goal is to book your experience! If they’ve taken the time to pick up the phone, you know they’re interested. Instead of treating the call as a simple question and answer session, why not add those magic words to the end of your call: “Are you ready to book?”If they say yes, that’s a sale made! If they say no, now you have an opportunity to find out why. Ask them if there’s anything they’re looking for that you may not have mentioned. If they talk about cost, weigh up whether it’s worth negotiating to make that sale. Whatever their answer, you are now armed with as much information as possible to try and make that sale. So make sure you’re including this question in every phone call that comes in. We told you it was simple, right?! Check out more of Dustin’s tricks to winning over those phone customers here!There you have it. Just a tiny amount of the wealth of knowledge we gained from all of our incredible Growvember speakers. Be sure to check out all of the full sessions to really get the most out of this amazing, free event! We’re pumped for next year!

How do you start a tour business in the aftermath of one of the most devastating hurricanes your country has ever seen? How do you build your brand, spread the word, and find that first paying guest? How do you get to the top of your game and still manage to love what you do? In this post, Cindi Richardson takes us through her journey as a tour operator, and how her efforts resulted in her business, French Quarter Phantoms, being named the Number 1 Ghost Tour in the U.S. in 2018. Take it away, Cindi! My love for New Orleans began as a small child. The city seemed so special - it had a magic to it. I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, so New Orleans was where we went with family and friends for special occasions and family fun. When I got old enough to move out on my own, there was only one place I was headed - straight to New Orleans. I was so excited to live and thrive in my favorite place on earth.Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina: The city was devastated - it seemed like everything I had once loved about it was now gone. I heard people asking, "Why do people live there? Why should it even be rebuilt?" It broke my heart that they couldn’t see the magic and beauty of New Orleans that I had seen throughout my life. Every evening, my neighbor Mike and I would sit on our porch, waiting for the Red Cross to bring us our daily plate of hot food. The city was filled with volunteers from all over the country who had come to lend a helping hand in the wake of the destruction. Mike and I started thinking about what we could do to pay them back. How could we share with them our love for New Orleans, and show others exactly why this incredible city deserved to be rebuilt?Mike had his tour guide license and my background was in sales and marketing - we were a good fit. I also had a passion for anything scary: Hitchcock, The Twilight Zone, the Anne Rice novels. And so, the idea for French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours was born.Our first year “in business”, most of the tours we did were for free to the many disaster aid workers who were in the city. Every day, Mike would do two tours, while I walked around five miles back and forth across the downtown area, getting the word out and building our reputation.Eventually, word started to spread, and visitors started coming back. We took on a partner, Drew, who funded our first round of real brochures. We started charging a little for the tours and the business started to grow. This year, 12 years after we started, we were named as the #1 Ghost Tour in the country by USA Today.

The road to success

Our goals today are pretty much the same as they were in the beginning. We want to make a decent living doing something we love. It’s not about getting rich - for our team, what’s important is feeling great about what we’ve done at the end of each day. There are plenty of lessons we’ve learned along the way, and a few key things I believe are vital to our success as a business. Here are a few pieces of advice I would give to other tour operators on their own journey:

Hire people who love to tell a story

There's a quote by Theodore Roosevelt that I love and have really taken to heart: “A great manager is someone who hires the right person to do a job and has sense enough to leave them alone while they do it." I think that this applies perfectly to our hiring and employment practices. We hire educated, intelligent people with engaging personalities and allow them to craft their tour in the style that best fits their personality. We make sure we give a few guidelines, but we don't micromanage or script their tours. Instead, our tour manager, Luke, will regularly walk with each guide to pass along pointers (and compliments!) where needed. Allowing our guides this creativity gives them a sense of ownership and great job satisfaction. It also ensures all of our tours are the right balance of chills up the spine and good laughs.

The French Quarter Phantoms team - I am so proud of them all!

Our tour guides - or as we call them, our Master Story Tellers - are French Quarter Phantoms’ greatest asset. I am a great salesperson - I can get a hotel concierge or ticket seller to recommend us once. But it’s the post-tour feedback conveyed to that reseller that gets us the 2nd, 3rd and 100th recommendation. Our storytellers are the reason they’ll recommend us again and again.

Think like a customer

I’ve always believed that entertainment value needs to be better than the price of the ticket. That means that after the tour is over, I want you to think you had so much fun that really you would have paid more. It’s important to provide something that is fun no matter what the age or makeup of your group. Think about college groups, bachelorette parties, family outings - spend time crafting a tour that has something for everybody. Give a little Lagniappe - a Louisiana way of saying a little something extra. On our tours, we offer 2 for 1 Hurricanes (our famous New Orleans cocktails) for adult participants, served in a free souvenir cup that they get to take home and keep. On the rare occasion we do get a complaint, well - remember that old saying about the customer always being right? It may sound cliché, but the truth is: if someone is mad, I am probably not going to get them to change their mind. The best thing I can do is listen, learn and provide them with the best customer service possible. I always try to let customers know their voice has been heard, and try to make it right for them however I can.

Never stop learning

I read our online reviews - and those of our competitors - several times a week. It is important to understand what the customer likes and doesn't like from both our tours and those of the operators around us. I then pass pointers along to our guides or office personnel. We never stop asking ourselves what we can do to be more efficient and more entertaining. We want to be one of the reasons that people fall in love with our city as much as we all did.

There is a lot to be learned from your customers, so take time to listen to their feedback

The best advice I can give to another business owner is: never stop listening to your customers. Never stop listening to your competitors’ customers either! There is great value in "hearing" what they have to say.Plus, when those great reviews roll in, it makes the job even more worthwhile. Here are some of my favorite things that have been said about French Quarter Phantoms: "French Quarter Phantoms guides are the strangest bunch of real historians you will ever have the pleasure of spending time with.""My kids loved the tour so much they didn't even realize they were learning something!""This was the world's best tour guide and tour. I dragged my boyfriend along to this and he hates ghost stuff but by the end of this he was asking all of the questions and wanting more. I've never seen this side of this man. I think I will marry him."Our dedication, willingness to learn, and passion for what we do is what has kept us going strong more than a decade after we first began in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Mike eventually left the business to follow his calling as a Calvinist minister, leaving Drew and I with the company and my passions. Mike is still my best friend and I will always love what we started together. And I will continue to love what I do, right here in the city I love the most.

For more stories and tips from fellow tour operators, why not check out our latest post from Vantigo owner Erik Hormann, talking about how he created a profitable, popular tour! And if you’re planning a trip to New Orleans, make sure you drop in on Cindi and her team at French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours for an unforgettable experience - and to see a top-class tour operator in action!