R2: Responsible for Results

Finding Time For Change - Michael Weaver, SMITH

More accountable models of marketing are on the table, right in front of us.  Marketers are rapidly catching up with technology. We’re using it to drive conversion rates higher, from inquiries to visitors, and to report gains in ROI
to our constituents and our funding sources.  The methods are out there.  But they can seem a little too “out there” when it’s all you can do to get through the day.

Living at the corner of Rock and Hard Place

When times get tough in tourism, we find ourselves doing more with less.  Pressure on conventional media budgets, in fact, led to some of the breakthrough methods to which people are migrating.  But that pressure also extends to our own time and attention.  Even to our staffing levels.  We end up with less power of every kind, and trying to do more with it.

Priorities

The priorities that got us this far will not get us out.  The heck of it is that we’re trying to do it the old way harder and faster – so much so that we have no time for doing it the new way.  We are seeing this every day.  Destinations with access to new methods, at little or no hard cost, are unable to take them up for sheer lack of time.

Focus

Let’s make a point of focusing on improvement.  Without prejudice as to what method or which resource, one thing the new marketing methods have in common is accountability.  They focus on building our databases of visitors and prospects.  On communicating with them as “insiders” rather than as “the public.”  On identifying our best customers and applying our scarce resources only to the prospects most likely to respond.

Measurement

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”  Maybe clichés become clichés because they’re so true that people can’t avoid them.  Let’s get a grip.  How many folks are in our database?  How many of them do we have email addresses for?  Which ones visited most recently?  Why?  Which ones are inactive?  Why’s that?  When we reach out to them, how many respond?  Do the ones who visit have any things in common?  Sounds like a lot to find out, but most conversion studies will give you most of these answers.  Considering the payoff, a conversion study might be the best investment you could make of your precious time.  Not to mention your hard-earned funding.

Make your day

Few of us argue with the points being made here.  But how do we put anything like this into action.  Make a day for change.  It’s a radical suggestion, but these are unusual times.  Set aside one day a week to address accountability, database building, e-marketing, media discipline, website enhancement.

Maybe not as radical as it sounds.  After all, the old 80-20 rule gets applied to a lot of things in business and it comes through shining most of the time.  All we’re saying is let’s put 20% of our time into the endeavors that will produce 80% of our results as we move forward.

Otherwise yesterday may be claiming some permanent residents.