Owned Media vs. Traditional Marketing

Owned Media vs. Traditional Marketing
By: Gregg Marzano

Over the past two years I have been retained by companies and organizations to help them understand social media and how it can help their small businesses compete with the big guys. Well, not to say that Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Foursquare can replace the expertise and convenience of having a PR firm at your disposal, but today small business owners are beginning to embrace the concept of “Owned Media” and learning how to deliver this content to their niche audience.

Historically, small business owners that provided product direct to consumers bought an ad in the local paper or billboard on a busy highway and accepted the ROI, even though they knew they were exposing their products to many eyeballs that may never use their products. Today, we can build our database and customer contacts with affordable customer relation management software, and deliver our message affordably and regularly to our core audience in a matter of moments. In addition, many new message delivering tools are out there including social media networks and blogs.

Recently, I hosted a mommyblogger day for Dutch Springs Aqua Park and NorthStar Adventure. I invited bloggers from around the tri-state area to visit the park with their family. Each of the participants has surprised me with their writing skills and hunger to communicate their recommendations to their loyal following. Cameras in hand and children by their side they click and play and chat with employees to get a feel for the park. Each blogger has thousands of Facebook friends, Twitter followers and loyal RSS feeds that read their blogs and buy from their recommendations. These mommybloggers and bloggers in any field are creating their “Owned Media” library and publishing content for those of us interested in what they have to say. As an emerging media, few blogs have been sold to date, but realistically the databases of these blogs and the content of the authors has some real value.

Creating affordable ways to deliver your message to your audience has always been the secret behind a successful small business. Word of Mouth has been relied on to market a business since the dawn of time. Now this loyal recommendation is being called World of Mouth, since so many more people get to hear what is being said about your business.
I truly recommend learning as much as you can about social media and how it can impact your professional and personal life.

Gregg Marzano is owner of Rainmakers Lehigh Valley, a consulting and business development firm specializing in the lodging and tourism business. Gregg is an adjunct faculty member of Northampton Community College, and teaches in the Hotel and Restaurant Division. He is an active member of ASTD and is Treasure of the Eastern PA Chapter.

Pet Friendly Hotels. Do They Make Sense?

Just got a tweet from Poconos Visitors Bureau announcing that another hotel/resort, The Inn at Pocono Manor, had gone "Pet Friendly!" An exclamation point at the end of the sentence indicates that they think this is a good idea. I on the other hand, not so much. Look, pets are great and I agree that leaving them in a kennel is hardly a vacation for your "best friend" or in some cases, your "baby", but think of all the other people in the hotel who have not signed on, to spend their vacation, business meeting, or romantic getaway in a hotel that accommodates pets. These are tough times for hotels as the recession continues to drag on and every market is being looked at very closely to find new business. I get that, but at the end of the day/night is the ROI really there. And if it is not, why do it? I guess my big objection is that most hotels/resorts are still struggling with being guest friendly so how can they go ahead and tackle being pet friendly. Custom room service menus for gourmet dog food with a hotel logo dog bowl, would be cute, if I knew my room service order was going to be perfect and the trays not left in the hallway till noon the next morning. The assurance that the room was deep cleaned after the guests with pets left would be comforting, if I was not routinely picking up pen caps, mint wrappers, etc, form under the bed when I go to make sure I left nothing behind. If a hotel wants to be pet friendly, here are two suggestions:
Put a kennel on the property with an activities director and vet on call.
Have a patio for outside dining for the pet and their family to visit and dine.
I find it interesting that 20 years ago when I sold for hotels that regularly had dog and cat shows, the hotel was looked down on by upscale customers, now the upscale customers are the ones that are suppose to pay for the $100 cleaning fee, gourmet dog food and custom logo dog bowl.

A subsciber's advice to the Morning Call newspaper

I have been a subscriber/reader of the Morning Call since taking my first job in the Lehigh Valley in 1989 at the old George Washington Lodge on McArthur Rd. The paper does a better job than anyone turning over leads for sales professionals in the tourism business. They get all the news and PR releases before anyone else and their stories in the morning paper are a great source. Often the fact that I have read the paper by 7AM allows my first sales call at 8:30AM to be the one early bird that catches the worm.. With that said, one of my recent pet peeves with the paper is their decision not to send a reporter on the road with the Phillies Major League Baseball team. As much as I am sure there are fiscal concerns, I also understand that every decision has a financial impact and one is chosen over another for many reasons. I must say, reading an AP report on the Phillies is painful. Odds are if someone is reading the paper in this day and age, they are looking for insight and content not how the runs were scored. Mandy Housenick has done an exceptional job in her short couple of years covering the team and making the hard task of getting something out of the players and coaches that we didn't learn on tv or on the internet. Having Mandy at only the home games, probably makes the Morning Call a second class citizen when it comes to getting the behind the scenes news. I hope you will give some thought to this idea of sending Mandy on the road. Also, I have a few thoughts on the real estate section, but will leave that for another day....

Lehigh Valley Tourism Tournament

Lehigh Valley Tourism Top 64 Attractions March Madness Style
I got to thinking about how many great places we have to see and things to do in our region and before you know it, I was up to 64 different events, museums, festivals, waterparks,zoos, etc. So I placed them in geographical regions, Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and Lehigh Valley. Ranked them 1-16 in each region and now hope to get some feedback as to who gets to the sweet 16 and beyond. Some interesting matchups early on...I posted the bracket at http://tinyurl.com/y9dxlqd.

New AirTran Routes To Put Lehigh Valley On The Map

Local Lehigh Valley Tourism To Benefit From New AirTran Routes.

When I first saw the press release from Lehigh Valley International Airport’s business development director Susan Kittle about the new AirTran routes to Atlanta it did not make a major impression with me. It seemed like the usual slow growth strategies we have grown accustom to when it comes to major airline announcements here in the Lehigh Valley. But thanks to another snow day, I had time to review the announcement in more detail. Daily service to Atlanta, leaving at 6AM and arriving in Atlanta by 8:00AM, makes the rest of the world’s travel destinations a reality leaving from our convenient, easy to navigate, security friendly, affordable parking home airport!

Imagine this: I can leave Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) at 6:00AM, and be in Los Angeles by 12:15PM for an afternoon meeting for $251 one way. The return trip of $190.40 brings me back to LVIA at 12:15AM the next day. Not that I would suggest this whirlwind travel trip, but hey for $441.80 (tax inc.) round trip this could make a lot of business travelers and their CFO’s very happy!

The flip side to this equation is how it opens up the Lehigh Valley and Poconos tourism markets! In the past this same flight into ABE would cost you $600+ (tax inc.) These higher prices would drive meeting business into Newark or Philadelphia airports and often cause meeting planners to choose a hotel or conference center closer to that airport for obvious reasons. Now if Olympus decides to bring all their sales associates into Center Valley, they can conveniently and affordably fly them into ABE.

If it keeps snowing, I will check out some other hot spots for a Spring Break!

Perfect Storm Delivers Big Results for Northeast Ski Resorts

Perfect Storm Delivers Big Results for Northeast Ski Resorts

If you think you have read all there is to know about snow after this past weekend, think twice. The story that will be hitting the airwaves and print media this week will revolve around a “Perfect Storm” of love, sport and cabin fever. While the traditional ski areas missed out on the monster storms of last weekend the Northeast resort managers are still having images of dollar signs dancing in their head! Here’s why….
Ever so often the February calendar aligns Valentine’s Day (February 14th) with the official President’s Holiday weekend (a quasi non-decipherable combination of President’s Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays), this year celebrated on February 15th. This tends to make the 2nd weekend in February the most popular weekend for ski resorts. Add a 30 inch snow storm 7 days earlier and a possible repeat three days later in the big cities of Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia and you have the making for historic lift lines at the Pocono and Lehigh Valley ski areas this upcoming weekend, not to mention $200+ room rates in the surrounding resorts and inns. If the room you want has a hot tub or fireplace you can guarantee it is not available! So if you are a skier or a romantic and have not made plans for this weekend, I say forget it. Do something romantic close to home, enjoy the long holiday preparing your taxes or painting the bathrooms. You can take that ski trip any of the other 4 weekends between now and St. Patrick’s day,and I promise you the lift lines will be shorter and your wallet a little fatter after the trip.