The Rise of User Intent Insights There’s been a surge in interest in this topic of user intent in the last 5 years. Search engine optimizers want to understand keyword usage and what content to create. But user intent touches on all aspects of marketing and business strategy. Brand managers too want a keen understanding…
The Magic of Big Picture Thinking It’s wise to spend time thinking about the major influences on your business. And about opportunities too. Big opportunities often drive big-picture thinking. Great opportunities evolve from a wider view with the optimism that you can capture them. When ambition lags, we see business owners fall into small-minded traps….
Hiring Smartly for a Digital Travel Marketing Role As a travel agency owner, DMO CEO, hotel owner, tour operator or SaaS travel software entrepreneur, you’re tasked with the challenge of hiring the right marketing people. Can a single person have real impact on a small travel company? Is that realistic given you’ve already set sail…
How to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy In the travel sector, content is vitally important. It is the medium of their pre-purchase experience. If travelers aren’t investigating or booking, then your current content strategy isn’t working. It’s time for a change! Building the Travel Experience They Yearn to Have Travel is visual, immersive, personal and…
When Will the Housing Market Unfreeze? Buyers can’t buy, sellers can’t sell. And this agony for buyers might not be eased within the next 12 months. Buyers/sellers, mortgage agents and Realtors all wonder when rates and home prices will fall. When will it all end? There’s a glimmer of hope that spring or H2 of…
Florida Real Estate Market Despite a massive 60% increase in home listings across Florida, home prices remained near last month’s record median price of $429,581. For buyer’s, there’s pain knowing you can’t afford a Florida home even as listings rise and as prices keep rising. Where is the optimism? Let’s look further into that now…
A Winning SEO Marketing Formula After we’ve built an unbeatable, dominant content strategy, to showcase your amazing brand and connect to prospects and customers, we must support our ranking power in Google via promotion. This off-site portion of the marketing challenge is to attract backlinks, gain citations, and get shares on social media. These are…
Which Marketing and Lead Channels Should You Be Focusing On? 2025 and the return of home sales transactions might seem a long way off, but as I wrote in another post, all signals point to a big resurgence. In fact, 2025/2026 could well be record years for transaction dollar volumes as more pricey homes get…
Real Estate Marketing Strategy If you’re undecided who should be your dedicated real estate marketer, it’s wise to review your marketing strategy first. Based on that and your budget and risk tolerance (because agencies can take all your money), it’ll be clearer. I hope to convince you that a dedicated specialist is the right choice…
2025’s Inflation Will Stay Low Politicians and the media tell us “it’s all about inflation” and that they’ve got the ultimate remedy. It may be their call for us to give up on an economic recovery, rely on debt spending, and accept a persistent, unpleasant fate. That’s not the fix or result Americans are wanting….
More AI Junk and Slop from the Zombie Internet As AI was introduced to the mainstream business community, CEOs and SMB owners were delighted at the prospect of a robot computer program generating free online content and providing free, cheap customer service. It was a dream world of low cost, easy automation, zero-employee based pure…
The 2025 Economic Recovery A massive change in politics is happening in Europe and North America and it’s likely to end the damaging economic policies of far left anti-business factions. In the US, Joe Biden’s small minded policies have crushed the dreams of most small businesses. They’ve suffered a never ending nightmare of taxes, inflation,…
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness Have you wondered how a small travel company could ever compete with the big travel portals and brand names online? It is a challenge for sure, but still doable. I’ve been competing against Goliath companies for 26 years now and even today, there’s a chance to win. Google’s ranking algorithm…
Why Would Anyone Say a Market Correction is Coming? The economy is rolling along, with job growth and wage gains, while corporate earnings seem okay. Economists and stock market forecasters are bullish for the longer term. However, there are worries about the next 6 months and in particular, the next 3 months. 3 experts below share…
Tips to Modernize your Travel Business There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t rest on their laurels. It’s human nature to rely on our strengths, expertise and experience. You’ve likely developed some excellent capacities that power your agency. Unfortunately, at some point, our strengths can become our biggest weakness. Because such rallying around our strengths…
Travel USA! This year’s travel market outlook revealed that many travelers are preferring to visit the good old USA rather than venturing out into increasingly hostile and overcrowded international travel destinations. For many, it’s a opportunity to revisit regions, cities and special places they haven’t visited in decades. With tens of millions visiting this year,…
The Rise of Influencers in Travel Marketing Travel marketing companies have a challenge today. If they’re unable to draw enough qualified traffic and convert them to customers, then it could be the consumer market has changed. And keeping clients relevant, visible, and generating leads is becoming more difficult. With SMBs web traffic and social media…
6 Unique Groups of Travelers 1.3 billion lucky people today enjoy the amazing benefits of enriched travel experiences. The quality, access and variety of travel options possible is creating a different view of traveler’s personalities, wants, and buying behavior. Because very unique experiences are available to everyone of any age, background, or sex —…
DIY Low Risk, High Return Marketing Test Project If you’ve avoided digital marketing, it’s understandable given how competitive and challenging the channel is. There’s the risk, the investment, the time and expertise, and confidence needed too! But any challenge can be conquered with faith, determination and strategy. The first part of the strategy is to…
Travel Business Startups There are plenty of good reasons to launch a travel business startup including profit opportunity, new directions, and just being in a business you’ll really love and meeting people engaged in life. A travel agency, tour operator marketplace, or travel software provider might be one of the most investible business opportunities of…
Pay Per Click Campaigns for Travel Businesses Travel businesses rely heavily on pay per click campaigns and paid social boosting to reach targeted travel consumers. It’s hard to beat the placement and reach of online advertising. It’s extremely fast and powerful, yet it’s competitive. The required minimum bids will shock you. Before you spend…
Are you Ready for the Sales Boom in 2025/2026? Buyers, Sellers, mortgage agents and Realtors might not be visualizing 2025/2026 well enough. Visualizing your outlook as an agent is essential to preparation and motivation. Because at some point, with lower mortgage rates, buying and selling, and refinancing become viable again. That’s going to rev…
What Will Happen to Home Prices When Mortgage Rates Decline? It’s an important question because in 2025, rates are going to lower. Not because of inflation drops, because 3% inflation is here to stay due to supply constraints and US government regulations, and high debt. Instead, it will be political pressure that will do it….
How to Create Your Realtor Brand Differentiation The power of branding. Do you take it seriously? Are you doing anything than the usual, common tactics to establish your name and offer to buyers and sellers? I reiterate frequently in my blog posts and conversations that a brand image is your value proposition. It’s your promise,…
US Real Estate & Housing Market Are we in for a housing market crash later this year and what does 2025 look like? There’s a lot of wrestling over pessimism about the US housing market now in H2, 2024. And in 2025? Well, the Presidential Election factors prominently, and no ones quite sure how the…
Calgary Housing Market and Update With the likely return of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, two outcomes are going to make Calgary the darling city of Canada: a booming US economy and higher demand for oil and gas products. With the demise of Prime Minister J Trudeau in 2025, Alberta…
Attack Your Competitor’s Strengths A commencement speech from Roger Federer at Dartmouth College recently, offered one really important tip for entrepreneurs and future CEOs in the audience. He spoke about his challenges in becoming the greatest tennis player of all time. He mentioned having to work hard and shore up his weaknesses, become disciplined, managing…
Real Estate Websites – Designs and Lead Management There’s no denying the power of a quality real estate website, designed for the user experience, agent lead management and nurturing, as well as presenting engaging content for digital marketing prowess. Skimping on your Realtor website can seriously hamper your online visibility, lead generation and conversion, as…
Bull Market Continues into 2025? 2024 was a record breaking year for the S&P, NASDAQ, and Dow Jones listed stocks. But will 2025 see the bull market extend to produce even more for investors? Overall, signals suggest it will be a great year. We still have the next 6 months to endure, but it’s widely…
Fresh Content and Design I’m revisiting the topic of fresh content on your website, with a complete rewrite of this post. It’s a good example of a complete redrafting, restrategizing, and presentation to resonate with travel company’s big challenge today — staying relevant to the travel market. Because, when content is stale, it’s not relevant…
Advanced Content Strategy: Power in the Creative Mix Every travel agency owner, travel management software manager, and tour company CEO has to decide what their blog content theme will be. Because a company blog creates the lion’s share (up to 90%) of web traffic. Which means content choices will decide how much traffic, rankings, impact…
Why Banff Alberta Has to be on Your Trip List Having lived in Calgary, Alberta for 10 years, and continuing to visit when I can, I can recommend Banff as an epic vacation adventure. Banff is more than just mountain tops although that’s often enough for siteseeing visitors here. You’ve been captivated by the images…
The Power of New Ideas How would you win a best design competition at the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival? Would you show up with the usual round balloon with a different color scheme? Or would you brainstorm a brilliant unique design that evokes their imagination and resonates with balloon festival spirit? Would you have…
Tour Radar – Innovation in Business Tour marketplaces are big business. Very lucrative but challenging to make successful. In this post, you’ll discover one firm which was spawned in the booming travel sector, innovated and grown, learned from their mistakes, upgraded their sales channels, and adapted their business model to fit the actual, real, not…
What Makes the Top Tour Companies the Best? If you’re investigating the opportunity of investing in tour companies or to launch one yourself, you’ll want to take a closer look at the top market leaders and comprehend deeply why they are successful. The best have the most inbound traffic, are marketing-driven, offer high-quality tour…
How to Change Travel Consumer’s Minds Tourists and travelers of all kinds have particular tastes and preferences. Sometimes strong, sometimes not. How profitable would it be to change travel consumer’s minds about their loyalties, tour choices and destinations? These are well targeted, influential, and loyal customers to your customer list. Such insight in…
Top 21 Challenges of SMB Travel Companies If you’re a travel entrepreneur planning and launching a startup travel agency, travel SaaS management software product, tour operator, or a tour marketplace, you’re into an exciting project, perhaps more joyful and fulfilling than any other industry. However, as you know, the market poses some significant challenges…
Best Cities to Buy Real Estate in 2024 Looking for the right cities to buy real estate in 2024? You’ve probably got your favorites in mind, but why not start again from scratch and find cities and towns that you might not have known are real gems? In this phase of your research why not…
Selling Your Tours more Effectively After you’ve built a massive source of traffic and presented a compelling, significant trusted brand, and perked up tourists’ interest, you have the final challenge of selling your tours. If your tour involves riding camels in 120-degree desert heat, you’re going to need to be really good at tour…
Travel for Health and Healing It might be said that all travel companies are in the business of selling the joy of travel. Because joy is a powerful motive and might be the single, primary emotion travelers experience before and during their journey. It represents many of benefits they demand of their trips. It’s just…