Web Marketing

Federica Galati

Travel agencies and tour operators SOC2RB011 16th April 2012

Table of contents
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 2 Web Marketing ....................................................................................................................... 1 3 The opinion of a business operator..................................................................................... 3 4 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 6 5 References ............................................................................................................................... 6

1 Introduction
The last few years saw a host of emerging technologies emerge in a fragmented form. The mobile phone, the laptop computer, the tablet and electronic mail systems seem to come together into flexible, quick and easy-to-use communication and information systems. The internet is today a business tool, especially in the tourism field. The business use of the worldwide network mostly involves information gathering with relatively few organizations actually purchasing products or services over the internet. Successful companies look at the internet as an opportunity to redefine the rules of business and the roles they play in providing new and better solutions and the new technology allows you in some cases to directly access manufactures, and save money by avoiding costs of intermediaries. The sale of products and services through this new channel requires a new type of successful internet strategy done via e-mail and wireless media: Web Marketing. Internet marketing allows firms to develop new products and services and new market opportunities. By re-engineering business operations and service delivery, it brings added value and alters economies of scale. It can free work functions from location and time constraints, and by reorganising management structures, lead to flatter, leaner organisations. In the XXI century the use of the Web to search information about train timetables, available hotels, etc. etc. increseas every day and a professional business operator should be able to be closer the customers' needs.

2 Web Marketing
Web Marketing, also know as internet marketing, online marketing, webvertising, or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing (generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. Web Marketing is considered to be broad in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet,

but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Web Marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, adve rtising and sales. The basic strategy of a project of Web Marketing is to get the maximum visibility of the website. Consistent with the objective, the best method is to bring your website to the top of the results pages of a search engine in order to make them more visible than those of competitors and therefore preferable. An excellent Web Marketing campaign should be three factors: Brand and Reputation: the business operator must decide the meanings and emotions that you want to communicate to users when they look, visit, and hear about your e-commerce site; be characterized by a specific meaning, which brings out its strenght points, is the first step to business success on the Network. Furthermore, it's important to work on the own online reputation, that is all the qualities perceived by users about e-commerce and the brand. The reviews and ratings that users and clients express about the company, products and e-commerce are included in the online reputation. Online advertising: in the online sales the objectives of advertising are of three types: to introduce new users to the site, acquire new costumers and back to casual visitors. The online user must trust the site and the company and before making a purchase he often returns to the site several times clicking on ads. Thus, a good advertising campaign on the Web should be structured and designed to last long time enough to create confidence. Placement on search engines: this is the most important factor in the long term. A professional business operator must make an advanced SEO campaign to obtain relevant results and excellent positions in the search engines. The term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means all the activities designed to increase the volume of traffic a website receives from search engines. As an Internet Marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. This kind of optimization is part of a complex activity: Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

When a good Web Marketing Manager really wants to work through the Web Marketing absolutely must work on all three factors mentioned above to obtain excellent results.

3 The opinion of a business operator

Giovanni Cerminara is an advisor about Web Marketing and Social Media Marketing in the tourism field. As all business operators, he watches the new dynamics of communication about the e-tourism and the evolution of travellers and then defines and supports web communication plans. The following interview shows how a professional tourist business operator should be able to understand the customers' needs and how the travel agencies of the XXI century are changing their role. 1) What is your personal definition of Web Marketing and its decisive factors? Web Marketing is branch of a Marketing plan, and it is concerning the strategy on web to get the marketing aims by using different tools such as: web-site, social media, landing page, advertising and so on. The decisive factors are depending from the strategy. In other words a clear strategy gives to the management the right factors (or tools) to increase or enhance respectively income or brand awareness. 2) The rule of a good Web Marketing Manager: A good Marketing Manager must plan all the web marketing activities in relation of the budget allocated for them. Afterwards a Web Marketing Manager has to decide which human resources employ for, and then choose which web suppliers can help him to get the goals. Working as Web Marketing Manager means starting with a web research and finishing with a web research, because in a web project there are always something to achieve or to improve. From SEO Analysis and operative SEO to SEM,

from Social Media developping to Social Media Management. From Seo Monitoring to Ads Campaing Monitoring (in case). Moreover he/she is ables to undestand which tools has to use to manage critical situation and at the end but not for last, Web Marketing Manager must pay attention day by day (in the real sense of the word) where the world wide web is going. 3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of a booking online? BOL system are great tools to increase direct selling (of course users must be arrived on the web site thanks to the web strategy), and it works very well if they are wellintergreted with web site. I think that disavantages are connected of the type of the BOL an Travel Agency is using. BOL are not all the same but there are a lot of differences: payment method, integration with web site, customization and flexibility. 4) There are some differences between the Web Marketing of a Tour operator and a Travel agencies? In my opinion the differences are on the communication of the brand! 5) Despite the absence of human contact, a Web Marketing Manager can understand his customers? For sure! Web Analytics, Social Media and monitoring tools can help the management not only to understand customers but also approaching with them. 6) How can the Travel agencies test their perfomance? In Web Marketing almost everything can be misurable. If efforts are going in the right way web site statistics will boost massively, request of contacts will increase, revenue will increase. It's possible to calculate a ROI for each action! If I just finished a marketing campaign of a Weekend in Italy, I can verify how many packages sold or how many informations they asked for. In number: Weekend in Tuscany for 2 pax price: 500 - Campaign on Google 1000, Landing Page 750, users arrived from Google (SEM or organic search) 2000, Weekend Package sold 150. ROI= (40*500 Gain from Investment) (1,000+750 Cost of Investment)/ 1,750 (Cost of Investment) = 20,000-1,750/1750=10,43. (gained 10,43 times the investment).

It is possible to know how many users are arrived on the site, the duration of the visit, and so on! 7) The last statistics show a growth of using mobile phones in the Web to search information about train timetables, available hotels, etc. etc. This growth needs more information very quickly and closer the customers' needs. Are the search engines able to give a replay to this needs? It dipends about your Seach Engine Optimization! Mobile Seo is pretty similar to Mobile Desktop. 8) As a business operator, are you making the online marketing of the XXI century closer the customers' needs? Yes, I'm doing. 9) According to a Forrester Research report of 2011, the 28% of American Tourists that booked their online trip, confirmed that they need a traditional travel agency for their booking. We can find the same uncertainty in 2012? If yes, why? The Travel agencies will disappear or they will change? Yes we can find the same uncertainty, also worst than 2011. Users, year by year, are improving their Internet abilities. They will find everything on Internet. From the other hand the Online Travel Agencies are enhancing their own services making more easy and safe to book online. Travel Agencies will change, they have to.

4 Conclusion
Today Web Marketing is a growing business mainly because more and more people use the internet every day. Internet is the base of marketing. Many surveys show that people are shopping around on a number of travel websites before narrowing down their search. This means that an activity, in 2012, can not do without the Net. The website is the first contact a travel business operator has with his customer, so it must be the first step in the promotion. These new trends have led to a new way to be Travel Agencies.

The online travel demand will increase more and more and therefore it becames significant to undestand and anticipate customers' needs and to achieve the customer satisfaction. Thus, the main skills required to a Travel Agency of today are: ability to intercept and detect needs and expectations of the customer (better managing relationships and loyalty); management of the different channels of communication for the promotion and the organization of work; knowledge of the main tools and the use of Internet.

5 References
Janal, Daniel S. 1998. Online marketing handbook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing http://www.giovannicerminara.com/