Marketing 2.0 :: Travel Manager

January 21, 2010 – 7:04 pm

Here’s an interview video of Charles de Gaspe Beaubien the President of EasyBusRental at the ABA Marketplace 2010 talking about the new website and the technology which is powered by TravelManager.

He talks about TravelManager as a platform for the Group Travel Industry and how this technology is helping buyers find quality Motorcoach companies based on metrics such as location, safety record, vehicles, reputation and more.

**The EasyBusRental is currently in Beta but the official launch will happen at UMA Motorcoach Expo

January 19, 2010 – 10:00 pm

TravelManager has been developed as a platform for the Bus, Motorcoach and Tours Industry where operators and vendors can work together in bettering the industry.

Idea to sale 200x300 TravelManager Platform open for 3rd Party Developers

Turn your ideas into Sales

Integrate your solution using the TravelManager API’s and get access to your target audience in 30+ countries. Join a community of passionate developers from independents developers to inhouse developers to software companies in areas from GPS tracking, Ticketing, CRM, Marketing, Recruitment, Analytics, Business Intelligence and more..

**Get your solution infront of qualified buyers today by contacting info@gotravelmanager.com

January 18, 2010 – 11:00 am

The new EasyBusRental.com website powered by TravelManager has been extremely well received at the ABA Marketplace event in Gaylord National Hotel & Conference Center . All the Tour Operators and Group Transport buyers we’ve met over the last few days are really excited about using the service. The common message we’re hearing is the difficulty they have finding good companies in different areas and that the typical quote response times are in days rather than hours.

EasyBusRental Beta Website1 300x300 ABA Marketplace 2010 – Buyers love EasyBusRental.com

EasyBusRental Beta Website - Launched at ABA Marketplace

There’s a huge opportunity for Bus Operators to get more business from National buyers if they provide quality information on their profiles. Our focus over the next few weeks is improve the quality of our existing Bus Operators profile information to move the site from Beta to version 1.0 at the next major event (UMA Motorcoach Expo).

**Version 2.0 will include real-time online booking later in the year.

October 19, 2009 – 6:00 pm

For the last few months we’ve been working with lead Motorcoach and Tour Companies in designing a new Tours module in TravelManager.

Now that we have some of our users live with Tours on their website and with more to following in the coming weeks it’s a pretty exciting time for Tours. However this is just the starting point over the coming months we want to help more of our existing and new users to get up and running.

If you’re listing your Tours as PDF’s on your website, you’re missing a huge opportunity with the search engines. They love content and by using Tours in TravelManager you get to leverage that content to drive more traffic to your website.

Our goal is bring new and innovative features to TravelManager that will really help sell and promote your Tours. For us this means really listening to your feedback and sharing ideas on how to market your Tours more effectively. Search Engines, Social Networks are potential growth areas for your business, let us help you get the most out of these.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Eamonn

October 9, 2009 – 3:00 pm

This is a common discussion I’ve been having with operators over the last few years. The typical reaction is that’s too hard to generate an accurate price in real-time and also there’s a fear that online booking will facilitate shopping around for the cheapest price.

The reality is the Motorcoach is not seen as a viable alternative for a large percentage of the population. In fact the figure of 7-9% is quoted regularly at conferences about the percentage of North Americas that use Motorcoaches. So why is it that the remaining at worst 81% don’t ever use your services?

1) Lack of Awareness

2) Unfashionable image of a “Motorcoach” (an old Bus)

3) Not marketing to new markets / customers (too much focus on older/traditional audience)

4) Inability to get a fast quote/price

5) All of the above and more…

I see the Motorcoach Council are trying to coordinate an industry wide campaign with their “Motorcoachified” message which is a step in the right direction on the awareness front but….

Internet Sales Stop Sign Why the Motorcoach industry needs Online Booking? 2010

Internet Sales coming soon

It’s not enough the industry needs to change how it sells to the new customers who will what the convenience of real-time booking before they see the Motorcoach as a real alternative to taking a car, train or flight.

It can happen but does the industry what this? – We think at TravelManager that 2010 is the year for it happen

Regards,

Eamonn

**Not convinced of the benefits? Here’s a good article from the LCT (Limousine, Charter & Tour) website: http://www.lctmag.com/features/features-story.cfm?id=1537

October 2, 2009 – 8:30 am

With the increasing number of ways for customers to express their opinion about your product or service there’s a new trend to monitor sentiment on the Internet. Basically it’s about tracking whether the crowds opinion is positive or negative in blogs, social networks, news articles, online forums etc.

good and bad egg The next wave of online marketing? Listening

Good and Bad Sentiment Online

What does this mean for the Motorcoach industry? Well not a whole lot at the moment, but there’s an opportunity here to get and stay ahead of your competitors by starting to invest in your online reputation.

This is more than optimizing your website for search engines and more about really listening to what’s being said about your company good and bad. In fact as often is the case with dealing with traditional customer complaints, dealing with the negative effectively can often turn into a positive experience for the disgruntled customer.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to share my experiences about Twitter and similar tools you can use to manage your online reputation.

Regards,

Eamonn

*Data mining and connecting with services like Facebook and Twitter will be part of TravelManager in 2010 to help our users connect with new customers and retain existing ones.

Don’t just take my word for it! Recent Article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24emotion.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

September 27, 2009 – 11:59 am

It’s very easy to setup an online advertisement campaign but unfortunately it’s not so easy to manage and insure you’re getting value for money.

They’re are a lot of companies paying too much per click and not enough time tracking the value of the clicks. Remember Google only started Adwords in Oct 2000 with about 350 customers, but by 2007 they had over 1m advertisers. Worse still the benefit of an level playing field Adwords brought to advertising is being eroded with large national brokers massively out spending local operators (often paying too much themselves!!!).

Wasting Dollars on Poor Adwords Campaigns Is Google Adwords worth it?

Wasting dollars by not tracking online advertisement conversions?

The industry needs to get back to connecting with their customers and leveraging the Internet as a more than a just a lead generator to a customer service and relationship management tool.

The Internet is maturing and so should our attitude to how we use it to grow revenues.

Regards,

Eamonn

**By using the TravelManager quotation widget on your website you can traffic all sources of leads generated (from multiple locations). So before starting a campaign make sure you have a way to track the source of leads and their conversions.

September 21, 2009 – 9:00 am

Just when you thought that you’d figured out search engines and pay-per-click advertisement the market is starting to change. Yep, you’ve heard it here 1st, all things that worked well in the past are not going to provide the same ROI into the future.

Like the smart companies that starting using Google Adwords ahead of their competition it’s time to another step forward by using social media to get in on the conversation with you potential customers.

Picture 13 Online Marketing is changing (again!!)

Social Media Conversations

**It’s no coincidence that Facebook has hit 300m+ users and a profit.

Regards,
Eamonn

**Here’s a great article that while applies to the Hotel industry is quite applicable with the Motor coach and tours industry: Future Trends

September 18, 2009 – 3:49 pm

What would you do if your world changed like this?

Fortunately, its not happening this fast – but it is happening. The world is changing – everything is going from analog to digital. We all “know” that – but did you know that its actually accelerating? Moores Law and The Network affect are ensuring that it is.

What are you doing to make sure your keeping up?

September 14, 2009 – 3:49 pm

So now that you’ve created a Facebook page it’s time to start promoting it. This can be done several ways:

Picture 8 Getting Fans to your Facebook Page

Irish Coaches Facebook Page

1) Paid Advertisement

2) Inviting Friends to become a Fan of your page

3) Promoting your page off Facebook

We’re going to try all 3 techniques to see how effective they are and we’re going to share the results over the coming months.

Social Media Marketing

Paid Advertisement:

This is probably the fastest way to get your page out there and infront of your target audience. It involves creating a advertisement that will be listed on facebook users pages that fit your profile. So for example you can have you advertisement displayed to specific age ranges, genders, countries etc.

You can pay per impression (number of times you’re advert is displayed) or pay per click (like Google Adwords). For the initial campaign Irish Coaches are going to use pay-per-click.

Inviting Friends to become a Fan:

One thing that has annoyed a lot of people promoting businesses on Facebook is that you can’t invite people directly to become a fan of your page. They have to be a friend and then you can use the “Suggest to Friends” facility to promote your page.

This means that you won’t be able to start sending invites to all your customers or mailing lists, rather you have to either become friends on facebook or promote your page without using Facebook.

Promoting your page off Facebook:

What I mean by this is NOT using Facebook to promote your Facebook page. This has surprized a lot of people that Facebook is quite restrictive on helping you to promote your page. Apart from inviting your friends to become fans or by adding a “Badge” (link from your website) they’re is very few other tools you can use.

Regards,

Eamonn

**Useful Diagram:

sales funnel Facebook Getting Fans to your Facebook Page

Sales Funnel using Facebook

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