NONE: RE: ONLINE-ADS>> Need your help!
RE: ONLINE-ADS>> Need your help!
Kenbond4_at_aol.com
Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:03:39 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 97-03-14 02:07:58 EST, you write:
<< Art Millman
Internet Broadcasting Company
artmill_at_digital.net >>
>>The search engines gives us a second problem. If most people do not know of
>>our tourist areas, how could they enter the names of our beaches? Unless
>>they know they want to go to Clearwater Beach, they would never ask the
>>search engines about us. If they entered "Florida" into the search engines,
>>we would be one of hundreds of destinations including our huge competitor,
>>Disney World!
>>I have one other crazy problem with a few of our resorts (thank goodness
>>it's only a few!) Some want to direct their promotions to definite areas
>>like a specific state or a portion of the country like the Northeast or mid
>>south, etc. Any ideas along these lines? I would certainly appreciate any
>>suggestions you might come up with!
Hi Art,
I had to chuckle about the nature of the problems you are forced to work
with. I moved back to Chicago recently but for the last 17 years was in
Orlando and am quite familiar with how Florida ad agencies think and how most
of the hotels and resorts think when it comes to advertising and promotion.
One of the biggest problems that tourism faces in Florida is size - Disney
generates about 30 + million visitors a year - you know the numbers .... the
gulf (golf) coast generally does not want college age 18-27 visiting - they
would rather let them go to Daytona and South Florida - instead they want the
more mature visitor - those that are about to retire or that are retired and
have the money and are rwa (ready willing able) to spend it on condo's,
boats, golf, resorts - not necessarly Holiday Inn or Days Inn.
Look at Las Vegas - they promote world wide - they use network tv or
satellite tv - not necessarly broadcast - as a primary vehicle - newspaper
and magazines - they promote the area as a location - golf, retirement,
family, gaming is taken for granted.
They generally do not try to measure a single ad or vehicle against a whole
program, at this time the net and web are part of a larger media mix that
will only increase in value and worth over time - look at Hilton Head or
Myrtal Beach in the Carolinas - that is your competition -not Disney in
Orlando - all of the guys have web sites, all offer packages and all are
bundled into various packages - golf, water sports, tennis, condo's,
retirement living - the only way it works in the short and long run is how
they package themselves ....airfares, weekends, extended stays - all work
together in collaterial materials and co op.
Central Florida tourism cries when occupancy drops to 80% - a level that any
other place in the world would kill for - so the nature of the problem you
face in developing your web activities is time, money, and enough media mix
especially cable and broadcast that will drive people to web locations - give
something away for making a bookmark - and whatever you do .......do it over
a long period of time and follow up - the web makes follow ups rather easy
and painless - you must have a basic generic sell, a location and then
packages within the location and don't expect immediate unreasonable results
- make sure your clients have video's, printed literature and can be viewed
with ISDN or T1 equipped servers. But most important ask them where they want
to be in three years - cause it's gonna take that long to enable this type of
advertising to take effect as a major part of a media mix - not as some kind
of step child that gets a few crumbs on occasion - with the expectation of
developing immediate overwhelming results.
You can hypo any market if you have the money - and develop instant response
-- but if you want to develop long term relationships be prepaired for a
steady increase over a long period of time. Just don't promise dollar results
for pennies spent when you need dollars to make dollars.
Ken Bond
If you can think it, we can do it
