2008 Online Marketing Plan

[adventurelife]

I have posted this for 2 reasons. First hopefully it will help those starting out with website marketing and what they need to do and second hopefully all the experts on here can comment and improve on my ideas.

2008 Online Marketing Plan For Splash White Water Rafting
Objective

To further consolidate and enhance the web presence of www.rafting.co.uk by making it the global number 1 reference site for white water rafting and canyoning.

Within this objective I aim to increase traffic from 20000 visits per month to 50000 per month, with the aim of making our enquiry pipeline consistently exceed £100k per month.

Projects to achieve above

1. Continue and finish the Rivers Of The World project started in Sept 2007. This project will list and describe 500 rivers and locations around the world where white water rafting takes place. 1 page per river. When complete and update strategy will be designed.

2. Start and finish a Canyons Of The World project similar to the above that will list and describe the top 100 canyons in the world. One page to one canyon.

3. Investigate and develop a blog strategy which involves customers

4. Integrate our new reservation system with online booking.

5. Introduce much more Call To Action phrases throughout the website

6. Introduce online projects similar to our rivers of the world project targeted a our 2 most core client groups. Corporate Events and Stag and Hen Events.

7. Re-start after a year off out PPC campaigns targeting core client groups.

8. Capture all customer information and improve our contact with existing customers and introduce them to new products and services. ( this is our biggest weakness in the business)

9. Get a grip on the social networking sites and what they can do for us.

10. Do quarterly website usability tests with groups of customers

Now how do I do all that and fit in my aims of travelling more and working less?

 

[RedEvo]

What I LOVE about this is it's concentrating on creating fantastic, useful content that will build your site into a powerhouse of information. In my view this WILL lead to you realising your goals.

So many people who post here are looking for 'work arounds' and 'short cuts' to getting their, frankly rubbish, websites onto page 1. Your approach makes a lot of sense to me.

d

 

[sm1]

Have to say, looks good although I have very little marketing experience.

Your website has some real good rankings in Google!

 

[adventurelife]

What I LOVE about this is it's concentrating on creating fantastic, useful content that will build your site into a powerhouse of information. In my view this WILL lead to you realising your goals.

So many people who post here are looking for 'work arounds' and 'short cuts' to getting their, frankly rubbish, websites onto page 1. Your approach makes a lot of sense to me.

d

Thanks RedEvo

I learned a long time ago that they are no shortcuts and I am not talking about online. Hardwork and gaining experience and then more experience is the route to being good at what you do. Most of my working career apart from a 6 year journey into the corporate world I have been involved in activities that involve risk to life and limb. It teaches you a lot about short cuts

 

[RedEvo]

Most of my working career apart from a 6 year journey into the corporate world I have been involved in activities that involve risk to life and limb. It teaches you a lot about short cuts

I'll have to come down to Perth so you can scare the pants (wetsuit) off me

d

 

[adventurelife]

Have to say, looks good although I have very little marketing experience.

Your website has some real good rankings in Google!

Thanks SM1

Hope it helps with any site you are developing.

We do have good rankings at present and I am no expert but I am always concerned with keeping them and enhancing them as with most things in life you get out what you put in so I spend time focusing on my website and how it is doing.

Wish I had found this place a few years back

 

[sm1]

Cheers, I saw the SEO company you used, they're in your directory.

Good luck I hope all continues to go well and you expand

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Great marketing plan, it's a shame more people don't organise their marketing activities in this way.

In one of our early newsletters we created a free DIY marketing blueprint people can use to fill out and organise their marketing. For anyone who's interested you can find it here. I'd really recommend all businesses using a plan such as this, even the simple common sense questions are often over-looked.

Give me a little while then I'll post up some of my comments about your plan

 

[adventurelife]

I'll have to come down to Perth so you can scare the pants (wetsuit) off me

d

Sure, I am sure I could give you and your team a day or break to remember in exchange for some input into my online business projects

 

[adventurelife]

Hi Scott

Thanks for the comments. This is our ONLINE marketing plan, I always do a offline one as well that hopefully if I have got it right dovetails with the online one, but I do treat them as separate projects. I always treat them as works in progress as well and test then make changes as we go along as sometime what looks good on paper just does not work in reality

Great marketing plan, it's a shame more people don't organise their marketing activities in this way.

In one of our early newsletters we created a free DIY marketing blueprint people can use to fill out and organise their marketing. For anyone who's interested you can find it here. I'd really recommend all businesses using a plan such as this, even the simple common sense questions are often over-looked.

Give me a little while then I'll post up some of my comments about your plan

 

[Peter Bowen]

Quick thought - give your guide to rafting away in exchange for opt in email and then run a sales auto responder

 

[PrettyPaws]

Great post, I am going to follow your lead for our "frankly rubbish" website.

 

[sm1]

Great post, I am going to follow your lead for our "frankly rubbish" website.

I don't understand :|

 

[JustOneUK]

I have posted this for 2 reasons. First hopefully it will help those starting out with website marketing and what they need to do and second hopefully all the experts on here can comment and improve on my ideas.

I don't know if this improves on your ideas per se... but if I owned that domain name I would make it the worlds number 1 resource for all things water/canoe/kayak etc, which would include a MASSIVE shop and/or a directory of resources [paid with no-follow of course ] Even affiliate links could bring in massive revenue.

just my 2 cents of course.

incidentally - How long have you had that domain name?

James.

 

I don't know if this improves on your ideas per se... but if I owned that domain name I would make it the worlds number 1 resource for all things water/canoe/kayak etc,

Butt out James ,there are other people working on that route who have been doing it since 1996.

http://www.purevacations.com/

Earl

 

[adventurelife]

Quick thought - give your guide to rafting away in exchange for opt in email and then run a sales auto responder

I used to have a competition on the front page for free rafting for 6 people each month. It drove about 200 plus email addresses each month. I think I may put that back up.

Thanks for the nudge

 

[adventurelife]

I don't know if this improves on your ideas per se... but if I owned that domain name I would make it the worlds number 1 resource for all things water/canoe/kayak etc, which would include a MASSIVE shop and/or a directory of resources [paid with no-follow of course ] Even affiliate links could bring in massive revenue.

just my 2 cents of course.

incidentally - How long have you had that domain name?

James.

Ah the big ? I have had hanging over me for years. To retail or not to retail? My business partner in another business thinks I am mad not to. I have been considering how to maximise the potential revenue of the site and I have not really come to any conclusions.

I do know several things.

I do not want the site dilouted to try be all things to all men
I do not want google adwords all over the site
I hate stock ( background in a business that carried £20m worth)

That said I do think I may be sitting on something that could drive a lot more revenue I am just not sure which route to take. I have had the domain for a lot of years. A guy 5 miles from my house owned www.kayak.co.uk and I chased it for years. You do not want to know what he got for it when www.kayak.com bought it!

Retail should I or not:|

 

[RedEvo]

Retail should I or not:|

I'd be taking a wee drive to [SIZE=-1]Tullibardine for a chat with Graham Tiso.

d
[/SIZE]

 

[adventurelife]

I'd be taking a wee drive to [SIZE=-1]Tullibardine for a chat with Graham Tiso.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]d[/SIZE]

Yeah I think a partnership with an established retailer would be the preferred route if I was to go into retail. I have a relationship with Tiso as their FD gave us headline sponsorship a few years back for www.liquidlife.co.uk as niche events company I own 50% off.

Tiso are not strong in watersports though, they went into them a few years back and I think they may have got burned as I notice they have drastically reduced the retail space dedicated to watersports equipment.

Probably the best watersports equipment supplier in the world is http://www.nrsweb.com/ I buy from them wholesale for our own use but it would be fairly easy to open an online shop with them as a supplier. Downside is I would have to buy stock as they deliver wholesale from the states. Every time I think retail I have nightmares about cash tied up in stock though:redface:

 

[Calypso]

great thread, and a great starter for mapping mine out!

 

[adventurelife]

great thread, and a great starter for mapping mine out!

Cheers Calypso. I did some recces in the Caribbean last year looking for winter destinations for our clients. I had some exceptional food with great sauces

Downside was the area has got really violent since my last visit 20 years ago. I got mugged/robbed and slashed by a stanley in Grenada and Trinadad and Tobago was just off its head. Shame as the jungle rivers were exceptional for what I was looking for.

Still the food made up for it.

 

[Laura22]

Hi, great thread and nice site, I dabbled with a bit of rafting and canyoning this year and I'm hooked!! Adventures sports sports seem to be getting more and more popular by the day so great niche to be in as well!

I have to say, I agree with James though. I think you have the scope to make the site into something a lot bigger and better. When I first looked at your site it didn't look anything like it expected it would. Why? Because you have a fab url and good rankings I was expecting the site to be "the ultimate rafting resource" and so instinctively I was expecting to see a portal / magazine type design....whereas your current design looks quite corporate. It sounds like you're already heading in this direction with your online booking system..so that's a good start but I think there's a lot more you can do to monetise the site.

I agree with your comment about not dilluting the real purpose of the site, so stick to rafting but why not test some other elements such as retail and see how you do? I'm sure there are some relevant companies with affiliate schemes so you don't need to worry about stock. As for adsense / adwords, if you've got enough natural traffic to keep yourself busy then you can ignore these for the time being and maybe dabble when you've achieved your other goals for the year.

So, if I were to add anything to your marketing plan I would add:

1)site redesign / restructure

the objective of which is to put the groundwork in place to grow the site to its full potential when you're ready. After you've covered off your blogging and social marketing objectives this will become all the more apparent!

Hope that helps?
Laura

 

[adventurelife]

Hi, great thread and nice site, I dabbled with a bit of rafting and canyoning this year and I'm hooked!! Adventures sports sports seem to be getting more and more popular by the day so great niche to be in as well!

I have to say, I agree with James though. I think you have the scope to make the site into something a lot bigger and better. When I first looked at your site it didn't look anything like it expected it would. Why? Because you have a fab url and good rankings I was expecting the site to be "the ultimate rafting resource" and so instinctively I was expecting to see a portal / magazine type design....whereas your current design looks quite corporate. It sounds like you're already heading in this direction with your online booking system..so that's a good start but I think there's a lot more you can do to monetise the site.

I agree with your comment about not dilluting the real purpose of the site, so stick to rafting but why not test some other elements such as retail and see how you do? I'm sure there are some relevant companies with affiliate schemes so you don't need to worry about stock. As for adsense / adwords, if you've got enough natural traffic to keep yourself busy then you can ignore these for the time being and maybe dabble when you've achieved your other goals for the year.

So, if I were to add anything to your marketing plan I would add:

1)site redesign / restructure

the objective of which is to put the groundwork in place to grow the site to its full potential when you're ready. After you've covered off your blogging and social marketing objectives this will become all the more apparent!

Hope that helps?
Laura

Hi Laura

Thanks for the input. At present we deliver everything we offer so the site is designed like that. As we get larger we may have to go the portal route but to be honest I am trying to avoid it as I find most of those style of sites very impersonal and most end up like travel agents sites. Our return booking rate is huge because we deliver what we sell and we like to give the message that we deliver what we sell. There are around twenty other sites on the web that are large portals that sell our services like lastminute etc that we are in trade arrangements with so we capture marketshare that way as well.

That said the new IT system we are putting in gives us the tools to do just that. I would like to monotise the site more but I very much doubt I will ever put adsense/adwords on it.

I really am a bit confused on the best route for the site development so I am am going to have to put a lot of thought into it.

 

[Calypso]

Cheers Calypso. I did some recces in the Caribbean last year looking for winter destinations for our clients. I had some exceptional food with great sauces

Downside was the area has got really violent since my last visit 20 years ago. I got mugged/robbed and slashed by a stanley in Grenada and Trinadad and Tobago was just off its head. Shame as the jungle rivers were exceptional for what I was looking for.

Still the food made up for it.

It is the one downer on the Caribbean; the violence, or potential of it. Did you try Jamaica. If you fancy it, or want some internal recommendations of places there for your business, I can ask my wife's family. They'd be happy to recommend places.

As for the food..... awesome. PM me if you want anything from our site (UKBF discounts can be sorted)

 

[Laura22]

I agree that sites that grow to the size of Lastminute.com can become quite impersonal and whilst I'm sure your customer service and the experience you provide is very personal I think you could make your website, particularly the homepage more so, by making the design less corporate.

Probably a quick and easy way to do this is to take your 2 core markets as you mentioned and provide them with an obvious entry into the depth and core information of your site from the homepage (other than your right nav).

As an example, if I was a customer and I landed on your homepage having typed in "hen weekend activity" into a search engine, I would see the title, spot "stag and hen weekends" and think 'great they provide what I need'. However, moving forward from there is tricky. I might try and click on the title thinking it's a link (which it is, but it doesn't go anywhere), following that I would probably get a bit frustrated at all the text and lack of obvious links on the page and as a frequent web user the right nav seems uncomfortable.

If there was an obvious picture of a group of girls with "click here to view hen packages" link I would be right in.

I guess this is also a usability issue which you've already said is one of your objectives but I think the point I'm trying to make is less about making your site a portal in the commercial sense and more about amending the design to use this layout because you can do so much more with it and it gives you the scope to expand if you ever want to.

Hope that helps!
Laura )

 

[adventurelife]

It is the one downer on the Caribbean; the violence, or potential of it. Did you try Jamaica. If you fancy it, or want some internal recommendations of places there for your business, I can ask my wife's family. They'd be happy to recommend places.

As for the food..... awesome. PM me if you want anything from our site (UKBF discounts can be sorted)

Hi

To be honest last years experince has put me off the caribbean a bit. Not my personal experience as tha can happen anywhere. It was just the amount of violence and menace that I saw. I travel all they time and I do tend to end up where the tourists do not go but in recent years only the caribbean and SA have had me on edge . Did not get to Jamaica as I was on all the Islands to the south but was they many moons ago when I took a trip from Belize where I was based at the time.

During the summer months we do lots of roasted pigs on a spit what sauce do you recommend for spit roasted pigs?

 

[adventurelife]

I agree that sites that grow to the size of Lastminute.com can become quite impersonal and whilst I'm sure your customer service and the experience you provide is very personal I think you could make your website, particularly the homepage more so, by making the design less corporate.

Probably a quick and easy way to do this is to take your 2 core markets as you mentioned and provide them with an obvious entry into the depth and core information of your site from the homepage (other than your right nav).

As an example, if I was a customer and I landed on your homepage having typed in "hen weekend activity" into a search engine, I would see the title, spot "stag and hen weekends" and think 'great they provide what I need'. However, moving forward from there is tricky. I might try and click on the title thinking it's a link (which it is, but it doesn't go anywhere), following that I would probably get a bit frustrated at all the text and lack of obvious links on the page and as a frequent web user the right nav seems uncomfortable.

If there was an obvious picture of a group of girls with "click here to view hen packages" link I would be right in.

I guess this is also a usability issue which you've already said is one of your objectives but I think the point I'm trying to make is less about making your site a portal in the commercial sense and more about amending the design to use this layout because you can do so much more with it and it gives you the scope to expand if you ever want to.

Hope that helps!
Laura )

Thanks again for the imput. The corporate image is probably because of my background. However, one of our core client bases is corporate so it is always a balance on who you design the site for when you are working across several clients sectors. For instance schools use our services a lot but I do not think they want to see lots of stags and hens etc There is only so much space on a home page and it is really difficult to decide what goes where. Every site designer has also different ideas.

The menu on the right was actually on the back of testing and I took a lot of convincing as I like it on the left. Take your points though and issues should be identified during the next round of usability testing.