Tourism Marketing

Aloha! ?? I'm writing this article from a dreamy beach-side town on my favorite island in Hawaii. This is my favorite place in the whole world and I'm so grateful to get to be here so I'm hoping this article will give something back to this place -- and other vacation destinations like it-- that have given us so many beautiful memories over the years. Because our family comes back to this island (Oahu) several times a year and because it's basically impossible for me to see SMB's (that's small + medium businesses FYI) and not offer some advice, I decided to write an article. The thing is, it doesn't matter if we're talking about a small town in Hawaii or a B&B near the grand canyon or a restaurant by a popular theme park-- if your business benefits from tourists, there are a lot of things you can be doing that won't cost you any money but WILL absolutely increase how many customers walk in the door. For what it's worth, I know that digital marketing and social media can be a bit daunting if you've never done it before, but you know what? Suck it up! Just because something is confusing at first, doesn't mean you can't be great at it and in this instance, it will have a significant impact on your revenue so let's dig into some ideas.

• Work Together - This first piece of advice doesn't have anything to do with social media but it will inform everything else on my list. Work with your other small business owners in your location!! I know your town is small and you're worried that if their business succeeds yours won't, but it's absolutely NOT TRUE. When I visit a town on vacation I go to multiple restaurants and dozens of coffee shops. I visit hair salons and spas and all kinds of local artisans. In fact, one of the reasons I love this beach town so much because it has so many different fun places to visit, not because it has one place I like. So... band together with the other SMB's in your town that cater to tourists. You are not in competition with each other-- you are ALL competing to keep the tourists from visiting chain restaurants and coffee shops they gravitate to out of familiarity. Start a club, hold monthly meetings, talk to each other about what works and what doesn't. Most importantly-- get aligned on the branding of your town-- are you relaxing, artistic, friendly, the food capital of Ohio?? If you're all working toward the same goal you can create products and branding and events around it! Next, decide which hashtag you ALL need to be using on social and in marketing materials.
• Local Hashtag - What is the hashtag for your community?? There are so many different options (sometimes dozens for one city). The goal is to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to discover you. Look and see what's already available and then decide as a community that you'll all tag your photos with the same thing. You can absolutely also tag YOUR photos with a custom hashtag for your business but you want to make sure the community is using the same thing. This way, when someone like me (who fully plans a vacation via Instagram photos) goes scrolling, I can easily identify where I want to go shopping or grab a green juice next. Not sure what a hashtag is? Go watch a YouTube video-- there are thousands to help you figure it out.
• Follow the Hashtag - Many platforms allow you to "follow a hashtag" the same way you follow your cousin Crystal to see pictures of her new baby. In this instance I want you to start following the hashtag for your town and your business. So right now if I go onto Instagram and look at the hashtag for #MammothMountain (which is a really popular skiing destination in Cali where I'm from originally) I can see about 350K pictures that have been tagged. 1. This is great because it gives business owners an idea of the kind of thing that tourists are taking pictures of-- more on this in a moment. 2. It shows you what other businesses are tagging so you can reshare in your stories-- think of yourself as a digital tour guide who doesn't only tell tourists about your business but also tells them great other destinations to visit 3. Under the hashtag you can see "most popular" in fact, they'll populate up top. I want you to follow that hashtag and check it every day. THEN, if you see an influencer (someone who has at least 5K followers) use your hashtag I want you to creep on their feed. Are they visiting your town? Awesome!! Send them a DM right now and invite them to your business to get the most popular thing you sell FOR FREE. Imagine I'm coming to visit your city and you see me use a hashtag and then you send me a DM and you're like "Rachel!! We see that you're in Mammoth and we'd love to treat you to one of our Toasted S'More Caramel Lattes-- it's literally the most delicious hot drink on the mountain. You. Will. Die. Our addy is below, our manager working today is named Tad and I told him you might be stopping by. We so appreciate you visiting our town and letting your followers know about our mountain, it means the world to our small business. Please let me know if there's anything I can help you with while you're here." Look, not everyone will even see your DM but most people will AND you offered them a free latte and you were honestly just nice and helpful which goes a heck of a long way. Then that influencer rolls over to your coffee house and she absolutely gets that latte because dude, she wants something to put on social. Then she tags your business which means her followers see it, + everyone who looks at the hashtag for your town will have it in feed and there's a pretty picture of your business on Instagram taken by someone who probably has way better photography skills then you do. Free marketing and a picture you can repost (using the influencer's handle + tagging them with credit) all for the cost of a single latte and a little bit of your time.

Below is a post I wrote last year when I was in Hawaii. Yes, I know it's of my stretchmarks but check out the bigger impact -- One, I tagged the beach I was at. Two, I'm wearing a hat from a favorite local coffee house and cafe. This picture had 192,000 likes. I didn't have to wear that hat... in fact, I don't do ads on my social at all which means you can't pay me to do this. I only show off brands I absolutely love and I absolutely love Kalapawai because their food and their service are incredible and they're always so nice when we visit. I purposely wore that hat --and still do-- because I want them to get business.

• Your Business MUST be on Instagram - Are there other places and platforms to talk about your business? Absolutely! But for tourism marketing, you MUST have an Instagram. Insta is all about visuals and most people vacation with their eyes long before they set foot in your town. They scroll hashtags and look at what other people have done and where other people have gone and they save the locations on their phone to visit. Also, if someone does go to your restaurant and they want to take a picture of their dinner or their date or their cute new dress out on your patio they need something to tag. Not sure how to build out a worthy Instagram? 1. Go watch YouTube videos-- literally search "how to create the best Instagram feed for my fill-in-the-blank kind of business" 2. Make sure you follow other businesses who do what you do and have pretty feeds with good engagement... even if they're not in your town. Seeing the type of things other people post will help you figure out your own content. Like, "oh this cute gift shop in Florida did a flat lay with their best selling items, maybe I could try that"
• Give Them Something to Take a Picture Of - Now that you have a great Instagram and you know all about the hashtag, you need to give them something to take a picture of! You've all seen the "I Love You So Much" sign in my town of Austin, TX. Or have you seen those crazy-milkshakes restaurants are doing now? You know the ones that are loaded for bear? They've got like marshmallows and candy canes and three cheeseburgers stacked on top?? Why would a restaurant make those? Why would a coffee shop have a mural? Why do Chip and Jojo have a big sign in Waco listing out "how many miles to Waco?" that people line up in front of all day?? In all of these cases, THEY DO IT FOR THE GRAM! Tourists want something to take a picture of and dude, they will visit your place and buy your thing just to take a picture to tell people they were there. I swear it's true! So my question is, do you have something people want to snap a pic of? If not, add something! If you're thinking of food or drink it's got to be pretty or crazy (think fancy latte art or gorgeous and unique cocktail or a pizza slice the size of a newborn). If it's a mural, remember it's NOT about you (nobody wants to take a picture in front of a mural that says Uncle Tony's Pizza Palace) but they do want to take a picture in front of something funny or pretty or cute. Every single part of your business that a customer can see (napkins, plates, employee uniforms, signage, etc) is a chance to catch attention or build your brand. Take advantage of it!

This picture is me circa 2016 on a family trip to the grand canyon -- at the aforementioned B&B. In this case the sweet proprietors of Trappers Rendevouz (which has to be the greatest name ever for a B&B!) were so awesome and kind and lovely to my rowdy children that I still remember and tell people about it years later. Great service goes a looong way... a mug with your logo on it helps too.

• Yelp Matters - I find everything on Yelp. Literally everything. When I'm trying to figure out where to eat or get a blowout or do an activity with my kids I look on Yelp. If your business isn't on it, stop reading this right now and go make a bomb profile. Not sure how? GO WATCH YOUTUBE. Load it up with photos! There's no such thing as too many pics as far as I'm concerned. Follow other businesses like yours to see how they organize photos and what they snap pics of. If people write nice comments, go write back and thank them. If people write rude comments, go publicly acknowledge it and apologize and offer to fix it. Many business owners are afraid of Yelp because they don't want negative reviews, but those reviews are an excellent way to learn how to improve your business + they also show potential customers that you care enough to try and fix it. One more note, I know a lot of people love Trip Advisor so check that out too... it's just not something I personally use so I don't have a great perspective on it but use whatever tools you can.
• Sample Product - Do you sell something that you could give away as a sample in order to drive more people into your location? For instance, do you own a local candy company? Could you partner with the high-end hotel in your town? Could you create a small treat bag with your best selling product and beautiful little packaging that encourages the guest to come and visit you in-store? The hotel wins because they get to give out a premium, beautifully packaged product to add some value to their customers. You win because you specifically went for the high-end hotel so you're in front of people who can afford your premium product. Yet another reason to partner with local businesses who also cater to tourists-- maybe at your next meeting you can all talk about how to sample each other's products to drive business to each other.

Alright friends, as usual, I've written a LinkedIn article that's now the length of a small novel. If this was helpful for you, or you know someone who might benefit from it, please consider sharing it in your feed or tagging your SMB friends so they can see.

And as always, if you have any questions that are specific to your business (in this instance, one that caters to tourists so the answers can help people reading the article) then ask below and I'd be happy to help. Have a great day! --Rach