How to market timeshare online the smart way and survive the economic crisis

The current global financial crisis has forced businesses all over the world to pull their socks up and market themselves harder than ever before, and the timeshare market is definitely no exception. The pie is shrinking fast, and it is unfortunately impossible for everyone to continue to hold on to their slice.

What this means if you run a timeshare resort, is that you have to stretch your current marketing budget to the very limit.  You need to be ready to innovate and to embrace the very latest marketing tactics and to find new ways to market your business as efficiently as possible. In other words, you need to become absolutely serious about harnessing the full power of Internet marketing (and especially social network marketing) and you need to learn how to leverage that power to make every penny of your marketing budget work harder than ever.

Internet marketing gives you the edge for two main reasons: 1) it allows you to rope in whole online communities to help spread the word about your timeshare resort, and 2) your own staff can easily learn to do much of the online marketing themselves in otherwise ‘dead’ office time, 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, making your marketing budget go farther than ever before.

So, where do you begin?

Below we will present you with a point-by-point plan of action you should use to revolutionise your timeshare resort’s online marketing. We have only got space for an outline here, so be sure to follow the links to our other posts for more detail and lots tips and tricks about getting the most out of your online marketing. And, of course, feel free to contact us if you have any queries, or if you would like to discuss an online marketing plan specifically tailored to your timeshare resort.

Optimise your website

When you are running an effective Internet marketing strategy based on online ‘word-of-mouth’, it is quite common for people to decide to take action (such as contact you, schedule a visit to your resort, or possibly even buy timeshare) before they even visit your website. Nevertheless, your website is still the place where your online marketing will be directing people for the most part, and where much of the action actually happens, and so you have to make sure that it works in every way to encourage people to take that crucial step.

• Have a clean, easy navigation and simple web design. Avoid fancy bells and whistles, make sure your website loads fast and make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for.
• Make contact forms short  and simple, add photos of your staff and make sure your ‘about us’ page says who your directors are.
• Video is a powerful tool. Use it where possible to show the different aspects of your resort – your facilities, your guests (with their consent, of course) and your staff. Consider starting a podcast and make sure to post your videos on YouTube.
• Make sure you have clear, easy-to-follow directions to your timeshare resort posted on your website. A great way to do this is to use Google maps to provide step-by-step directions. Offer a printable version and be sure to include your telephone number.
• Offer in-depth information about the area around your resort. Keep your site updated with the latest news regarding events and attractions. And, of course, take lots of photos and post them up on your website and on your Flickr account.
• Add social bookmarking services like Facebook and twitter to the important pages of your website, to make it easy for your visitors to share them with their family and friends.
• Decide what action you want visitors to take on each page of your website. Is the goal to get people to make a booking, contact you, download a brochure, join your referral program, or something else? Guide your visitor with a clear call to action on each page, including highly visible links and button.
• Try new markets by developing specific landing pages aimed at different niche audiences and designed to press the right buttons for each niche. Use Pay-Per-Click advertising to send targetted traffic and test your new landing pages and use the successful ones to help you decide which markets to expand into.

Get into Social Media Networking

Social media marketing is the best way for you to build an online community made up of both current clients and prospective timeshare owners and visitors. Once you establish an online community of people with a common interest in your timeshare resort, they will do much of your marketing for you by simply interacting with each other, posting holiday photos and comments and so on. Banish all excuses from your mind and set aside 15 minutes a day to implement your social marketing plan by following these 8 simple steps and the tips below.

• Start twittering use HootSuite to manage multiple users
• Create a Facebook page for your resort and encourage owners to become fans and contribute.
• Add photos to Flickr, optimise them and join in the community.
• Start a Flickr Group, encourage guests to add their photos.
• Start a YouTube channel.
• Make a video of your resort, and post it to Youtube.
• Listen to what people are already saying about you and respond.
• Monitor your brand name with Google Alerts, so that you know whenever people are posting comments about you on the Web.
• Respond to feedback (positive and negative) on all your social networking sites and also especially on Trip Advisor.

Launch a referral program

The online community that you build via your social networks has the power to become your biggest lead generator, especially if your timeshare resort offers a good service with no pressure sales. Still, there is no harm in speeding up the process and boosting it further by launching a referral program.

• Create a referral landing page and make sure that all your social media, blog and website efforts lead to this page.
• Give your referral program the attention it deserves, both online and off line.
• Make sure your referral program is not just for owners but also guests, exchanges etc., to get yourself the maximum reach and benefit.

Optimise your blog and update it regularly

Your blog is one of the key components of your online marketing strategy. It helps people get to know your resort, it allows you to keep in touch with your readers and over time it also builds up a wealth of online content about your resort and location for the search engines to feast upon.

• Update your blog regularly with the latest news and photos about your timeshare resort, activities, and everything to do with the local scene. Remember many of your clients are owners that will know your staff and your business.
• Make sure your blog is search engine friendly. We highly recommend you purchase the Thesis Theme for WordPress for this purpose.
• Write killer headlines, and make sure you include all the necessary ingredients for successful blog posts.
• Add the relevant plug-ins to promote your blog and integrate it with your other social networking sites, including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Promote your blog on your social networks and also use your social networks to promote your blog.
• Start a separate destination blog that focuses on your timeshare resort´s location and use it to link back to your resort’s website and blog.

Search Marketing (SEO and PPC)

We don’t need to tell you that being found on the free search engine listings is a vital part of your online marketing strategy. Besides, you should also consider using some Pay-Per-Click advertising to boost your visibility for those keywords that your site is weak on, while you work to improve their search engine ranking.

• Focus on dominating local search keywords (for example, ‘timeshare resort costa del sol’ instead of just ‘timeshare resort’ or ‘timeshare resort spain’). Use Word Tracker to help you identify what keywords to use.
• Make sure your resort website has the right keywords in the right place (SEO).
• Appear in the Google Maps local business listings.
• Establish a web presence, not just a web site. If someone searches for your company or resort’s  name they should be able to find your website, blog, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
• Try Paid Search Marketing (Pay-Per-Click) and track your conversions so you can determine your ROI. We suggest you start with a small set of keywords and budget on Google Adwords. There is a lot to consider when setting up a successful pay-per-click campaign, but to begin with, you will have to focus on what PPC keywords to bid on and how to optimise your landing pages accordingly.

Measure your online marketing performance

Being able to chart your progress and know how well you are doing is both a key advantage of online marketing as well as an absolute must. The secret here is to focus your limited marketing resources on doing more of what works best for your timeshare resort and your target audience.

• Understand how Google Analytics can help with search optimization.
• Track referral source types and discover where your visitors are coming from.
• Know which websites refer the highest quality traffic and forge alliances with them.
• Track the number of social media mentions you get so that you know how well your efforts are paying off.
• Monitor your social media targets, such as number of fans on Facebook, number of YouTube video views (and what kind of videos are most popular), Flickr statistics and so on.
• Determine which strategies are working best so you do more of that and at the same time try and work harder on those that are lagging behind.

Make sure your staff is up to scratch

Your staff is of course the vital link to your clients, so you have to be sure they are 100% up to the job of communicating with your prospective clients without the typical sales pressure, and of keeping your owners and guests happy.

• Employ multicultural staff on a long term basis and encourage them to get involved in your Internet marketing.
• Educate, motivate and communicate with your staff about your marketing programs.
• Empower your staff to start their own blog, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube account and also to devote some time each day to contribute to your online marketing efforts.
• Make sure your staff is aware of all the information and promotions that you post online, so that they can adequately address queries from your visitors.
• Make sure your staff always responds immediately to enquiries in an attentive, personal way.

Some other ideas

• Provide free internet access from your resort through WiFi and guest computers.
• Add new entertainment hubs (with iPod docking, etc).
• Try renting out digital cameras and videos to your guests, or just hand out a few for free in exchange for some photo or video material for your blog.
• Experiment with permission-based mobile marketing.

And finally, a few do’s and don’ts

• Never offer gimmick ‘free’ holidays.
• Stop demanding that dreaded 60-90 minute tour and be more creative about how you get your staff to show people around your resort. Get your staff to mingle with the guests and make the tour invitation in a more casual way.
• Treat your sales force with respect and demand that they do the same with your owners and clients.
• Don’t use hard pressure sales techniques.
• Go the extra mile to make sure that your customers are happy and talk about you positively. Think of resort more in terms of a hotel, in that you need to keep on winning the loyalty of your guests and owners each and every time.

Summing up, there is a lot you should be doing to reap the endless benefits of promoting your timeshare resort online, while still staying within your budget. The secret of success is (as always, but more than ever in the current economic climate) to ensure 100% customer satisfaction and to turn your happy guests, owners and even prospective clients into an online community of evangelists for your timeshare resort. Remember that a positive recommendation from a friend or even from another user online is worth more than all the fancy websites and glossy brochures you could ever throw out there!

It’s time to roll up those sleeves and get to work on your online marketing. Don’t let crucial days and weeks slip by. Get started today!

And if you need any help, just give us a shout.

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