MEMBER'S BULLETIN No. 2.1; December/January 2005
Welcome to this the second in a series of regular bulletins to help Members get the most from StayingInWales.com and the Internet. This time, we've combined a number of hot topics in one bulletin, at the same time as providing information on 'Radio Times' Advertising and 2005 Membership. Simply click on the these items and any other items in the index below that interest you.
1. Radio Times Advertising; it's Your Choice
Three out of four Radio Times readers took a holiday away from home in the last 12 months…that's 2.6 million holidaymakers! Increased numbers are looking to the UK for their main holidays and many take frequent short breaks all year round in the UK.
So we've kicked off the New Year by advertising StayingInWales.com in the 8-14 January Radio Times pullout 'Holiday' guide the advertisement appears at the bottom of page 8 - using the Brochure Request service to attract more users onto the network. This will be followed up in Spring with a direct link to StayingInWales.com from the BBC.co.uk website.
First though we'd like you to tell us which of the following advertising formats you think will work best in future (we used the one in the centre this time round):
Simply drop an email to radiotimes@stayinginwales.com and enter A, B or C in the subject header. No prizes for spotting the difference between the last two! If you want to send us any comments or queries, please include these in the body of the email. We will answer them all.
Radio Times 'Holiday Guide' advertising will benefit all Full Members.
2. Staying in Wales Membership 2005
New Searches by 'Village and Town' and by 'Keyphrase'
It's amazing! We launched in January 2004 and simply haven't stopped since. Hardly a day has gone by where we haven't introduced a major new feature or made minor adjustments to the network to improve its overall performance. Most recent additions have been searches by 'Village and Town' and by 'Keyphrase', each adding new dimensions to the user's experience and giving fast access to quality accommodation of all types.
Network Performance
Over the last six months, the 100 top-performing Microsites for accommodation have shared 6,902 unique visits between them with the top one receiving 143, an average of nearly one a day for every day of the week at less than 16p each (18.5p inc VAT) based on the £45 +17.5% annual subscription that Full Members pay.
Search Engine Optimisation
In 2005, this will improve even more as the results of our recent Search Engine Optimisation* programme work through into the New Year and expand into early Spring. The new Village and Town search is expected to pay handsome dividends and, as Full Members learn how the new Keyphrase search works they will be able to tweak their Microsites accordingly to attract more enquiries.
New Memorise Login Feature
In addition, a new 'Memorise Login' facility has removed the drudge of entering a Username and Password every time Members want to make changes to their Microsites or to check how they're performing. No more lost or forgotten Login details!
New Special Features Section
Another innovation for 2005 is a 'Special Feature' section at the head of each listing page, which gives pride of place to Full Members' properties on a rolling 24-hour basis. This allows frequent placings at the top of the list for everyone.
Membership Renewal
We have a policy now of Full Membership and Associate Membership, with only Full Members' accommodation appearing in search listings. This will guarantee an increased flow of enquiries and make the network even faster.
Full Membership subscriptions for 2005 are invited at the 2004 rate of £45 +17.5% VAT until 15th January 2005. Invoices at the discounted rate have been sent out to all existing Full Members at the discounted rate, payable by 15th January 2005. Thereafter the rate will revert to £50 +17.5% VAT, so act now if you can.
There are three easy ways to renew or join for the first time:
1. Go to http://www.StayingInWales.com/partners/myaccount.asp/ and choose Option1;
2. Email membership@stayinginwales.com placing your property name in the Subject window and we will email you back within 24 hours, or
3. Ring the Staying in Wales Helpline on 01766 543011 a9am-8pm weekdays for more information or leave your name, property name and telephone number on the Voicemail Message Service, which operates all other times and we will call you within 24 hours.
(For all Helpline operating times and call rates, please see 8.Helpline Opening Hours in the index.)
Credit card payments can be made over the Helpline during normal operating times and in all cases a VAT invoice will be issued. For full information on the two different Membership grades and benefits, please go to http://www.StayingInWales.com/partners/FullTermsConditions.asp.
*This subject was covered at length in Members Bulletin No.1 available at http://www.StayingInWales.com/partners/AugBulletin.asp
There was a time when GIS was only spoken of in whispers. It was a dark secret hiding behind a wall of smoke and mirrors; a black art for only the privileged few to practice.
No longer! GIS, or Geographic Information Services to give it its full name, has emerged from the military closet as the Internet did ten years ago and is now available somewhere near you. In fact, you don't have to look that far. StayingInWales.com has been using GIS from the start but that doesn't necessarily explain what it is because it's virtually invisible. |
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| So how does it work? First, everything on the surface of the Earth has a geographic position and, using sets of numbers relevant to latitude and longitude, the position of one thing can be shown in terms of its position to another. Hence it's easy to define all attractions, for example, in an area around an accommodation provider and vice-versa. Each individual item becomes a hub around which the others are clustered and the permutations are endless. |
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It makes it easy for visitors to get large amounts information about their chosen destinations without needing a PhD in Rocket Science to do it.
Take a closer look at StayingInWales.com and you'll see what we mean. Next year the mapping will be down to street level, with pubs, entertainment, shops and local services all adding to the fun.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing, once heralded as one of the most powerful tools in the online marketer's armoury is no longer so. Was it ever? We mentioned in the previous article that technology in the wrong hands can cause a lot of damage, which happened with email marketing as the spammers took over.
Spamming today is like having unannounced canvassers knock on your door every minute of the day, or receiving a sack-full of junk mail in the post every morning. It's a plague, and anti-spamming devices are now common with mixed results, often causing loss of important bona fide messages.
But with the right rules observed and a little innovation, email marketing can still produce startling results.
The secret is in gaining permission from people to send them mail. This means getting people to subscribe to the information service you're offering. If the information is of real value it will not be difficult finding people pleased to receive it, just as magazines do. If the content is good, the recipients won't mind the occasional advertisement providing it's not too obtrusive. Fill every page with them and you're on to a loser.
Wales has a huge number of fans. Over 11 million come to stay each year and millions make day visits. Thousands upon thousands of visitors simply can't get enough information about Wales when they need it. The remarkable success of the This Week® Wales newspaper proved that. When readers were asked in the mid 1990s if they wanted to subscribe to an online version, they registered in their thousands. A further 20,000 email addresses were added in the year 2000 from the Wales Tourist Board's UK marketing database.
Since the launch of StayingInWales.com earlier this year, a 'Staying in Wales' newspaper with a new 'Insight' supplement has been introduced to promote the network and gather content for email newsletters.
The power of the Internet enables this micro-marketing approach to be carried out on a grand scale at little cost and allows small communities to get well and truly in on the act. Staying in Wales already features 141 such communities in its new 'Village and Town' search engine and each one will be featured next year in email newsletters to visitors.
We will shortly be asking our Full Members for information they want to see included about their community.
Cluster Marketing
When visitors come to Wales, most of their experiences take place in relatively small geographical areas or "micro destinations". Typically, each micro-destination boasts a selection of natural and man-made attractions with local supply communities that help satisfy visitors' needs for accommodation, restaurants, events, entertainment, pubs, shops, local services and public transport. Clustered together, the total value and choice is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Cluster marketing is the way this total value is presented to attract the maximum number of visitors.
No matter that there's more than one accommodation provider, restaurant or gift shop in the area. The more visitors attracted to a micro-destination, the better off each supplier will be. Often known as collaborating to compete (with other destinations), cluster marketing on the Internet delivers a critical mass of information on a micro-destination in just a few clicks of the mouse. What's more, it does so for the benefit of everyone concerned.
Staying in Wales is the epitome of this style of marketing, using towns and villages in Wales to create the clusters of interest and presenting them in such a way that visitors can explore all possibilities before they arrive.
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is the rapid spread of information across the Internet by encouraging people to pass on marketing messages. It is the online version of word-of-mouth and so powerful can it be that something relatively unknown can become a household name almost overnight. Hotmail.com was an early example, attracting worldwide attention within months.
Some viral marketing campaigns, however, work better than others. Giving information away free; making it effortless for the information to be transferred; scaling easily from small to large and vice-versa; exploiting common motivations; using existing networks, and taking advantage of other resources are key to viral marketing success. Check out how many of these features are embedded into StayingInWales.com.
Information Channels
The network comprises ten information channels interlinked by GIS to form business clusters. These are reached by users direct or via major search engines such as Google®:
The default mapping level oovers an area up to 15 miles from the location indicated by a revolving cross-hair sight in the map window.
At the next level, this reduces to a maximum of 8 miles and this will reduce further to 500 metres with the introduction of street-level mapping is in 2005 (please see 3. GIS; the New Buzz!).
Only items within range are listed at each level, giving an idea of what there is to see and do within walking, cycling, driving, and travel-by-public-transport range.
The introduction in 2004 of the new search by 'Village and Town' and the development in 2005 of Microsites for Rural Wales villages and towns, will mean that business clusters can be built up by settlement using the seventy-seven different category descriptions.
6. VisitWales; the Inside Story
The Magic Figure Seven
There's a new adage in the world of technology that says one year equals seven Internet years. This is based on the notion that people adopting new technology can do in a single day what might otherwise take a week (the positive effect), whilst those taking a year to adapt to new technology will fall seven years behind in the race (the negative effect).
This magic figure seven can have other positives. For example it can reduce marketing costs from, say, £700 spent on traditional media to £100 spent on Internet marketing with no drop off in enquiries.
But as with all powerful tools, disastrous and expensive mistakes can occur if they end up in the wrong hands. It may seem unfair to mention VisitWales in the same breath but there has been much criticism and it's time now to set the record straight.
Anarchy or Hierarchy?
First, the Internet is anarchic, as most networks tend to be. Attempts by hierarchies to control them usually end in tears as history teaches us. So what exactly was the Welsh Assembly Government doing by nesting a major new Internet project within a quango like the Wales Tourist Board?
It was, in fact, taking a substantial risk with £4m of taxpayer's money that no other organisation in Wales was in a position to do. The project, known then as the Destination Management System for Wales, DMS for short, was given to a gallant band of people within the Wales Tourist Board to implement, and to run the risk new technology often being unpredictable of things not running to plan with a large amount of unfair criticism being attracted. The pressures were going to be big and, with careers on the line, it was a brave move.
Marketing and Management
Was it to be a Destination Management System or a Destination Marketing System? With both descriptions appearing in a WTB Annual Report at the time, there seemed to be two schools of thought with tensions likely to rise.
Marketing guru Tom Peters went to great lengths to explain the difference, giving to the World the memorable mantra: 'Managers do things right; marketers do the right thing.' The management culture inside any organisation that is Government or Government-sponsored simply does not lend itself to the risks associated with finding the right things to do in rapidly changing markets. That's a job for entrepreneurs.
Nevertheless, whatever the outcome, Wales is far better off than it would have been had the DMS not been created and VisitWales given its breath of life. As well as the system itself, weighing in at less that a million, the £4m expenditure covers four years of operating the system, running the Contact Centre and Helpline service in Bangor, and outreach / training programmes.
The only possible criticism is that it's taken so long, which brings us back to where we started. Technology moves on so fast that yesterday's models quickly give way to new ones. It's a challenging commercial scenario that Government is simply not in the best position to deal with.
Stepping into the breach comes John Kingsford, head of the Wales Tourist Board's new Commercial Directorate into which VisitWales has now been transferred. Mr Kingsford, who has much experience in the private sector, is set on making VisitWales pay, so it can make a full contribution to "Wales Plc".
As a result, 2004 has been a year of consolidation. Considerable effort has gone into increasing the usability of the http://www.MyBusiness.VisitWales.com tool, used also by over 1,600 businesses to register products with Staying in Wales. There are now over 5,000 products from all over Wales published at VisitWales.com with 2,000 registered with Staying in Wales.
Performance has also improved: over 500,000 unique users will have visited the VisitWales.com site by the end of 2004, whilst at StayingInWales.com the top-performing 100 accommodation Microsites have shared 6,206 unique visits between them during the last six months.
Visitors are also finding out about Wales through 10 other VisitWales.com websites including gateways in Dutch, German and French, as well as sites about walking and cycling. StayingInWales.com meanwhile has introduced searches on 141 Villages and Towns in Wales for visitors more familiar with our country or who want to get to know Wales better.
Statistics are now being sent every month by VisitWales to businesses with published products. The statistics demonstrate how visitors explore information and locate accommodation, giving an idea of what interests them. The searches are often seasonal, with events getting increased numbers of unique visits close to their start dates, with accommodation in those areas often seeing an upturn in interest.
Staying in Wales adopts a slightly different approach in that Full Members can access their performance statistics daily and tweak their Microsites accordingly. Information on events is also available via WalesCalendar.com with links to Staying in Wales' accommodation. It all works efficiently from the same information database and it's good to have these added-value components.
A full review of VisitWales has been undertaken this year and the focus next year is likely to be on redesigning and simplifying the websites; increasing the distribution of product to gain greater exposure - StayingInWales.com being a prime example - and working alongside more information and booking services working with Welsh businesses.
We are also likely to see changes arising from the absorption of the Wales Tourist Board into the Welsh Assembly Government in Spring 2006 and a strengthening of the Wales Tourism Alliance. If we get things right with VisitWales, Wales can expect to lead the way in competition with England, Scotland and Ireland for UK and overseas visitors, whilst at the same time collaborating with these countries to compete with other global destinations.
If this means cultivating VisitWales as a commercial marketing project rather than an information management system, this could present a complex set of challenges; but at least we have someone now who recognises the difference and is determined to make things work. One has only to hope that this new sparkle of entrepreneurship does not get weighed down by bureaucracy. We wish Mr Kingsford and his team good fortune and have promised our full ongoing support.
For more information, please ring the VisitWales Helpline on 08708 300 301 9am-8pm weekdays or 9am-6pm weekends. (For all Helpline operating times and call rates, please see 8.Helpline Opening Hours in the index.)
Totally committed to the interests of Wales' visitors and the consequent advancement of Members' businesses, the Staying in Wales team works year round to provide fast, accurate information to a world in a hurry. The expertise that the network draws on is second to none in the UK with Members playing their full part. We simply couldn't do it without you.
So a big thank you to:
All Our Members
Sion Thomas, Helpline Manager
Llinos Griffin, Helpline Assistant
Gwenfair Jones, Helpline Assistant
Terry Jackson, Project Co-ordinator
Arvind Nehru, Network Manager
Roger Thomas, Content Manager
Alison Davies, Mapping
Tony Davies, Mapping
John Harrington, Mapping
Harish Nehru, Software
Aamer Sardar, Software
Richard Edwards, Software Design Consultant
Tom Pollock, Graphic Design Consultant
And a very special thankyou to Kim Colebrook, Head of Information and New Media at VisitWales and Stephen Potter, Marketing Director at LondonTown.com in Llundain. (We never let him forget that!)
NB Voicemail services operate outside all opening times shown below. Simply leave your name and telephone number and your call will be returned without fail.
Staying in Wales 01766 540311*
*Local call rates: 4.2p/min 8am6pm; 4p all other times. (35 miles.)
*National call rates: 6.7p/min 8am6pm; 4p all other times. (35 miles+.)
Open Weekdays: 9am-8pm
Closed Weekends
Visit Wales 08708 300 301**
Open Weekdays: 9am-8pm
Open Weekends: 9am-6pm
**National call rates: 6.7p/min at all times.
9. Archive
Please click here for archive copies of previous Member Bulletins and a range of downloadable marketing information including research reports.
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Staying in Wales-Aros yng Nghymru
Unit 4, Penamser Business Park, Porthmadog LL49 9GB Wales UK
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