Advertising, Marketing & PR

Different Ways to Advertise

Once you've settled on a brand and a style you need to start identifying the ways in which you'll advertise. Some advertising options are essential - all tourism businesses, no matter how small, should be doing them. We've marked these with double asterisks **. Others are very price driven - it depends on what you can afford. We've marked the most important with one asterisk *. The trick with marketing is to think widely.

Word of mouth **

This may seem like an odd item to have right at the top of the list but for many businesses word of mouth and repeat business are their biggest sources of sales. You may think you don't have any control over it but this is entirely wrong. You can't buy word of mouth advertising, it's true, but everything else you do will influence whether and how people talk about you, and the most important factor is how good a time your customers have. Organise your business and train your staff to be customer focussed, to smile, to meet and exceed your customers needs and they will talk about you. Not only will they go home and say to family and friends, "We stayed at the best place...," "We had such a good time at the ...," "We found the nicest café at...," but visitors within a region talk to each other. When people are on holiday they are nearly always more inclined to chat, and they are often keen to exchange information, "Where did you go yesterday? Was it good?", "We ate at such and such restaurant last night, it was the biggest..." and so on.

The other direct influence you can have on word of mouth is to network with other businesses, both through local tourism and trade organisations but also directly. Invite other businesses in to see what you do, and go to their premises. If you like what you see, agree to refer custom, carry leaflets, brochures or event lists for each other and take the time to talk to your customers and give them ideas for other things to see and do or places to stay. Everybody wins, especially the customers.

Tourist Information Centres (TICs) **

Whatever the nature of your tourism business, go and talk to the Tourist Information Centres in your area, not just the local ones, but those a little bit further afield too (most day and overnight customers are from our own region). TICs are your high street retail outlet - their sole job is to meet visitors needs. Take along any literature you have and go and introduce yourself. Explain what you do and how you aim to meet customers needs. If the TIC is local invite them for coffee so they can see for themselves. Ask if your literature can be stocked (not all TICs have the space). Ask their advice on promoting yourself further.

Register on desti.ne **

Desti.ne is the North East's regional database and e-commerce system. It is the system that powers the websites, brochures, guides and e-marketing of One NorthEast Tourism and all of the Area Tourism Partnerships. It pushes data to VisitBritain, for national and overseas marketing campaigns. It is also the main database and resource of the region's 38 TICs. If you aren't on it you are missing out. It is free to register, click here.

Advertise with VisitBritain and Enjoy England **

VisitBritain (VB) is our national tourist board. It delivers online and printed campaigns to overseas visitors in 38 countries to encourage them to come to the UK and to domestic visitors to encourage them to explore England. Their websites are huge and receive enormous numbers of hits a month and the circulation of their guides runs into hundreds of thousands. Whilst you would have to review any paid-for advertising opportunities carefully and compare performance to cost, as with any other advertising opportunity, you can appear on their main websites, with a basic entry for free. Every business should do this.

Work with the regional tourism partners **

One NorthEast Tourism provides high quality marketing opportunities online and in printed campaigns and they also run a whole host of additional promotion through PR, exhibitions, and relationship marketing (partnering with, for example, transport operators like Easyjet, DFDS and Emirates). Together they aim to bring more domestic and overseas visitors to our region. The joint marketing includes fantastic imagery, inspirational guides and websites, award winning advertising on TV, radio ads, high quality print and an active PR campaign.

The campaigns are geared towards individuals and families, overseas visitors, luxury visitors, cruise tourism, business and conference tourism and group tourism. They have a wide variety of paid-for opportunities and they offer a free entry for every North East tourism business on www.visitnortheastengland.co.uk. Every business review what they offer and compare it to other paid-for opportunities.

County Durham Tourism Partnership, visitTeesvalley, Northumberland Tourism and Tourism Tyne and Wear are the area tourism organisations. Their role (they are partly publicly funded) is to bring more visitors to the sub-regions. They have a range of campaigns and they also offer free basic entries to their websites. Every business should take up the free offer, and every North East tourism business should seriously evaluate the marketing opportunities of their local ATP.

Management, marketing and booking agencies *

In addition to the public sector regional tourism organisations mentioned above, there are a number of private sector management, marketing and booking organisations you should consider. There are a range of private sector opportunities:

• Private tourism associations and hotel groups who operate on a not-for-profit 'members' style basis to share resources and pool marketing budgets
• Self-catering agencies (who will either market your property in return for a percentage of the booking values or who will market and manage the property and lettings for a larger fee
• Private sector 'destination' websites, who provide online marketing opportunities for an area or locality
• Online restaurant, attraction and accommodation booking agencies, who will advertise your property online and provide some sort of e-booking facility for a flat fee and/or a percentage of the booking value (ranging from anywhere between 6% and 25%)

Every business should investigate these - though you must carefully weigh their costs against their results before making any long term or expensive commitments see How To Choose Advertising.

Local press**

Don't underestimate the power of the local, or the slightly further afield but still in-region press. Most day and overnight visitors are from within the region and visitors from further afield read the local papers too. Straight-forward classified or, better still, display advertising is definitely worth trying but don't forget editorial as well. Smaller papers don't have huge resources and armies of journalists, so they are always on the look out for good stories and need partners for competitions and reader offers.

Other newspapers, magazines, guides and directories*

This is traditional print advertising and many businesses still rate it very highly. There are local, regional, national and niche opportunities. Niche media are geared towards specific interests or segments (a segment is a group of customers with a similar lifestyle or at a similar point in life like Empty Nesters (families with grown up children who have left home)) eg the Ramblers Magazine, Fishing Today, New Parents Magazine. Obviously the greater the readership of the print media, the more expensive the advertising.

TV

TV advertising is not for the faint hearted - it is expensive. Most small tourism businesses would never consider TV marketing because of the cost. However, it is worth contacting your local independent TV channel to see what their prices are like... you never know what the future holds. Also, you can harness the power of television by working with One NorthEast tourism. Their spectacular TV campaigns have won numerous awards and have made a significant impact on raising awareness of the North East region as a great place to spend time.

Radio *

Unlike TV, radio is much more accessible to smaller businesses and since the largest proportion of our day and overnight visitors is from our own region, it is an entirely logical choice. Much like the local press, local radio will be interested in news items - especially topical or human interest stories - and partners for competitions and sponsored features, as well as offering straightforward advertising. Obviously, as with all paid-for advertising you'll need to do research into the effectiveness of radio advertising and you'll need to evaluate the costs against the probable benefit, but don't be put off by not knowing how to put a radio ad together - the station itself will advise you and provide design ideas and facilities.

Direct mail*

Direct mail simply means sending something - a letter, a postcard, a flyer, a gift - anything, directly to customers through the post. Although it can be very successful, it isn't called junk mail for nothing - huge percentages of it (typically more than 90%) end up in the bin, so think very carefully, and try a small-scale pilot first, before commissioning expensive pieces of print and running up large postage bills.

Direct Mail is most successful when (tastefully) done to existing or previous customers or enquirers that fit your target audience (the type of customers you've identified as being key customers or potential customers). The most effective methods are often the simplest: a letter to a previous customer letting them know about an event or offer you are fairly sure will interest them. If you are going to use Direct Mail as a marketing technique it is extremely important that you collect and store detailed information about your customers' interests, so that you can be sure your offering will appeal. For example, a local bed and breakfast noted which customers had enjoyed the live music at their nearby pub. When similar bands were on again, they sent a note to let those customers know when the events were coming up.

PR (Press Releases) **

Every business should do this - it is free and can be very effective. PR means communicating 'news' to potentially interested parties. The best articles are niche stories (about really specific things like walking, theatre, food, green), topical stories related to something already in the news and human interest stories, where people and a real-life personal experience is at the heart of the story.

You must think very widely about who you can send your story to - it will take you an hour to craft a good story properly - you want to make that time pay by sending it to the widest audience possible. Recipients should at least include:

• your local and regional press
• local radio and tv
• your local and regional tourism management organisations (ie your area tourism partnership and One NorthEast Tourism)
• any associations you belong to that sends out regular printed or e-newsletters (they always needs stories and networking can bring referred business)
• appropriate topical or niche organisations and publications (eg, if it is a walking story, include the Ramblers Association, if it's a green story, include the Green Tourism Business Scheme and so on, search on the internet if you aren't sure)
• local councils (they may feature a good news story in their own direct-marketing or publications)
• your local chamber of commerce (for the same reasons)
• and - if it's a really good story - national press, radio or TV

Bill boards and poster advertising

Like TV advertising, this is beyond the reach of small business, being surprisingly expensive (£750,000 for a 'heavy' campaign, £350,000 for a light one - which explains why you mostly see national and international companies advertising in bus shelters). If you want to know how much, enquire with a local agency or go online to check out rates and other information at the Outdoor Advertising Agency at www.oaa.org.uk.

Leaflet racking and leafleting**

Leaflet racking is a smart (and usually cost effective) way to advertise. In each region there are usually one or two distributors who will store your leaflets (which should be a specific size) and supply them into regularly topped-up leaflet display racks positioned at high footfall areas: transport stations, supermarkets, attractions, town centre locations, hotels etc. This is a very effective way for attractions and activity providers particularly to advertise.

Another, less desirable, option is to pay someone to physically hand out leaflets at events and high footfall areas - but you have to balance this against the waste factor, which is phenomenally high, and the impression it creates - is it the quality one you're striving for?

Promotional goods, special events and sponsorship

Giving away goods with your logo on, hosting or sponsoring special events and sponsoring local teams or activities is another way to get noticed, especially amongst local customers, but you have to balance the cost against the return. Close tracking of where customers have heard about you will give you an indication on the return of any pilot you might try.

Community and display advertising*

There is a whole host of opportunities for community and display advertising: town centre map display cases, front of litter-bin advertising, post-office, supermarket and library display boards, inside of DVD rental cases - even the back of toilet-stall doors! In each case you have to balance the cost against the return and against the 'impression' it creates - do you really want to be associated with the place where the display is located? Municipal displays - even car park display cabinets or litter bin advertising - tend to carry more weight than those perceived to be private sector, so pick your options carefully and this can be an effective option.

You can also consider advertising on things like hot air balloon/barrage balloons, building and road banners and other highly visible advertising, but you need to check with your local planning department for special conditions.

Vehicle advertising

Local buses, taxies, airports and trains all offer advertising opportunities at varying costs. As with everything else, you have to balance the cost against the return and you need to carefully consider your target audience: will you reach them at these places, will they pay attention, will you create the right impression?

Online advertising**

Last, but probably most critical of all, are the online opportunities. Every business needs a website. We don't have enough asterisks to mark how important this is. See our Technology section for more. Ensuring you are well rated in the search engines by creating a search-engine friendly design, and doing basic search engine optimisation, is just as important. We cannot emphasise this strongly enough: more purchasers than ever research online as their first port of call - if you can't be found effectively through the search engines you are missing out on a huge source of customers.

E-marketing**

Every business should be engaging in e-marketing. E-marketing includes a whole range of online marketing activities:

• Banner and display advertisements on other sites
• Links programs - links to and from your site
• Keyword and Pay-per-click advertising - paid programs of promotions through the search engines
• Direct e-marketing - the electronic equivalent of direct mail, but take care: you need well thought-out and well crafted emails to your target customers and you need to stay inside the data protection and e-commerce law

For more online and e-marketing, see the Technology section.