The Tasks

Task One: session 2

Keely now. First of all I have to say that the tips were very good. Have you been sending them out?

Yes, those two that I sent you have already gone out.

Have you had anything back? Any results..?

It’s been a bit mixed. I have a problem with my email account whereby I seem to get spammed by a lot of companies. So I’m having a lot of problems with bounce backs, but I have read receipts on and 95% of the people have opened it and read it, and one who emailed me to say please remove me from your list. But I haven’t actually had any direct email responses. No one’s actually emailed me back to say, this is great.

Again, it’s a long term process. You’re sending these tips to warm people up and let them know who you are. You’re obviously in a very competitive market, just in the travel industry generally. But, 95% opened, is pretty good.

Yeah, I felt quite good actually as I was watching all the read receipts drop into my inbox. I was quite happy about that. But the main thing for me at the moment is getting caught in spam filters. I’m trying ways to get around that, but the problem is if they pick up my address and class it as spam, there’s not much I can do.

Are you sending it from an info@ or something like that?

I’ve tried mixing it. I’ve sent it from info@ and I’ve sent it from my own personal @bidabooking email address. I’m in two minds, and I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, as to whether it would be beneficial to set up a Gmail or Hotmail account and try sending them through there.

I think the company address is good if you can do it. I think a gmail or hotmail one looks a bit amateurish. And again I think a name is better than info@ or enquiries@. But 95% as an open rate is pretty good so I wouldn’t worry too much.

You said that you had the choice between women’s own magazine and one of the Sunday newspapers?

Yeah, the Mirror does a Sunday supplement which is holidays and homes. I think really the sort of idea that I’ve gone with, the whole travel expert with tips and stuff, answering readers’ questions, probably fits more with something like women’s own. I think I’d have to re-look at the angle for the other.

Have you approached either of them yet?

No.

Well, I saw your proposal, and that looked great. It’s great written down, but I think quite often these things need to be broached on the phone first of all. It’s great that you’ve got it straight in your head, but on the phone, that’s when it becomes fluid.

Just get on with it really, that’s the thing; and even though you’ve got two, there’s no reason you can’t approach Women’s Own and say, I’ll leave this with you for ten days, but after that we have someone else in mind, we’ll take it there.

Said in the nicest possible way... But even if they don’t make a decision in ten days, because sometimes they have to go to editorial board meeting and so on, at least you can expect some sort of interest, even if they can’t commit themselves quite yet.

Yeah, and with approaching them, obviously I’ve built up this media list, and I’m generally, depending on what type of publication it is. I’m going for travel editors, feature editors, women or lifestyle editors. They’re the areas in which I’m feeling I’d be more likely to be featured or considered. It’s not technically newsworthy at this moment in time; we haven’t got any striking statistics to give them. Would that be the person I’d need to go to, for example if I’m going to phone them and put this pitch to them?

Yeah, they may say yes they like it, but actually it’s more of a promotional thing. I would say the first person in the first instance should be the travel editor. Any other questions about what you’re currently doing?

Nope. The only thing with me is that I think I’m too close to it to be objective sometimes. I have to sit with my friends and say, come on guys, give me some ideas on tips. Because I’ll try and do article writing on a regular basis as well for the web to build links, but as I say, I’m so close I sometimes can’t think of what tips to give.

What articles have you done?

I’ve done them based on the property owners’ side more than the holiday side. So it’s things about how to get the most out of your property. What you should include in your advert, why photos make a difference.

So you’re trying to recruit holiday home owners as well?

Yeah, it’s a double edged sword, and it’s a very thin balance of getting an even number on.

Okay, so do you tend to have clusters of holiday homes in particular destinations?

Yes

Okay, so just from a search point of view, if you were looking for a holiday home in Bordeaux for instance, you would tap that in. So if you have clusters of holiday homes in certain areas perhaps that would be good to write articles around those places...

I was thinking about that, but I wasn’t sure whether than was the right angle to go for in terms of coverage for us. The strategy I had was to start with Spain and Portugal as the first points, and then build up with different countries as they go along. As it’s happened, I’ve got properties from all over the world.

Well, also, you could forget about writing it. Get your owners to contribute. Ask every holiday homeowner for three secrets about their area that people wouldn’t find in a travel brochure and collate them and put them in a release. It could be ‘great places to eat out’, ‘a hidden cove’, things like that... That would save you so much time, and from their point of view, most people who own a holiday home are desperate to talk about those types of things.

So you could do that as a web-orientated thing, but also use the content to create tips for different areas, and perhaps start approaching travel magazines and travel writers with them when you feel you’ve got enough on a particular area. The other thing is if you’ve got areas that are in wine regions you could think about food and wine magazines.

I did pick up one or two of those as I’ve been putting my media list together, kind of food and travel magazines.

There’s a magazine called France, and that regularly writes about different regions, part holiday, part property magazine. It’s a strange one, but might be worth a look. So that should sort you out on the article front. The other thing I wanted to mention is Twitter, are you a twitterer?

Yes. I’ve got it linked through a Facebook fan page, so every day I post a hot property and one that’s ending soon and a new one, and I try and pick up a few articles that relate to travel and holidays. I’ve got a blog for the company that’s linked in as well. So those tips that I’ve written, I’ve posted on my blog page, which in turn is linked to my Facebook page, which is linked to my Twitter.

You might be already doing this, but specifically look up travel journalists to follow.

I’d started to, I hadn’t a lot until our first call, but now I’ve started to pick up different people and follow a few.

Excellent! So, Keely, anything else that you wanted to ask?

I think most things are covered. I think my main concern was my whole media list and the bounce.

Sometimes they’ll say spam, but it could just be that they’ve moved on. People do move on very quickly in the media, especially in the larger companies, because they like to move people around. And 95% open rate, I think that’s pretty good so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

And there’s one other thing actually, I’ve managed to get a joint venture with an auxiliary service company that covers about 55 countries. They’re in the process of building their white label service to link in with my site, so it’s something that’ll be promoted to my users. But I didn’t know if that could be something that we could PR. I suppose I could use it as a standard press release, as in, we’ve formed a partnership and we’re going to be offering that. But I didn’t know whether there was another way that I could incorporate it into the other things I’m doing.

It’s not getting me excited, I’m sorry... what are you selling? You’re selling experiences of a lifetime really; holidays, destinations, wine, food, sea, mountains... or you’re selling the opportunity for people to make money out of a house that they have standing empty. I think it’s the human experiences that you’re best to concentrate on. Sorry.