Watch for news about the launch of two new WordPress-Based Lodge websites

- and -

I have butterflies about the new website launch scheduled for March 3rd 8th To Be Announced !

This project is the culmination of almost two years research – it builds on information I’ve learned from Rick Butts from www.1catbiz.com, podcasts from Michael Campbell of www.internetmarketingsecrets.com, my Elite Membership with www.dynamicmedia.com, greatly inspired by the Tourism Keys Seminars by Todd Lucier, expanded by Barry Siskind – wh0 teaches ‘How to Make Trade Shows Work’.  Mentors like Mari Smith, Coach Deb – software like The Brain, WordPress,  phpmydirectory – Services like Ping.fm, Posterous.com, FriendFeed, OnlyWire and LifeStream.fm – And communties like Travelblogexchange.com.

Most importantly, this research was made possible by my Clients.

I have butterflies because this project is PayBack for all the Tourism Businesses who have encouraged me.

While I’m busy building, MAKE SURE you have subscribed to Tourismkeys.ca/blog.

More soon – Doug

Pre-Announcing: www.TourismMarketingVideos.com

A Glaring Need

Tourism Marketing Videos came to being in phases, as all good ideas do:

First, I saw a glaring need: Lodge Owners need help learning how to manage their websites.

Recently I’ve upgraded many of my clients’ websites to WordPress 2.7

Although their website is ten years old, many Lodge owners are just starting to Blog and update their own websites for the very first time.

I Can Help!

Second, I saw a way to offer much more help than I could provide on my own.

As I began researching what educational videos were available, I was – mostly – delighted with the results. I was delighted, because I started learning so much new information, I naturally started to bookmark and organize it.

Then a very curious thing started to happen;
My own personal marketing results began to change.

Without planning it, and without giving much thought to it, I had started to return to various bits of my video collection on a regular basis, and after a short while, I began realize this stuff was pretty cool!

I was making more sales but -
I still hadn’t realized the tremendous value
of the specialized collection of videos I was putting together.

Action Items and Examples

My marketing results were changing because I had taken action. I took the new knowledge and immediately put it to use.

This is so vital – but most people overlook it’s importance.

If you take action right away, take the new knowledge you’ve just learned and immediately put to use, you are 80% more likely to retain and use the new information in the future!

They don’t have to be big actions. Often, it takes less than 30 minutes to take one of these great ideas and increase your value!

Just 30 minutes to make VITAL changes to the presentation, layout, images or sales copy – and reap the ongoing rewards!

I can help you can do the same. www.TourismMarketingVideos.com

Relax, It’s Easier

Say you are a Fishing Lodge Owner, a Bed and Breakfast or the event organizer for the Annual Fishing Tournament; Relax, it’s easier to update your site than ever before.

Learn by Video

Stop reading manuals written by nerds. Sit back and watch a How To Video!

Back it With Action

Great marketing ideas are… great – but how can I put it into action if I’m not sure what my options are?

Good News! Tourism Marketing Videos offers new members an Introductory Tour that guides you through a sequence of educational clips to provide an Executive Overview of the range of the most important Internet Marketing strategies available today.

You may pause the Video Tour and start into the Action Items right away, follow through the entire sequence for an overview or jump off the Guided Tour at any time to investigate related videos.

Interested in Updates?

Opening Soon! Be the first to get updates on our Grand Opening Date.
Rolling Out Small

Limited Grand Opening

Only the first 100 get a spot.

This isn’t just a collection of easy-to-learn-from Educational Videos and Video Marketing Lessons for Camp Owners and Tourism Operators… and it’s more than real-world Actions you can take right now to make a difference in all aspects of your marketing…

Tourism Marketing Videos is a community of people. People who are your peers and colleges. They run a Tourism Business too. They do the “Song and Dance” at Sport Shows through the winter – and they have also been thrown into blogging, social media and running their own website.

Why Limit the Grand Opening?

Because I want to know and help each of you. I want to visit your website and learn what you offer, I want to invite you into our new Private, Members Only Community, and I want to help you start building your business assets by using the free and powerful Social Media tools.

www.TourismMarketingVideos.com

See you there!

This weekend I spent a few hours at my computer following the conversations of Internet Marketing and Social Media Guru’s who were attending a conference of Internet Marketers and Social Media Guru’s.

This was the first time I’ve used the conversational tools to participate – in real time – with the audience at a live seminar.

I am excited to work with the new Internet Tools I learned about, and, as I was preparing to write this post, I started to think about the ‘trickle down effect’ that was occuring with the information from the conference.

I don’t know how many people attended the conference, that does not matter. Because when just a few conference-goers like @marismith start Tweeting to their list of thousands – the information transfer becomes almost unthinkable in it’s potential scope.

Another exciting advancement – the ability to tune into the Live Ustream.tv video feed. What’s more, the video and audio are available for download after the conference is complete. (http://tinyurl.com/6s6aw3)

These days, these technologies are ghastly simple to implement and hold the same amazing potential of sharing your message – even for a computer newbie.

Sort Of Pushed Into It

Many of my Tourism clients feel almost as if they have been pushed into having to become fluent with the Internet. Many are still planning to spend 70% of their marketing budget on Sport Shows rather than Internet Marketing, while others have engaged themselves in the Internet entirely, and spend zero on Sport Shows.

This tells me that the industry is still early in it’s transition, and front-leaders will gain a significant advantage – very critical in today`s economy.

Fortunately, the Internet has become very much easier to use – and our industry has champions and leaders who are making it clear and simple for Tourism Business owners.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/ where you find cutting edge tourism marketing advice made simple and easy to understand. I especially recommend the audio podcasts; download them, bring them with you in your car or on an iPod while you walk.

Upcoming events of interest: The NOTO Convention in Dryden Ontario, where I hope to find a place for my laptop so I can Twitter-Report on my first event.

The rules of marketing are changing for the better.

My forthcoming Podcast, “How I Made 30K As A Spammer – And Why I Stopped” echos the very idea that is presented so well over at http://www.tribalseduction.com

My Social Media education started about a year ago when my 11 year-old daughter introduced me to Facebook, but I didn’t start serious consideration of it for marketing until I was preparing for the Tourism Keys seminar about eight months ago when I created MyWeb20List.com and InternetGuruWatch.com.

More recently I joined Twitter, and started to follow some of the Top Online Marketers and Marketing Instructors in Canada and abroad.

One particular favorite is @coachdeb, who is one of the opening speakers at Blog World Expo in September.

CoachDeb runs the site TribalSeduction.com, and teaches her subscribers Why Marketing Without Selling Is So Effective.

She is also the co-author of www.twitterhandbook.com

I recommend you follow @coachdeb and subscribe to her lists. If you can attend the Blog World Expo – register today and arrive early for a front-row seat on Day One!

I’m not attending in person, but I’ll be following tweets, twitpics and blog posts about all the speakers and workshops and presentations thoughout the event.

Looks like Saturday and Sunday will require a planned strategy in order to follow all the various presenters who are speaking in different rooms throughout the conference!

Cheers all

I’m always following the online updates of the best internet marketers I know.

Today, the Tourism Keys Blog “Internet Marketing for Tourism”, featured a post on

How to get deeper insights into google search results

In this article, Todd Lucier points out the power of the detailed location information on where the volume of searches originate from – so you can plan your next advertising campaign based on a focused keyword set.

Here’s an example:
I start with the most general search term, then I copy and paste the list of related search terms to a note pad file, and work my way down the related search terms by clicking on each one and saving notes. (Limiting my search to the USA)

• Walleye
• Quetico Park

Try phrases that seem similar:

• Fishing Lodge
• Fishing Cabin

Take An Evening (2 hours)
It will only take 30 mintues to an hour to collect a list of related keyword phrases that are used within the geographic region where your prime Tourism Guests live and work, then you’ll be armed with some great specific keyword phrases to help optimize your marketing to match how your guest are searching.

I have keyword phrases, now what?
Now the fun part! (1 hour)
Put those phrases on a sticky note beside your computer so you have them for easy referance when you are creating new content.

1. Login to your website and touch up the wording of your webpages slightly to include these keyword phrases within the paragraphs you already have on your page. Note: generally, there’s no need to create whole new pages for the new phrases you’ve uncovered.
2. Finally – update your Meta Tags for your website to include the new phrases. (like you can with Dynamic Site Builder)

That’s it!!
In one evening, thanks to the new tool, Google Insites, you can make your marketing message better suited to the geographic location of your best Tourism Guest!

Now that you have this new set of keyword phrases on a sticky note beside your computer, remember, you can continue to refer to your list for all your future marketing plans, including:

• when you re-name images
• when you write descriptions for your images
• when you create a business profile on a new site
• when you post videos you YouTube
• when you write new blog posts
• when you create your newsletter and brochures
• when you layout your Sport Show Booth

Cheers all!

[display_podcast]

Hi everybody and thanks for tuning in to the Internet Guru Watch Podcast by ipmal.com. I’m your host, Doug Lampi. My website can be found at ipmal.com.

When you get a moment if you haven’t already, sign up for my free tips newsletter where I cover more information on this same topic, and where I answer your questions on the Internet Guru Watch. Also, as part of my tips newsletter I give out exclusive resources that have been bookmarked by the top Internet marketing gurus and you don’t want to miss out on those.

You never know when I am going to talk about something that may help you. So go to your computer. Go to ipmal.com and sign up for the free tips newsletter now.

You know you are in great company of people from all over the world who are listening to the Internet Guru Watch. Our top listening countries are Canada and the United States. But this podcast is being listened to in all corners of the world. It’s just amazing. And it’s just amazing to get emails and success stories from people everywhere.

Thank you for listening to the Internet Guru Watch and for passing it along to all your friends and colleagues. Truly the Internet is such an amazing tool that anyone can use to share their passion and connect with similar minded people.

OK. So let’s get the show going. In each Internet Guru Watch podcast I introduce one new successful Internet marketer. We look in on their current projects and I collect any of their RSS feeds on ipmal.com so we can easily keep updated on their latest activities.

PART ONE

In this, the premier edition of the Internet Guru Watch, I’m going to feature one of the most consistent sources of cutting edge marketing strategies there are – Michael Campbell. For 136 months Michael Campbell has been publishing the Internet Marketing Secrets website and email newsletter.

In September of 2007, Michael started podcasting his newsletter. I highly recommend that you visit iTunes right now, search for Internet Marketing Secrets and subscribe to Michael Campbell’s podcast.

The last two podcasts by Michael Campbell were particularly interesting. In response to his recent survey, Michael has conducted a series of interviews to uncover the best traffic generation strategies, the biggest marketing pitfalls to avoid and some little-known tactics that most people underestimate.

Maybe you have heard of some of these heavy hitters that Michel Campbell interviews – Dr. Neil Shearing, Colin McDougall and Ginette Degner in the first podcast and Jerry West, Mike Liebner and Sherman Hu in the second podcast.

Each of these successful marketers that Michael interviews offers a unique and different approach to making money online. The first time I listened through these podcasts I was traveling in my car. The second time I listened, I was sitting at my computer, and I was able to implement the specific strategies as I listened through.

Just one week later, I’ve already received over 1000 unique visitors from new traffic sources that I set up in less than 30 minutes.

One of the reasons I have remained a loyal subscriber to the Internet Marketing Secrets newsletter is because Michael Campbell always provides real-world examples and he is enthusiastic about sharing statistics that demonstrate what really brings traffic.

But the biggest influence – his most important lesson – is that you should focus on gaining traffic for keyword phrases that people use when they are in the ‘buying’ frame of mind.

I recommend the Internet Marketing Secrets newsletter and podcast for three main groups of people – first of all for a business owner who contracts a web designer to do their website, second of all, for web designers and third of all, for the work-at-home entrepreneur.

PART TWO

In the second part of this inaugural Internet Guru Watch podcast, I’m going to feature a lesser known Internet marketing expert from Ontario Canada by the name of Todd Lucier.

Todd is a motivational speaker who has become an Internet marketing expert by jumping into the trenches and promoting his own tourism business.

He has given workshops and seminars for tourism-based businesses across Canada, from the Yukon to Newfoundland. Recently Todd completed another series of workshops that has become an annual event across northern Ontario. The participants in this sold-out venue learned about more than just website technology. In just a few hours we were introduced to a full range of various media that one can use to market online.

In his live, hands-on workshop Todd had us create a Gmail account and a blogger blog. We registered with Picasa and uploaded 12 to 15 sample images that we had been asked to bring along. Then we registered at animoto.com and used our images from Picasa to create an animated video with music.

Todd demonstrated how the video could be easily embedded into your blogger blog by copying and pasting a small bit of code. Starting from nothing, Todd showed us how easy it could be to create some pretty amazing content in just a few hours.

And to demonstrate just how far blogging technology has come, Todd snapped a picture with his cell phone and made a voice phone call. He spoke his message and hung up his phone and continued on with the seminar. A few minutes later, he refreshed the web page of his blog. And there was the photo of our seminar. In addition, his voice message had been transcribed to text and was included in the blog post.

Todd introduced us to Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feeds, and showed how travelers can subscribe to the RSS feed of your blog with a feed aggregator, such as iGoogle.

The two-day seminar was chock full of dozens of important and useful marketing technologies and strategies that could be used for tourism businesses. One of the biggest media types that Todd introduced – and that I had overlooked – is that of Google maps. But more than just publishing, Todd shared studies that helped shed insight on the shopping behaviors of people who are searching for a vacation.

While it’s easy for everyone to agree that a word-of-mouth referral is the single most powerful method for gaining new clientele, Todd pointed out a new opportunity to use social networking sites to connect with your customers and gain some new, free exposure with all of your customers’ friends and family.

You can find more information about Todd Lucier’s most recent workshops by visiting tourismkeys.ca.

You’ll also find that Todd is an active blogger. It’s part of my morning routine to look over Todd’s shoulder, so to speak, by checking his RSS feeds to which I have already subscribed. Visit tourismkeys.ca and click on the ‘blog’ link to follow along with this great marketing instructor.

With all the publishing media available online today, a typical search result page in Google can include a video from YouTube, a PDF document on scribd.com, a social bookmark on StumbleUpon, a listing from Wikipedia, and maybe a tag page from Propeller or WordPress.com.

It seems like marketing on the Internet has become more and more complex, and organizing and managing all of the various media forms can seem like an overwhelming task.

But the truth is, it’s easier to market online today than it has ever been before. All you need is a coordinated sequence of RSS feeds and you can power an entire content distribution network from one single source.

For example, you could use your digital camera to record yourself giving a brief tour of your facilities. With just one post, you can syndicate your video on over a dozen video sharing sites and automatically post your video to your network of blogs and update your Facebook page all at once. Your video is also converted to an audio podcast and transcribed into text that can be added to your blog later to gain even more natural search engine traffic.

Now, the process of setting up this network of sites so that you can power your videos on YouTube, your podcast on iTunes, your text, your blog post, your social networking sites and your opt in email newsletter all from one source, is easier than it might sound. However, it is a rather tedious process, and it does require a thoughtful organization of the various services that make it possible to tie everything together so neatly.

If you want to learn more about coordinating your online publishing, visit ipmal.com and click on the ‘Build Me a Network’ link.

Well that’s it for this episode of the Internet Guru Watch. Thanks for listening to this podcast and a special thanks to those who have shared this podcast with your friends and colleagues.

OK. The question I’m going to leave you with today is a bit of a survey. You can answer these questions in your head or you can visit ipmal.com, click on the ‘Survey’ link and see how your answers compare. Check off all that apply:

My website provides the following ways to connect with people:

• an email newsletter
• an RSS feed for subscribers
• a Facebook page or MySpace profile
• social bookmarking links like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Reddit
• a free download in exchange for contact information

So, how did your website compare in the survey? Did your website provide all of those five ways to connect with people and bring them back to read your marketing message a second time?

If your website isn’t performing the way you want, don’t worry. You can start today and in no time, you can start bringing new traffic and building relationships with new potential customers.

You can make this happen. I know you can.

So keep checking in on ipmal.com as I have been adding new Internet Gurus that you have suggested and a variety of services and products that could help you on your quest to have the better website marketing that you really do deserve.

I would love to help you out in any way that I can, and it might be something you would be interested in if you have listened your way through this podcast.

I’m now offering an exclusive marketing opportunity for tourism businesses in Canada. Visit ipmal.com and click on the ‘Build My Network’ link where you will be presented with two options. You can opt to have your own network of sites organized so you or your staff can manage your content distribution across the full range of media types, all from one post.

Or two, you can opt to test out the waters and have your content distributed across my network of 17 video sharing sites and 12 blogs and a one-year listing on five fishing lodge directory websites for a single one-time fee.

So, go to my website. And if you haven’t already, sign up for my free email newsletter. It’s free, and it provides a list of hot resources that have been bookmarked by the Internet gurus we watch.

Thank you so much for joining in today. Please pass this podcast along to friends and colleagues and thanks to those of you who have already passed it on. You are helping to make the Internet Guru Watch a worldwide phenomenon.

Until next time, remember: creating content is fun. Creating content is easy. It’s taking pictures. It’s shooting video clips. It’s just talking about the benefit of your product or service the same as you do every day.

Podshow PDN {podshow-043f449c62de2fc078f8ec663f7590f5}

The Tourism Keys Seminar in Thunder Bay last week resulted in an explosion of research, here at Quetico Internet Marketing.

The comprehensive view of utilizing all the various forms of media opened a full set of doors, all at once. Producing your content in the form of Video, photos, audio, pdf and text can provide your visitors with your information in the form they prefer. This strategy is literally Super-Powered by using RSS feeds in both directions!

But other forms of media exist where data and information are pooled and accessed by millions.

The Marketing Keys Tourism Marketing Seminar also explained the astonishing leverage that the connectivity in social networks can provide to help get your message out. For example, if your business has a Business Page Listing in Facebook, people can join as a ‘Fan’ of your business. If they comment on your Wall, all of their friends are notified about this comment – and your word can spread far and wide, very quickly.

(profilactic.com provides a central service collecting over 120 social networking websites.)

After some research, I found a WordPress plugin that will update your Facebook account via RSS feed whenever you post to your blog… excellent… that saves me one step of updating my content in to many places. After I set this up, I’ll test and see if my Facebook Notification RSS Feed includes these updates – so I can pull the Facebook RSS feed and link to myself three levels deep, automatically.

%%awsomnews%%

Then Marketing Keys introduced yet another bombshell. A form of media that takes the entire world into scope, in every detail. Maps. Particularly Google Maps.

Todd Lucier, the creator and presenter of the Tourism Keys Seminars, introduced us to the simple, but detailed, process of adding your business data to the Google Maps database. But further, Todd demonstrated how travel providers can utilize these maps to create detailed trip guides, such as canoe routes. Travel routes can be mapped and points of interest can be flagged. Each map entry can be tagged with descriptions, images, audio, video, podcasts, links to further resources… you name it!

Todd showed us an amazing virtual canoe trip in Algonquin Park using Google Maps RIGHT ON HIS OWN WEBSITE! Using a simple embed code, Todd demonstrated how you can add your own custom Google Map to your blog or website – in a few simple steps.

Follow-up Research into Google Maps resulted in some completely unexpected discoveries.

By following the Google Maps embed code backwards, searching for RSS related information, I uncovered a deeper layer to the internet. I have found myself another step closer to accessing the ROOT of the largest databases in the world. I feel like I’ve exposed a part of “the machine” where only Heavy Mechanics work – it’s called GOOGLE DEVELOPERS API’s.

If an RSS feed lets me pull the last 20 posts from a news source, the Developers API’s will let me write a query that lets me pull every post that was ever made… If my picasa RSS feed pulls the last 20 images, the API feed query can pull ALL the images, all the YouTube Videos and on and on.

I figure that, if I’m just learning about it, someone else already knows AND they already have applications built around it… and yes, after some searching I’ve found some powerful examples of how people have pulled API’s from several sources to create very useful Niche services!

Next – I’ll share the list of WordPress Plugins that I have collected to pull images from picasa, videos from youtube, niche-specific social bookmarking activity, news from Google, weather from environment Canada, events from Google Calendar, podcasts from iTunes, and Social Feeds from multiple sources – all this content comes to your site automatically!

Everything you need to provide amazing content FROM everything Web 2.0 and become interconnected INTO everything Web 2.0 – and at the same time, utilizing every one of the various sources of Media and connection between people.

Thank you Fednor, for bringing Todd to us.

Todd Lucier is a dynamic speaker who is teaching cutting edge internet marketing strategies to Tourism Outfitters and other forward-thinking Businesses from Thunder Bay, North of Superior and Atikokan.

Tourism Marketing Seminar

My brief notes on the Tourism Keys Seminar cannot share the passion that Todd feels about the potential for creating meaningful business contacts through a full range of online spaces that can instantly provide exposure to established audiences who share a common interest.  I hope this wee video clip gives you an idea of the information we received on the first day… this clip is only 30 seconds long – and Todd kept the information flowing that fast for hours!!  I can’t wait for day two! 

In this video clip, Todd Lucier is explaining how you can be found in the search engines through various forms of media.  Take your content and re-produce it in all the various media forms.  Include RSS feeds and email notification options for you visitors.  Todd points out a nice mix of Web 2.0 sites that make it easy to promote yourself.

Todd quotes – 2/3 of people ONLY use the internet to shop for travel.  He suggests that 2/3 of your marketing budget be spent doing online marketing.

Take a Tourism Marketing Workshop From Home

Join Tourismmarketingvideos.com for access to over THIRTY HOURS of Tutorials, Seminars and Workshops that cover all aspects of Tourism Marketing – Including: Blogging as an Effective Marketing Tool, by Brad Greaves of Ignace Outposts!

Tourism Keys Workshop Seminars

Starting today!  It’s a C-C-Cold day, but a HOT Topic!

I haven’t had time to read ahead to find out what Todd is teaching this time.  The last Tourism Keys Workshops in Dec 2005 sold me on this one.  As soon as I received the email announcing this event, I went directly online and registered without reading the whole invitation email!

I’m warming up the car and thought I’d check and see what delights Todd has organized for us…

Hmmm, Thunder Bay is actually near the end of the Tour!  This means Todd is very practiced at this, AND, it means he has picked up a monster-load of tips and tricks from everyone he has spoken with along the way though his tour of lectures! 

Let me see now… yes!  Look here at a brief of the two-day seminar agenda…

 Snip From TourismKeys.ca

Understanding the Needs and Opportunities of Niche Markets

Keyword Phrases: learn five places to find keywords and create keyword combintations.

Web page 101 – focusing on the three most important core elements and how to make yours stand out and produce results: Calls to Action, Headlines, Images

Newsletters – how and why you must use them.

The Current State of the Web – How Web 2.0 has created opportunities that most tourism businesses don’t know exist.

Blogging – starting your own blog…. How to blog to boost your business and extend relationships with your ideal guests. Bloggers learn ways to extend their marketing opportunties using this important tool.

Feeds – using them to to enhance your relationships with your ideal guests.

Social Marketing: How and Why Facebook may be your best marketing tool

Multimedia – photos, audio and video tools including Podcasting

Maps – Make your own maps to demonstrate “We’re easy to Get to” and share local treasures. Put yourself on Google’s Map!

SEO and SEM – Get them to your Web site.

Watch here for more throughout today and tomorrow!