A year ago I embarked on a new journey with Out&About Marketing. The results have been very,very positive. I accomplished many of the goals I set for myself and learned a few lessons along the way. Overall, I have no regrets and I’m proud of the accomplishments.

Thank you to all of my clients who keep me on my toes, open my horizons and challenge me to learn more. You are all the best!

Thank you to all of my readers who visit my website, read and comment on my blog. Let’s keep the conversation going.

I learned so much throughout the year thanks to all of you – my clients, my readers, my social and real life friends and the hundreds of new friends I met online.  It’s been an absolutely incredible and motivating journey. Here are 10 lessons on starting a business, marketing for small businesses and social media marketing a year later:

1. The busier you are, the more you learn how to prioritize and optimize. I learned how to filter and aggregate content and how to go from spending hours online to only a few minutes a day. Social media can be a huge time investment. Learn how to manage your time and balance your day. And the most important skill of all is to learn to balance work with life. I have to say I managed to stay sane and have sufficient time to play and enjoy my life outside of ” computer time”.

2. Learn to elliminate 80% of the time you spent on unnecessary and non-important tasks and concentrate your effort on 20% of the things that are truly important for your business and for your life. It’s hard some days but you can do it. Limit your time to what’s truly important and get rid of everything else.

3. Social networking is great and really works when done correctly. One of my biggest appeal to social networking is the opportunity to make friends in real life. It’s rewarding to know you met someone on Twitter first and eventually you got to shake their hand in person. Introduce people to each other. Never forget that the Internet just opens the door for real relationships and true networking.

4. Never stop learning. Pick a tool each month and learn it. Maybe it’s WordPress, FourSquare, Evernote, Dropbox or Groupon. Whatever it’s the latest and greatest tool, invest time in learning it and seeing how it applies to your digital life or business. Don’t jump at all tools at once.

5. Every 6 months revisit your business plan/social media/marketing strategy and adjust as necessary. It’s one thing to have a plan. It’s different to actually follow it, measure your goals and adjust your strategy. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Learn from it and keep moving. Don’t waste too much time on worrying about being perfect. No one is.

6. Celebrate. Small things matter. Set monthly and weekly goals that you can measure and when you achieve them, congratulate yourself. Set the bar higher for the following month.

7. Create a compelling story. People don’t care about your product. They will identify with a good story and if they believe it they will consider purchasing your product. Don’t just sell them your stuff. Provide interesting and engaging content. Ask yourself not what you are going to gain from social networks but rather what are you going to contribute. What’s your story? How do you fit it?

8. Find your niche. Find your niche and your voice. What are you knowledgeable about and have an expert opinion on? What do you know that people want to know? What can you be the “google” of? Without a very targeted niche approach your marketing will get lost. Start small and think big.

9. Before jumping in social media – educate yourself. Read blogs, learn new tools, develop a strategy and adapt it. After a few months revisit your measurements and adjust as necessary. Start small and grow your efforts as you become more proficient with each network. Social networking works. Period. But don’t expect to see overnight success in terms of sales. Be patient. You didn’t wake up one day to a full house of kids. Or maybe you did. Most likely you went through the dating stage, the wedding, and eventually the kids. It’s the same with social networking.

10. What are you passionate about? Do you have passion for what you do? Can you carry your passion online in your blog, tweets, Facebook updates? They say Content is King. If you don’t have passion, content will be a chore. If you have passion, get yourself a Flip camera, start a blog and start producing quality content. You will start building an audience. Just remember #8. Find your niche.

What would you like to get from Out&About Marketing? How are you using the site? What advice do you have for the blog and for me? What is your biggest marketing and social media challenge?

Thank you for your feedback and for your time. Now I’m going to celebrate being one year old!!!

Photo Credit: Flickr.com by PatrickSmithPhotography

I recently returned from a short trip to San Francisco and I’d like to recommend a few places to stay and eat while in the city that you won’t be disappointed with.

1. The best place to stay in San Francisco is the Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf. You can see all of their reviews on TripAdvisor which confirm my recommendation for a top place to stay in the city. The location is excellent for both leisure and business. It’s close for a nice long walk by the water to the Ferry Building Marketplace, a fabulous place to explore Northern California local produce, breads, meats, seafood, oils, wines or grab a cup of nice coffee or taste some fresh oysters. Along the way, you will pass a few excellent options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Hyatt is also super close to a couple of cable car turns around and you can enjoy a beautiful sightseeing tour of the city. We enjoyed being able to walk just about anywhere in the city right from the hotel. It’s within a short walking distance from Ghirardelli Square, the Wharf, Pier 39,  North Beach, the Coit Tower, China Town and even Union Square. In addition to the excellent location, I love the modern and clean rooms and most of all the super comfortable bed. The staff is helpful and friendly and the stay is by all means very enjoyable. I haven’t found a better place in the city regardless of your trip purpose – it’s great for short or long visits to San Francisco or business trips.  The Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf wins my award for customer service – everyone I have met in their hotel understands what it means to provide superb customer service. With rooms rates starting at $149, this hotel is a definite winner if you are looking for a place to stay in San Francisco.

2. Nombe Restaurant – This restaurant came as a recommendation by a friend. We looked at each other in the taxi with questions in our eyes as we were approaching the location – in a most unassuming part of  San Francisco in the Mission District. From the outside, the place looked empty although we were told a reservation is necessary to get it. Once inside, the place opened up to a nice atmosphere, busy tables and a great dinner. They serve a big selection of sakes and a very interesting menu of tapas. By all means, get the chicken wings with honey and serrano chili sauce. They have some interesting dishes as well starting with different sashimi plates and ending with pork belly (done two different ways) and chicken gizzards and hearts. Reasonably priced, it all depends how much sake you drink. The staff is friendly. This restaurant just made the Top 100 restaurants in San Francisco. Check out their Yelp reviews.

3. Kokkari restaurant is by far the best Greek restaurant I have visited in the US. Again, via a recommendation from a friend we went there once and we’ll continue to return. The staff is super nice and on top of it, the food is superb, the atmosphere is great.  They have an extensive wine selection from the New World and from the Old World and scrumptious tapas and dinners. By all means, try their lamb – you can pick from lamb rib lets to shank, lamb organs and other delicious cuts. I would also recommend their whole fish and the grilled octupus. The Greek salad, fava beans and zucchinis are delicious too. I would love to return there with a large group of friends and take over their private room. Kokkari makes the perfect location for a special occasion or casual drink and some tapas at the bar. Check out their Yelp reviews and enjoy it. Make sure to make a reservation ahead of time.

Your turn. What places in San Francisco do you enjoy and recommend? Let me know what you think of these places if you visit them.

Look around your business for signs that may be sending the wrong message to your customers. They may be making perfect sense to you (are they really?) but you are turning away your customers by sending the wrong message out. Way too many businesses nowadays fall into the trap of announcing to to the world all of their rules, policies and regulations. If you have to have a sign, make sure you are informing your customers about something of importance to them and certainly not trying to tell them how unfriendly your place is or how many policies you have in place. Seriously, if I want to pay with $100 bill, be happy about it and use the opportunity to upsell me on something I didn’t expect I need.

A quick research revealed, Keva Juice’s website has not social networks available on it and a quick search on Facebook revealed 2 business fan pages with the official one being fanned by 1,839 people. It’s interesting to note that the “official” Keva Juice Facebook page is only geared towards 13 New Mexico locations. Now, I’m really confused as to what Keva Juice is really trying to accomplish with their brand. For comparison purposes, their main competitor, Jamba Juice has 375,887 fans. It’s possible they don’t have silly signs in their stores too. I know where I’m going next when I crave a smoothie. Your turn. Do you see signs (written or not) that leave you wondering if you are really welcomed at a particular business?

The New Customer is defined by the following characteristics:

1. I want it now and if I can’t have it now, I’m moving along. I’m certainly not waiting. I’m not waiting in line, I have no time.

2. I’m connected all the time – at home, at work, in the car, when I’m walking, eating out, partying.

3. I can Google everything and find the answers to everything in zero time.

4. I can compare prices, read reviews,  ask my friends for advice. I’m web savvy.

5. I’m informed, educated and know where to look for information. I can see through your marketing and advertising lies.

6. I have no patience. I want immediate gratification. Superior Customer Service. I want to be treated as an individual.

7. I am the NOW GENERATION.

Ask yourself – How is your company adapting to the New NOW Generation?

Great song!

So staying up late at night and working on weekends doesn’t bother me. I’m doing what I love and what I’m passionate about. I consider myself lucky. Very lucky. How about you? What are you passionate about?

The Good

This is a brilliant idea to get everyone associated with the travel & hospitality industries involved and engaged. It’s working. It’s a friendly competition and visitors bureaus, hotels, ski resorts and local businesses are showing their support and posting the contest on their own websites and Facebook pages.

At the writing of this post, the Travelocity Gnome fan page had 36,277 fans. Not bad at all. In addition to generating fans and buzz on social media, Travelocity is promoting their iPhone app on the page.

The Bad

1. You can vote as many times as you want. I can just imagine people sitting in their offices and clicking away on that button.

2. Travelocity is giving away a ski trip for two as an incentive for people to participate. Excellent idea! The bad – the contest is between Lake Tahoe and Utah and the ski trip is to Colorado??? I feel like they are sending me the message: Don’t go to either Utah nor Lake Tahoe. Head to Colorado – that’s where the best snow is. Very confusing to say the least.

3. My friends in Utah couldn’t access the Facebook page for a while – the application had some bugs that shut it down for some time. Technical difficulties or simply traffic overload.

4. My biggest problem with the contest – Lake Tahoe is only a small part of California and Nevada. Lake Tahoe VS Utah? It doesn’t seem fair to compare a ski destination against a state? Does it?

Overall, the contest is a very good idea for creating buzz on social media. It’s lacking however a little bit in the overall strategy and execution. I’m looking forward to see who’s going to come ahead. Currently, it’s 50% / 50%. Go vote today. I’m also looking forward to seeing the results of how successful the contest is for Travelocity.

Your turn. Did you vote? Do you like it? What do you think?

1. Video – YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Hulu has grown from 63 million streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009. (from Social Media Revolution video). 77% have watched an advertising on YouTube. (from Razorfish Digital Report 2009). 13 hours is the amount of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. 412 years is the amount of time it will take you to watch every video on YouTube. 100 million is the amount of YouTube videos watched daily. These and more interesting stats from What The F**K is social media presentation.  Video is here to stay. You can use it to sell your product, explain your idea, showcase your property. People prefer to watch instead of reading.  As a business, figure out how to embed video on your website, use video to sell your product or service, use video on online ads, explain your product and make sure your video is compatible on mobile phones.
2. Mobile - According to the Mobile Marketing Association total U.S. spend on mobile marketing will grow from $1.7 billion in 2009 to $2.16 billion in 2010. More and more companies are looking for ways to get to consumers on the only device they always carry with them – their cell phone. According to the Razorfish Digital report 2009, 57% access the Internet from their phone, 50%  have downloaded an app for their phone and 30% have interacted with an ad on their phone. Two major trends for mobile marketing this year are going to be Mobile Money and Mobile Ticketing. You will be able to send money abroad from your cell phone as well as purchase airline and other tickets on your phone and not have to carry paper print out with you. Mobile applications for businesses are huge – from text messages for your business to iPhone apps, this is going to be an exciting year for mobile marketing.
3. Location/ Social Networking – this trend focuses on geo enabled games and software from companies are Foursquare and Loopt. Social network sites where people (and companies) are going to be aware of each others surroundings. People are going to be able to connect with friends near you and companies are going to be able to provide relevant coupons and messages. You will be surrounded with information stream that is relevant to your behavior and current location. Twitter may be overtaken by these technologies in 2010 as companies try to attract people who are physically closer to their location. A very interesting and somewhat scary trend to watch in my opinion.

I promised a few people in the UNR social media class that I will make the stats available. So here you have it. Your turn. What trends and interesting social media or online marketing stats do you want to share?

Cross country skiing Lake Tahoe

Winter is definitely here and it looks like it will be a nice White Christmas for everyone in Lake Tahoe.  Let’s see what Lake Tahoe ski resorts are reporting for snow accumulations on their websites:

On the North Shore:

1. Alpine Meadows reports 54″ of new snow.

2. Squaw Valley reports 42″ of snow storm total.

3. Sugar Bowl which usually tends to get the most snow as it gets hit first with fronts from the West is reporting 29″-44″ of snow storm total.

4. Northstar at Tahoe website reports 43″ of storm total as of the writing of this post.

5. Mt Rose is reporting a snow storm total of 32-42″.

6. Diamond Peak received 30″ – 40″ of snow. As we are not open yet, we haven’t started to report conditions on a daily basis. I  know I have been shoveling and blowing the driveway for the past few days and my arms are so sore that I can barely type on the computer. I received 32″+ at my house which is is at 7,800 feet.

On the South Shore of Lake Tahoe:

1.  Sierra at Tahoe seems to have picked up the most, a total of 71″ of snow so far.

2. Heavenly appears to have received a little bit less than Sierra at Tahoe, 35-60″ of snow storm total.

3. Kirkwood is reporting 36″-48″ of snow storm total.

Now, let’s take a look at how lake Tahoe ski resorts are getting the message out with using social media.

On the North Shore:

1. Squaw Valley’s latest update was from Thursday. They must be too busy skiing or shoveling.

2. Alpine Meadows, Sugar Bowl, Mt Rose and Diamond Peak are on top if it with recent updates.

3. Northstar at Tahoe is definitely behind. Last update from last Tuesday. Come on people, this is your chance to get the message out to your fans.

On the South Shore:

1. Heavenly has a nice video with the snow report on their fan page. Good job!

2. Kirkwood has recent updates but they are about the Tahoe film festival and not snow conditions.

3. Sierra at Tahoe is on top of it with recent updates and actual photos. Nice!

Now let’s take a look at

On the North Shore:

1. All ski resorts are updating their Twitter accounts. It would be nice to see more pics and videos attached with the updates and more emphasis on conditions and less emphasis on the greatest and latest marketing program they have going on.

On the South Shore:

1. Kirkwood, Heavenly and Sierra at Tahoe are updating their Twitter accounts. I’ d like to see the same change on social media messages: more updates with pics and videos and less talk about the latest marketing ploy.

5 quick lessons based on today’s research:

1. Social media is instantaneous and people expect constant updates.
2. Social media is transparent. If you are reporting 7 feet of snow and you only received 5, people will find out that you are being dishonest and will do the reporting for you with photos and videos. Don’t lose their trust.
3. Make updating of social networks a daily task.
4. Being honest and transparent is the best approach on social media.
5. Keep your social networks fresh with up to date pics and videos. People want to see for themselves the conditions. Especially important when Lake Tahoe is on the national news!

Deep snow means happy holiday season for the ski resorts. This storm couldn’t have come in a better time, right before the holidays. Enjoy the powder and have a great holiday season. Hopefully, the ski resorts will beat the recession and the economy concerns this holiday season with  help from Mother Nature.Keep it real, stay honest and bring people back this season by providing a great experience.

Your turn. Where do you go get updates about a ski resort?

Happy Holidays from Out&About Marketing, An Inside view on the Outside world!

Click Here to See the Video

In summary:

1. Decide faster. People are making decisions a lot faster than they used to. Instead of booking their vacations 6-8 months in advance they are waiting to book up to a week in advance. Vail Resorts experienced a boost in their lodging occupancy from 50% to 80% in just one week before Christmas. As a result, they decided to change the way they advertise the mountains as well. Good thinking!
2. Adapt or die. Vail Resorts realized that they need to adapt together with the consumer or face the consequences. People want to receive information faster, make decisions faster, get the deals now. Instead of committing to messages 6-8 months in advance, it’s smarter for a business to wait and see what message they want to put out there next week. It will be more relevant to your guests, more real and more in line with the state of the economy. You don’t want to leave money on the table yet you need the business.
3. Traditional media is being replaced by social and online marketing. Vail Resorts reduced their print budget by 80%. Wow! They are still planning on spending it just in different places. I hope they do because now is the time to build mind share. Be smart about your marketing, stay aggressive and continue to remind your guests about your brand. The companies that manage to do this wisely will win when the economy improves.
4. Work together as a team. By getting the message out online and in social media you can constantly change it to report conditions, tackle slow periods, get the word out about a special event you didn’t anticipate having. Get your departments to work together as a team to have one consistent message. Your social media, PR department, web department and marketing department need to work all together to produce one strong and memorable message. Smaller businesses have the advantage of being able to coordinate this faster as they don’t have that many departments to begin with.
5. The importance of the message. Brand advertising is being replaced by a shorter term, more sales oriented message. People are interested in deals and having a more retail approach is key in this economy. Incorporate your brand with the message and always have a call to action in it.

How is your business changing to the economy and the recent marketing developments? Are you adapting or getting ready to close the doors? If you were the Vail Resorts CEO what would you do?

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Photo credit: Jeff Engerbretson

I’m speaking tomorrow at the North Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Club. I’m looking forward to hearing the key note speaker, Bob Roberts from the California Ski Industry Association as well as seeing my colleagues in the industry. I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the start of a new season. In my presentation I’d like to make three points that I’m passionate about and keep me up at night.

3 things that in my opinion can help your ski resort in today’s economy succeed. 3 things that we as marketers and business owners need to invest in, understand and encourage.

1. Invest in Customer Service. This is one sure way to generate positive word of mouth. In this tough economy our customers demand better than ever customer service. I continue to get disappointed every time I go to San Francisco and visit the retail environment there.  Invest in customer service training for your employees. It will pay off for your business in the long run. Track customer service with surveys. Award your best performing employees.  Establish benchmarks. At Diamond Peak we have a mystery guest program where I personally select a customer for the day to keep an eye out for employees going above and beyond their regular line of duty. Once they spot this special employee they hand him/her a card with $25 bucks they can use anywhere at the resort. Coming from the customer, the message is a lot stronger than coming from their supervisor. We don’t announce the program to our employees; we let word of mouth spread it every year.  This program is extremely successful. In addition, we have mandatory customer service training that is taught by our General Manager at the beginning of the season. With every ticket purchased we hand out a card asking our skiers to go online and fill out a survey. We pride ourselves on high customer service and it’s one parameter in the customer experience we feel is within our control. People like to be treated nicely. They expect it and demand it. They tell their friends about it. Don’t disappoint them. Understand the Power of One – that one individual can make or break their day and you can win or lose a customer for life.
2. Understand the power of Social Media and Word of Mouth Marketing. Now is the time to embrace new technology and the new ways people are demanding information and seeking to engage with brands. 44% of the online population is engaged on social networks. Close to 20% of the adult online population are word of mouth marketing influencers and this number is expected to grow in the coming years. Facebook is the number 3 website in terms of traffic, just past Google and Yahoo and before MSN, Live.com, Amazon, eBay and Graigslist. Your business needs to have presence on social media networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, FourSquare. You need to have a blog. Start building your online community. Start practicing “permission marketing” like Seth Godin refers to it. Ask people for permission to market to them. Stop interrupting them. It’s a vicious cycle when you try to shout at people and interrupt conversations. Don’t use the traditional marketing approach in the new media – it won’t work. People will turn you off. They will stop following you and stop being your friend. The ski resort industry is in a good position to show how fun and memorable the sport is. Use new media to get the image out and tap into people’s emotions with videos, photos and more user generated content. At Diamond Peak we are actively engaging with people on social networks. We are having fun doing it while establishing trust with our customers. Once they trust us they will be more likely to come and ski at our resort too.  Join in the conversation. Friend us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and watch our videos on YouTube. Let’s have some fun. Skiing is about fun.
3. CEOs and Business Owners – Encourage Smart, Honest, Aggressive, Transparent, Permission Marketing. Marketers – get 5-6 smart people in a room and start brainstorming how to increase your market share, create memorable programs, cut cost and stand out. Let’s be honest about our snow reports and ski conditions. Guess what? People can and will report ski conditions for us, right from the slopes. They will post videos, Facebook updates, Twitter posts, photos and write blogs about their experience. Now is the time to be more aggressive with our marketing efforts. The Bay Area is close and yet miles away when it comes to trying to convince a family to come and ski. We are competing for attention with other industries, other brands, other ski resort destinations.  It’s easier for a family to put the kids in front of the TV and play Wii or in front of the computer than to plan a trip to Lake Tahoe. Now is the time to build mind share. When the economy improves, and it will, they will remember us and the mind share will turn into a wallet share. Diamond Peak is known as Your Tahoe Place for kids and beginners. Diamond Peak has friendly staff. Diamond Peak created a new product this year called The Holiday Season Pass. Instead of blacking out the pass during the holidays when it may be the only time people can drive up for a ski vacation, we developed a product that’s good only during the holidays – 28 days for $249. That’s less than $9/day. Unheard of, right? Different? And finally, Diamond Peak has the most unique event in the Tahoe Basin – Last Tracks. We have some great programs in place for our customers to start the word of mouth marketing. You can discover them all at diamondpeak.com and help us spread the word – tell your friends and family about them.

To help with the networking and learning from each other I started a marketing chat room on Twitter with the hashtag of #mrktchat. It runs for an hour every Thursday at 2pm  PST. I hope you can all join us and we can all learn together as we are trying to figure out the new technology and tools available to us as marketers in the travel and tourism industry.

What are your thoughts? How are you getting ready for this season and this economy? What are you doing differently? What keeps you up at night?