Reader Letter - Marketing an Online Directory

Dear Deborah

How do I use the internet to market my new festive online directory for hotels and restaurants?

Chris George
HotelChristmasBreaks.com

Hi Chris

Thanks for question. It seems that you have a a chicken and egg situation. You need restaurants and hotels to subscribe to the site, and you need visitors to come and use the directory. There isn't any value to visitors, if there aren't a good selection of hotels and restaurants. Similarly, hotels and restaurants will not pay to go on the site if there is no proof of traffic and results. My advice is start with the hotels and restaurants and offer the service free of charge for 1 year. How do you market to the hotels and restaurants and avoid heavy advertising costs? I would email and call hotels and restaurants personally. Make sure you web site is search engine optimised and you could also try google adwords.

Next you need to get visitors to the site. The search engine optimisation and google adwords will be highly valuable in this area. Each month gather statistics from your site - Number of visitors, no of searches, what they searched for, for example. Ensure you have a method of measuring whether visitors acted on the information and contacted the restaurant or hotel. You will then be able to use those statistics to sell a years subscription to new clients, but also to those who are on the free subscription.

Best of luck with the site, and let me know how you get on!

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