Dave Serino Blogs

e-Marketing Insight Conference: Interview - David Bratton on Research

I had the chance to catch up with David Bratton of Destination Analysts prior to his session today, here is a recap of our conversation:

DS: How has web 2.0 changed research?

DB: We’ve put a lot of work into our online web usability testing product.  It is all done online and the advantage for customers is it is about half the price of standard lab research.  It takes less time and users are more comfortable in their own environment which leads to better data.   We record all the testing segments and then break them into clips for presentations for the DMO and their stakeholders.

We just did one in Juno, Alaska. It was an interesting project.  Their target market was an older segment and we needed to find older individuals and see how they accesses the web for travel information.   It was very enlightening.

DS: What sort of changes have you seen in the market?

DB: Research is very valuable and people haven’t  had access to all of this data in the past.  Many have not even used online surveys before.  But now, people are realizing that the web site is their most important marketing tool and consumer feedback is very important to make it more marketable.  Today, you can’t just throw something up there and hope it will work.

Through all this work, we have found commonalities that consumers want in all DMO web sites. We will share some of those with the group today.

DS: How about one example?

DB: A lot of DMO’s have many audiences to serve with multi points of information on the site.   Destinations use their own terminology, for example, "expert opinions".   To the DMO, that means people who are familiar with the destination providing feedback and information to the visitor. But the consumer may not really understand what that means and they don’t engage.  We make too many assumptions that consumers are tech savvy and know our world, but many don’t.  When we make things too cute, we lose some potential visitors.

DS: How about one recommendation on building a better consumer friendly web site?

DB: You need to understand what your consumer wants.  Consistently survey your consumer through online surveys and usability testing to find out what works and what doesn’t.

More to come throughout the day....

 

E-Marketing Insight Program - Day One Preview

We’re in Providence and getting ready to kick-off the 5th Annual e-Marketing Insight Conference at the Renaissance Hotel – kind of a cool property, an old Masonic Temple converted to a hotel.

     

I had the great pleasure to work with about 20 destination marketers yesterday afternoon during a segment on Strategic Internet Marketing at the Certified Destination Management Executive program. We tackled a number of issues, but the underlying theme was to understand what is available to you in terms of online marketing and social media, and then, determine what fits into the profile of your visitor.    One thing was very clear - due to the multiple mediums, segmentations are shrinking and marketers have to work very hard to meet the consumer’s needs.  The vast majority of the group acknowledges the direction we discussed is very accurate, but there are struggles with execution, proper budget allocations and internal staffing limitations.   I came across an article this morning that complements our discussion.

The e-Marketing Insight program officially begins at 1:00 pm on Wednesday.  David Bratton and Erin Francis Cummings, of Destination Analysts will lead-off the conference.  They  are making the cross-country journey from San Francisco to talk about online travel trends and explain the process of consumer web site usability studies.   David will provide some additional insight on the semi-annual State of the American Traveler Report and discuss other trends influencing online travel planning.   Erin will provide attendees with a live version of a consumer usability study – which may be an tourism educational conference first .  Attendees will have the opportunity to see consumers work through a destination web site in real-time. 

The second session will be conducted by Tania Leichliter, of AdGenuity Marketing Solutions, Inc. which is located in nearby Boston, MA.    Based on her experience at Travelocity and current knowledge built in her own consulting practice, Tania will teach attendees how to effectively deliver their destination’s online marketing message through advertising and partnerships – along with some key advice on working with networks and online agencies.

Blog updates will becoming live from the conference tomorrow afternoon , along with some "tweets".   We will list some of the other Twitter user names tomorrow so you can follow us from where ever you are.  Looking forward to Day 1! 

e-Marketing Insight Conference Next Week in Providence, RI

Next Wednesday, we will kick-off the e-Marketing Insight Conference in Providence, RI.  It will be the fifth consecutive year we've conducted the program.   Each year, the conference content and presentations evolve to cover the most pressing trends in online travel marketing.  

This will continue in 2008.   The program will have six different presentations, featuring eight presenters. The content will include web site usability, online advertising, analytics, online travel trends and social media.   Well known DMO world speaker, Bill Geist, will close out the program with the the DMO Web 2.0 Awards, highlighting some of the best practices in online destination marketing.

The conference will also be held in conjunction with the Destination Marketing Association International's Annual Marketing and Management Institute.  This will give attendees the option to attend additional sessions and enjoy group meals with colleagues and networking activities.

Registration is open to all DMO's - state and local - will be open through the end of this week.   We won't be leaving a light on for you, but we are more than happy to hold a seat for you.  Visit this link to register.

And, if you can't make it, be sure to stop by the blog for updates through the conference.  I will be postings session recaps, some interviews and photos.   There will also be additional "Tweets" throughout the conference.  Follow us on Twitter - "GammetGuy".

Social Media with Josh Hallett at the Michigan Tourism Conference

Josh Hallett - an internationally recognized thought leader in the convergence of social media and corporate public relations & marketing – joined the largest contingent ever to attend Michigan’s Driving Tourism Conference to deliver his presentation entitled “Promoting Your Destination in the Age of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook”.

Here are few interesting points from Josh’s keynote on social media, delivered Tuesday morning from the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids:

• The audience now has control of your brand and can change its perception at will.
• 60% of journalists are using blogs and social media to find story leads.
• In today’s online environment, it is as easy to deliver content, as it is to consume it.
• “Marketing and advertising is the result of having a lame product.” (My personal favorite.)
• There are 8,000 Disney related photos loaded onto Flickr each day.
• 60% of online teens are contributing content and they are setting a very high bar in terms of future online expectations.
• For the tourism industry, everyday is a FAM Tour online. (Another favorite.)
• Use as much user-generated content as you can to support your current site content.

Following his very well received presentation, Josh was kind enough to catch up with me and answer a few questions. Here they are:

Q:  There is so much content available online right now.  Where is the saturation point for consumers?
JH: There is never going to be a saturation point because there is so much out there for an audience with multiple interests.  If it is relevant, they will find it and refer it someone else with a similar interest.    The referral networks are the key to sharing information; it is the power of peer-to-peer.

Q: State and local DMO’s have always been content distributors for their specific areas.  How do you see the role of travel DMO’s changing because of social media?
JH:  I see two things happening. First, they have to begin connecting with consumers who are passionate about the travel destination.    Then they have to realize that it is o.k. if the content is coming from 3,000 miles away rather than a local source.    When that happens, the sources will amplify the message.   We know that peer-to-peer content resonates more.

Q: Where would you recommend that a DMO, hotel, resort, attraction, etc. start if they have not explored any social media options?
JH: They really need to play off their specific product offering.  If they have a photogenic destination, Flickr would be a great place to start.   If they have a niche product that is engaging, creates interest and discussion, maybe a forum would be a good place.

Q: There is plenty of discussion about Facebook/My Space pages.  How can a DMO take advantage of this?
JH: It all comes down to staffing and time to be successful.   They need to leverage the existing communities and content that is already there.  MySpace has not been used real well in terms of destinations.   What they just need to remember is to contribute meaningful content.   They have to remember that everything must be interesting, engaging and compelling.

Thank you again, Josh.  Everyone in attendance appreciated your insight and time!

Conference Notebook: 
Fresh Message Matters – Trips to Michigan from a cluster of three traditional feeder markets increased 109% from 2006 to 2007.  The budget/adverting spend in each year were very similar.  The difference was the marketing message – the new, award winning Pure Michigan campaign.   IMO, the campaign radio and tv spots can only be described as “kick-ass” and they make me proud to live and work in the state of Michigan.  But, 109% is HUGE.  Lesson learned, it pays to keep things fresh.   Kudos to McCann Erickson and Travel Michigan. 

More Content Ideas – Echoing Josh Hallett’s mantra on content, the Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor Convention and Visitors Bureaus are syndicating content through the Issue Media Group of Detroit.  During the “Panel on Urban e-Marketing”, both organizations explained how they are spreading good news about their cities in the form of special interest stories and online video.   Not only are these groups using engaging content to inspire potential visitors to their destinations, but they are also driving search traffic to their web sites with algorithm favorites – fresh, keyword dense copy.

Go Gov! – Governor Jennifer Granholm was on-hand to fire everyone up about some additional tourism funding that is making its way through the legislature.   I know these speeches look like some typical political spinning, but she is, and always was, a big fan of tourism.  The Gov got it from day one.  Now, thanks to the hard work and lobbying efforts of TICOM, MACVB, and MLTA, the industry is gaining some respect in the house and senate.  I guess it doesn’t hurt when each travel ad dollar spent puts $2.82 back into the state treasury.

And More - Thanks to Rick Hert of the West Michigan Tourist Association for leading, and Dave Lorenz of Travel Michigan for organizing, a 5-mile running tour through the neighborhood streets of Grand Rapids early Tuesday morning.  It was a great way to start the day!

TravelCom '08: Wrap Up

I attended TravelCom this Wednesday and Thursday in Chicago.  Here are a few of my thoughts regarding the conference:

- To kick things off, Henry Harteveldt of Forrester did a great job wooing the crowd with his research, data and trend analysis.    Big note - the online travel consumer is not as happy as we thought.

What I coined as the conference buzz-phrase – “contextual advertising” - was first mentioned in this session.   Wikipedia defines it as – “the term applied to advertisements appearing on websites or other media, such as content displayed in mobile phones, where the advertisements are selected and served by automated systems based on the content displayed by the user.” 

Now, call me old school or even Blue, but isn’t that just a fancy catch phrase for targeting?

- Travelocity’s Michelle Peluso  believes in customer service – she has taken a phone call from a customer at 3:30 am on her home phone.   Impressive!  She stressed the importance of service for the OTA’s and believes the call center and support lines are the foundation of loyalty for these groups.

- I couldn’t get into either of the the User Conference lunches.   I was a few minutes late getting to the Yahoo sponsored session and all the seats in the room were taken.  The rooms were very small and I think they only had 6 to 8 tables set up.   People then lined the walls.  I checked out the other session by Acxiom and it was also very crowded.     Looks like these lunch and learn sessions generated some interest, maybe next year they could be a bit bigger or have additional choices.

Once those two options were exhausted,  I retreated to the main luncheon hosted by IBM.   They ran a short video entitled “A Day in the Life of a Traveler”.     It showcased a biz-traveling, family guy utilizing every  IBM e-business tool known to mankind in his planning and traveling adventure.   It was wrapped into one giant process:  from booking travel, to walking around the hotel web site as an avatar, to the TSA screening his name to be sure he wasn’t on the no-fly database. There was even a call center conversation that was translated from English to Chinese on the fly.   I know some of this is applicable today and I loved the concept.  But, I’m pretty sure we are more than just a few years away from it all working together.

BTW – the food - baked chicken, rice, and asparagus followed by a coffee tasting kind of dessert dressed with fresh berries- black, blue and rasp. Mmmm.

- The afternoon began with Jeff Boyd, CEO of Priceline, explaining some advertising models for the OTA.  Good take away – can’t afford to buy an expensive  network  television spot during Lost in prime time? How about buying spots on ABC.com where people download the archived programs.    Same audience, better price.   The whole off-beat William Shatner campaign is perfect for use on the web and his persona translates well into entertaining widgets for desktops, Facebook and MySpace.  Also, Jeff did drop in some "contextual advertising" references and sourced it back to Henry.

- Susan Black did a fine job moderating the session Monetizing Social Media and Consumer Generated Content.   A couple of notes of interest on this one .   The panel included a replacement from one of the original program speakers - the women who developed Hyatt’s Yatt’it joined the mix.  (I must first apologize, I can not locate her name anywhere since she was a late addition, but her first name was Renee.)   See my post from the day prior for my Yatt’it thoughts.  I didn’t have the courage to question her during the session and my attempt to find her at the cocktail reception was not successful.  Anyway, I got the impression they spent a few nickels on the whole site, not including all the time involved for personnel training, management, etc.   Per my post, you know my take.

- Then came a big  “Who knew?” for me.   A travel social networking site for disabled individuals – www.disaboom.com.    Apparently their network is as strong as their voice, as they review cities, hotels and restaurants, etc. that are accessible, or not so accessible.   Eric Lipp stated that "85% of disabled travelers share their experiences".   Very cool.    He also sourced a new Chicago accessibility guide.  With sites like Disaboom and other forums emerging, it will only be a matter of time before additional cities and states give more attention to this niche.

BTW – “contextual  advertising”  emerged once again.   I think it was third time in a session today, but who’s counting.

- I thought Thursday got off to a slow start – maybe everyone had too much fun the night before in the city of Chicago.   I enjoyed the third presentation/interview with Suzie Reider, Director of Advertising for YouTube.  The big nugget - YouTube has just released a dashboard of analytic tools to help you measure who is watching your videos.   Log in and check the tabs on your page for more details.  Those guys at Google, and their tools, continue to amaze me.  One other interesting tidbit on YouTube - how about using it to test some video creative?  Now there is an idea.

- The conference education closed out with an interesting debate on paid search terms and affiliates.  Eric Pearson from InterContential Hotel Group moderated a discussion that was focused around affiliate organization’s buying branded keywords, developing bogus landing pages, and then deceptively capturing traffic from OTA’s and hotels.   It looks like there is still some work to be done in this area, but the major consensus from the panel was focused on end-user education.

- At that point, I grabbed a chicken wrap to go and headed out  – just prior to Sir Richard Branson’s address.    My destination was Navy Pier to visit a few old friends and clients at the Affordable Meetings Tradeshow.   

Sorry, Sir.   I took a lesson from Michele Peluso - loyalty before royalty in my business.