Newsletter : February 2014
Written by Steph Kendall
Welcome to the New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz February 2014 issue. If you have news or comments, please email us news@tourism.net.nz.
In this January newsletter:
Tourism New Zealand Go in To Bat
When the Black Caps played India in January, Tourism New Zealand showed a group of visiting Indian travel trade and media what visitors would experience during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup (February – March 2015).
Tourism New Zealand's Justin Watson says the activity is part of an increased focus on India as a source of visitor arrivals and the build-up to the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
"The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, will provide the perfect opportunity for us to market a New Zealand holiday to eager cricket fans and families - of which there are millions in India…What we learnt from the Rugby World Cup 2011 is that sporting fixtures like this not only encourage "super" fans to travel but also provide the trigger for those already dreaming of visiting New Zealand to go out and book their trip."
Information about the ICC 2015 Cricket World Cup, including the list of online travel agents, is available at the official website www.icctravel.net. Games will be played in Auckland, Napier, Hamilton, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin.
- TIP: Start your marketing now around the ICC 2015 Cricket World Cup. Create 'specials' and packages and use your web pages and online marketing streams (newsletters, Facebook, search engine advertising, etc.) to promote 'early bird' booking as soon as possible.
Increase in Flights to and Within New Zealand
Existing seat capacity between Singapore and New Zealand will increase by 30% due to the recent Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines alliance. Air New Zealand will now operate a daily Boeing777-200ER service to Singapore having taken over five flights operated by Singapore Airlines. The additional capacity is good news for New Zealand's tourism sector as Singapore is an important growing visitor market for New Zealand but also a vital hub for Asia.
Extra flights have also been arranged by Qantas between Sydney and Queenstown during the Easter school holidays and peak ski season. Additional services will commence on 7 April and finish on 24 October with two extra services per week over Easter and daily flights from 4 July. This means 650 extra seats during the ski season.
Tips for Writing Successful Google Adwords
Edited by Steph Kendall
If you are using Google Adwords to promote your business online, take a few moments to read these tips on how to write successful adverts. The following tips are based on those written by Google themselves offering advice on how to make those four little lines of text work best for your business. They are:
Line #1: The ad line or headline - 25 characters including spaces.
Lines # 2 and 3: Description lines - each 35 character including spaces. This is where you talk about your offer, product/ service and include a call to action.
Line #4: Display URL – the link to your website page.
- Decide what you want to do with your ad
As it's clearly not easy fitting in everything you want to say in just four lines, you should first decide what you want your ad to achieve (e.g. encourage newsletter sign up, register for a free gift, buy a product, take up an offer, promote your brand). - Highlight what makes your business or offer unique
Tell people about the main feature or area of your business that makes it stand out from the competition. - Include prices, promotions and exclusives
If you have created something special to offer, make sure your customers see it. People are usually searching to make a decision about something. Give them what they need to help make their decision. For example, if you're offering a 10% discount for a limited time, or have an exclusive offer, don't forget to tell your customers. - Tell your customers what they can do
Are you selling? Tell them what they can buy. Are you offering a service? Tell them what they'll receive. Strong verbs like Purchase, Call today, Order, Browse, Sign up, or Get a quote tell your customers what they can expect to do when they arrive at your website. - Include at least one of your keywords in your ad text
Successful text ads tend to contain words that match a person's search. Including one of your keywords in your ad text can catch the attention of the people who searched for the keyword, and show that your ad is related to what they want.
Additionally, the keyword you use will appear in bold in your ad, just like it does in the search results, making it more obvious how relevant your ad is. - Match your ad to your landing page
Take a look at the page on your website that you're linking to from your ad, which is called the landing page. Make sure the promotions in your ad are included in that page. If visitors don't find what they expect to see when they reach your site, they might leave. - Appeal to customers viewing your ad on a mobile device
When customers are on-the-go, certain information might be more useful to them (like your store location or phone number) or a particular message might grab their attention. You can show mobile customers your phone number or a map with the location of your business by using call extensions (also known as click-to-call) or location extensions to give customers the information they need to take action while they're on the move. Also, consider creating additional ads tailored for mobile devices, like text that highlights mobile-specific specials or discounts or a mobile-optimized display URL. - Experiment
Create three to four ads per ad group, trying out different messages to see which performs the best with your customers. AdWords can automatically show the better-performing ads within an ad group more often. This removes the guesswork and lets you build on what you've learned from your experiments. For example, if the three things that make your business stand out are seasonal discounts, early-bird booking discounts and free informational DVDs, make different ads highlighting each of those features, and see which one works better. - Formatting Tip
Capitalising the first letter of each word in the title of your ad helps make the words stand out.
NZ Tourism Guide Site Visitors Increase
New Zealand Tourism Guide www.tourism.net.nz has increased the number of travellers visiting its site by over 51% over the 2 month period from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 compared to the same time the previous year.
"The increase is a real bonus for tourism operators who market their business with us", says the GM - Garry Bond, "and the increase is across the board with international travellers making up just under 50% of all of our traffic".
10 Tips to Improve Business
Compiled by Steph Kendall
- Analyse your ads' performance - If you are using Google Adwords, re-write some of your ads to see which message performs better.
- Update your publications - both digital and print – with prices, dates and information relevant to the new year. Take the opportunity to refresh text and to correct any typos.
- Set out your marketing plan and calendar - Include a realistic budget for the next 12 months and be prepared to invest in marketing.
- Check your listings - When you make sure your listings are up to date on third party websites, send through any additional details and text as soon as possible.
- Create an editorial calendar - By diarising your publishing, you can keep your social media publishing up to date, professional-looking and relevant to your business.
- Collect your debts - Healthy businesses stay on top of their collections and collecting debts efficiently boosts cash flow and help you meet your commitments for the year.
- Never stop learning - The best businesses never stop learning and adapting. It's important to keep working on your capabilities to run and grow your business.
- Create lots of goodwill with potential customers - Use all your responses to customer enquiries as opportunities not only to 'sell' but to offer help. You never know when people may came back to you based on positive goodwill.
- Store information and records digitally - Save money and space by printing less. Encourage everyone in your business to use digital ways of storing information instead of printing things out.
- Invest in employee training - If one of your employees can't do something, the chances are you haven't explained it well enough.
More Business Tips
You'll find more business tips in our newsletter archive, alongside:
Top Tourism Site of the Month
This month's Top Tourism Site Award goes to Ribbonwood Bed and Breakfast.
Ribbonwood Bed and Breakfast is a small B&B in the Appleby Hills near Richmond offering accommodation in one guest suite. Its website is small in size, but nicely designed nonetheless, with all the information displayed in a nice clear menu and page layout. Over time, the content of the website could be developed further through additional pages and functionality which would be useful both for potential guests and search engines.
Nominate a Site
If you think a New Zealand travel or tourism website deserves a 'Top Tourism Site Award', let us know about it. (View further information about the award criteria).
About the Top Tourism Site Award
The New Zealand Tourism Guide confers a Top Tourism Site Award to websites that:
- Enhance New Zealand as a travel destination
- Publish useful and informative content
- Are laid out in a professional and aesthetically-pleasing manner
- Are designed effectively for the World Wide Web
- May demonstrate easy functionality, interactivity, originality, outstanding graphic quality and marketing reach.
We welcome any feedback — send your comments to: news@tourism.net.nz
Kind regards,
The Team
Ph 0800 14 65 49
www.tourism.net.nz
New Zealand Tourism Guide
Head Office: Level One, 518 Colombo Street, Christchurch