Online Travel Business Profits

Start a Home Based Travel Business

Matt — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:32:59 +0000

We just launched the Inagruial Online Travel Business Academy, where we are teaching the next generation of online travel entrepreneurs.

Go here to learn how to start your own home based travel business.

http://www.travelbusinessacademy.com

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e-Letter on Private Sale travel goes viral.

Matt — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:47:34 +0000

I recently wrote an article about Private Sale travel websites. I posted the article at the T4 blog where I am a guest blogger and I sent the article to my over 500 subscribers of the Travel Business Profits e-Letter. The letter then went viral throughout the Internet and I have been contacted by many professionals in the travel industry since. It's exciting when your ideas get major attention. Enjoy reading!

Is the new, private-sale travel site business model, the real deal? I get underneath the hood and reveal how it works.

In this month’s Travel Business Profits e-letter, I look at how the private-sale travel site business model works and why I believe it will be a powerful business model in the online travel industry.As an online travel business consultant, and an intrigued entrepreneur, I have been researching the new private-sale travel websites that have been gaining momentum in the online travel industry.

Private-sale sites, or member-only travel sites, are the NEW, NEW thing in online travel. The party got started over a year ago, but now the bigger travel players are entering with their own brands. Jetsetter.com and Rue La La were the first; Vacationist (an American Express Company), SniqueAway (TripAdvisor and Smarter Travel) and TripAlertz are the most recent entrants. I believe private-sale travel sites may be the next online travel business model that ultimately squeezes the OTA’s (online travel agency) supreme dominance.

The emerging private-sale online travel business model was derived in part from the retail clothing private-sales websites of Gilt.com and HauteLook.com. There are hundreds of other competing websites in the private-sale upscale retail clothing product space. Private-clothing-sale websites enable sellers to unload unsold branded inventory at large discounts at a timed event with a deadline to buy before the inventory sells out.

The private-sale business model originated in part from the legendary merchandiser Edward Filene, the founder of Filene’s Basement, who, in the late 1920’s, created publicly scheduled automatic pricing markdowns on his clothes. The publicly promoted markdowns produced a high tendency for consumers to perceive that a bargain was available and that they should buy now or risk losing out on the opportunity, because they knew that within a defined, short period of time, in the next markdown, the item could be sold out. The price dropped systematically with each markdown until all the products were sold out. The clothing that was left over was donated.

The current web-based private-sale travel sites are invite-only, or member-based, and focus on selling hotel rooms. The private-sale travel business model will succeed in selling brand-oriented travel products including hotel rooms, cruises, tours, and individual travel products where the travel supplier wants to protect the brand image yet still discount to sell their unsold inventory. I also believe the business model will succeed in selling leisure vacation packages and business travel.

Why private-sale travel sites will succeed as a new business model for selling travel online.

Private travel sales’ core strength lies in its ability to harness the social network as the marketing and distribution channel for the website. The dynamic nature of the private-sale offerings, with exclusive weekly deals, book-by dates and large discounts off five-star hotels makes for great conversation between the members to disseminate the news virally via the social network. The travel offering, whether it is a high-end hotel room in New York City or a tour through the vineyards of California, becomes chatter and discussion and is moved aggressively across the social network by the websites’ members to their friends, family and colleagues. Dynamic travel offerings create the feeling that you are receiving a deal and spread virally online. The private-sale business model plays right into the hands of the powerful online social network. The offering spreads through Twitter, Facebook, and the other social networks like wildfire. The distribution of the sale through the social networks not only helps the private-sale websites sell the travel offering, but more importantly, it quickly builds new memberships for the website.

The membership component of the private-sale business model creates the illusion of exclusivity, when in reality; there really is no exclusivity at all. The goal of every private-sale or membership website is to build the largest possible pool of buyers to sell their offerings to. It’s truly just a numbers game.

Yes, you supposedly have to be invited or referred by a friend to join, but neither was the case for me, as I just entered my email address, and within a few days I received my membership acceptance. This may change in the future but the real reason for the membership component is to keep the search engine travel websites out. As soon as “everyone” is selling the travel product offering, the exclusivity component vanishes, and the membership, or closed door, keeps the online travel marketers and distributors out of the game.

High-end hotels and resorts are discounting rooms to the private-sale websites because they believe that their brand is better protected and not diminished by the OTA’s and search engines distributing their discounts all over the Internet. Hotels have a sense that they are more in control of their discounting, and that the process is more efficient in managing their yield. Hotel rooms have “shelf life”; unsold rooms are lost revenue.

Having spoken to a few hotels, I found that they are saying, “the private-sale model is better than the OTA model.” A few said that they believe this may be the future in online discounting. High-end hotels also believe that they are reaching the cost-conscious buyer, a target market that is difficult for them to reach through their traditional sales channels.

The private-sale website industry is literally in the initial growth stages. Jettsetter and Rue La La are two of the early pioneers. As the industry grows, and new players come in, new websites will niche down in both the leisure travel markets and the business travel market. I envision we will see private-sale and membership websites that target both specific demographic and travel lifestyles as well as geographic and destination-based markets. The early private-sale website entrants are currently at a similar stage of development as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz were when the OTA business model was created.

The private-sale websites utilize multi-media, imagery and text to tell you a story about why you want to stay at the hotel or buy a specific travel offering. I am impressed at how visually appealing the online merchandising presentation has been. The travel offering is being displayed online like you are looking through a high-end travel magazine or brochure. The best copywriters will tell you that stories are what sell products. The current private-sale websites do this very well.

Private-sale websites literally stole the playbook from the Internet informational marketers to create effective landing pages (home pages) that convert prospects into an automated online sales funnel. The most successful Internet informational marketers all know that to sell online you need a systematic, sequential sales process that ultimately converts prospects into buyers over a specified time period. Internet informational marketers sell successfully online by utilizing email opt-ins, email marketing campaigns (drip-drip-drip), one-time sales, limited offerings and book-by-date discounts.

The private-sale process starts by acquiring the name and email address of your prospect. The landing page, or home page, of the private-sale websites is a simple one-page. To gain access, you have to opt-in or enter your name and email address. There is nothing else you can do other than login. The secret to selling information products online is to move your prospect from point A to point B, removing all possible links, literally boxing the prospect in so there is nothing else they can do other than to enter their name and email address. Once the conversion takes place, adding the name and email address, the prospect is dumped into the automated sales funnel, and the systematic sales process and merchandising begins. Oh, it’s a beautiful thing.

How it works. Selling hotel inventory in a private sale.

There are a few different versions of the private-sale transaction between the website and the hotel. Predominantly though, this is how the deal is structured. The website negotiates a percentage off the lowest bar rate of the hotel. The percentage off can vary according to the hotel’s seasons, or for specified periods of time within seasons. The website will sell the most dates it possibly can; this is negotiated between the website and the hotel. Remember, the more inventory the website has to sell, the greater amount of sales that are possible. The website is generally looking for at least two different hotel room types to sell.

The website “free-sells” the hotel inventory from the start of the sale to the end of the sale. Free-sell is a wholesale room buying term meaning that the buyer doesn’t actually buy the inventory upfront. The website negotiates to “freely” sell the inventory during the sale dates. Free-selling removes all the upfront risk for the website. The website never pays for the hotel room until it has been sold.

Most sales are three–seven days —sometimes longer. Limiting the sale to three–seven days, or a predetermined number of days, protects the hotel from not having their inventory available for sale for an indefinite period of time. By contracting for short periods of time, the hotel can really discount without losing their shirt.

The hotel then receives all the bookings from the website at the end of the sale and payments to the website from the hotel are made. Most hotel sales to the website’s members are non-refundable; the transaction is very clean and the website does not have to worry about cancellations. It’s just pure cash in the website’s pocket. This is a win-win proposition for both parties.

The only way to make money with this business model, that I can see, is to have multiple sales going on every week and to have the ability to sell thousands of hotel rooms each week.

I love the private-sale business model because it is simple from an operations standpoint. There are few moving parts. The heavy lifting is done on the front side through the marketing and selling of the travel products to the website’s members. I believe private-sale websites that niche, and target a specific leisure traveler, a lifestyle or a regional destination, can be started fairly quickly by travel entrepreneurs and larger travel companies looking to jump into the game. The barrier to entry is limited.

The race is on.

Wanna build a private-sale travel company?

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Speaking at the Home Based Travel Agent Show Oct 27-29, 2010

Matt — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:37:12 +0000

I am speaking on Friday October 29th at the Home Based Travel Agent show and conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. My presentation, SECRETS of the online travel business, how to transition from a travel agency/travel agent to a tour operator business.

http://www.travelweekly.com/events/home-based-agent-show/conference-speaker-roster.aspx

I will have a booth in the exhibition area promoting my upcoming online course and program, Start a home-based online travel business in 30-days. Please stop by my booth and say hi.

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How do I Find the BEST travel reservation software and travel technology solutions to run my online travel business?

Matt — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:30:30 +0000

In 2007 I sold CollegeSkiTrips.com the largest youth-based ski travel agency in the USA that I had run for over 15 years. We built our own proprietary online booking engine and website platform over a span of 5-years. I decided that in my next online travel business that it would be less expensive and quicker to scale up by either buying travel reservation website software or licensing the software to run and operate the business.

In late December 2009 and early January 2010 I set out to find a software platform to run my new online travel business. I spent 30-days searching all over the Internet trying to find the best travel software platform to operate and run my online travel company.

I became frustrated very quickly as there was no website or online community for researching and reviewing the different travel reservation software platforms, online booking engines and technology available. My research was conducted literally through Google by entering in multiple keyword search terms and phrases like “online travel software,” over and over.

I could have outsourced the research but I felt that as the owner of the company my selection of the best software platform for the type of business I wanted to run and operate was the biggest decision I had to make and would ultimately determine the success and outcome of my business. I created a spreadsheet of 20 different software providers and then narrowed my choices down to three. I then communicated with the three companies over several emails and phone calls. I conducted online demos and then made a decision between two providers ultimately choosing one at the very last minute due to a price cut.

The entire process was truly agonizing and fraught with too many obstacles. This article seeks to derive an answer to my question, how do I Find the BEST online travel software to run my Travel and Tourism business, and to solicit comments and feedback from travel software and technology solution providers.

The travel and tourism software and technology industry is fragmented from a consumer or buyer of software solutions point of view. The travel software and technology solution industry needs a consumer oriented community where travel software providers can connect with prospects, provide demo opportunities, provide information on their software products, create a feeling of transparency for their products, list features and benefits, including video demos and real-time chat capabilities, a place where travel software providers and prospective travel software buyers can communicate with one another and build new long lasting relationships.

Ultimately I envision a place where travel solution providers can create a more efficient sales process to reach buyers that leads to more sales and stronger buying relationships between travel businesses and travel software providers.

As an Internet entrepreneur I see an opportunity to fill this gap and help build a more successful online travel industry. I am looking to build a website that brings together travel software and technology solution providers with current travel business owners and prospective travel entrepreneurs.

I’ve included a link to survey that I am currently conducting with travel software and technology solution providers that seeks to help the industry build a successful community that supports the buying and selling of travel software and technology.

If you are a travel software and technology provider go here to complete a 10-minute online survey. If you need more information or are interested in what I am developing please send me an email or give me a call. http://tiny.cc/fhfar

If you are a travel business leave your comments below.

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The Automated-Booking Markup Strategy will increase your bookings and make your travel business more profitable.

Matt — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:45:03 +0000

Increase annual profits in your travel business by 10%-15% with the Automated-Booking Markup Strategy.

Hi, everyone, I am going to show you a proven marketing strategy I developed that contributed to an increase in profitability of an online travel business I owned by more than 10%. In the last three years prior to acquisition of the company we increased sales by 33%, 74% and close to 100% respectively.

The Automated-Booking Markup Strategywill increase bookings and profits for your travel business. Every week receive new reservations, Automatically…like clock-work.

The power behind the Automated-Booking Markup Strategyis that it forces buyers to return to your website and buy your travel products. Literally every week ON-schedule you will receive new reservations.

The Automated-Booking Markup Strategywill become a moneymaking booking system that runs on autopilot. Literally the system will just run for you.

My Automated-Booking Markup Strategyworks for online travel businesses, tour operators, travel agencies, travel portals, hotels, motels, B&Bs, guides, and any business in the travel and tourism industry that accepts reservations or bookings online.

Please go here to learn more about the Automated-Booking Markup Strategyand how it will help your business become more profitable and increase sales.

Best,

Matt Zito

Creator of the Automated-Booking Markup Strategy

http://www.mattzito.com/automatebookingmarkup/

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How to start a home based travel business in 30-days.

Matt — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:54:57 +0000

I am currently developing an online course that will teach you how to start a home based travel business in 30-days. This is not a travel agent business selling other companies vacations and trips or anything like that. This is a real business selling your own branded travel products.

What are you interested in learning about starting an online travel business? Leave a comment about what you would like to learn in this course.

In the course I'll teach you how to start the following travel businesses.

Online Travel Agency or OTA

Online Travel Portal

Tour Operator

Tour Guide or Guide

Destination Activity Provider

Travel Broker

The course will include;

How to setup your home based office and all the tools and resources you'll need to get started.

How to incorporate your business.

How to partner with hotels, motels, resorts and lodging suppliers for lodging inventory.

How to write a contract to acquire preffered rates with lodging suppliers and activity suppliers.

How to determine your individual stregnths so you leverage them everday in your business.

How to outsource components of your startup business and build a business team.

How to select the best technology tools and software to run your online travel business.

How to write a 1-page business infrastructure and systems operating document.

How to create a 3-page sales and marketing plan outlining your vision, mission and 1-year financial goals.

How to package travel products to create a unique branded one-of-a-kind travel product.

How to distribute your travel products to scale your sales and become more profitable.

How to price your travel products to compete against the larger travel sellers.

Learn insider tips, tricks and marketing strategies to grow your online travel business.

Learn offline advertising strategies through traditional media.

Learn how to advertise online through Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Learn how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to create leads for your business.

Learn how to write a press release and target traveler writers that will write about your travel business.

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How to create vacation packages for your travel business.

Matt — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:02:25 +0000

Packaging for Profits

Packaging in the travel and tourism business is all about leverage. To understand the true power of packaging and how it can make your business more profitable, I use leverage as an analogy to help you really understand how packaging works and how it can make your business more profitable. Leverage is simply to borrow to improve your capacity to increase the rate of return.

I define packages as two or more travel products combined to create a third unique product. Most travel packages include a lodging component and an activity component.

In the tourism business you can earn greater profits or increase your rate of return for your business through packaging. In its purest sense you borrow other businesses travel products to increase your economic gain.

Let’s look at the numbers and see how leverage works in the tourism business. In the mid 1990’s in my early 20’s, my wife and I bought a house in Pennsylvania and created a bed and breakfast named the Yellow Breeches House, next to a famous fly-fishing river. We sold two travel products. Lodging (B&B) and Fly-Fishing guided packages (B&B + guided fly-fishing). Our rooms ranged from $99-$175 per night in season. Our Fly-Fishing Getaway packages were $395 per person and included 2 nights lodging, 1-½ days of guided fly-fishing, 2-dinners and 2-breakfasts. Either a couple or 2 guys purchased the Fly-Fishing packages.

At the height of the business we had three Fly-Fishing guides . We paid $200 for 1 ½ day of guided work. We paid two restaurants $20 for each dinner and we served our own breakfasts.

Let’s analyze the numbers and compare selling a room vs. selling a package with 2 people per room on a 2-night weekend stay. A room only with 2 people would gross $350 in our most expensive room. A Fly-Fishing Package with 2 people grosses $790. Expenses are 1 guide $200, 4 dinners $80, net profit is $510. You make $160 more on the weekend or $80 more per night when you sell a package into this room. That same room now is worth $255 per night. Multiply this by more than one room and you can see how your business becomes more profitable very quickly.

The power of packaging is that you borrow other businesses travel products and unlike financial leverage you have no or limited expenses to borrow as you are just forming partnerships with other travel and tourism businesses in your community or area.

An increased profit is the core strength of packaging. Other benefits include the following. The client buying a package is less likely to cancel a trip. Your business fosters new business relationships within your community and you create win-win deals for others. Creating packages enables you to quickly move with trends and fads in the travel and tourism industry. If something is “hot” this season you can create a package for it.

Packaging can be implemented and sold by not only lodging properties but by tour guides and individual businesses engaged in the travel and tourism business.

Geoffrey Warner a master furniture designer and creator of the famous “Owl Stool” in Stonington, Maine, offers local Bed & Breakfasts his handmade Owl Stool workshop. Innkeepers are packaging the workshops with their lodging. Guests of the Inns take a half-day workshop at his studio and go home from their vacation with an Owl Stool, made with their own hands. This is another example of packaging. Next year Geoffrey plans on selling his own packages directly to his clients in addition to the B&Bs selling and leveraging his areas B&B rooms.

This article was first published in the Maine Biz.

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Increase visitors to your Maine Travel and Tourism website by linking to VisitMaine.com

Matt — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:50:12 +0000

VisitMaine.com, the Maine Office of Tourism’s online travel portal, will increase traffic to your business website, help increase your website’s search engine ranking position and advertise your travel and tourism offerings.

Digital Marketing Infrastructure, or DMI, is the technology platform that runs VisitMaine.com. The online platform and Internet marketing tool is a powerful free marketing program offered by the state of Maine.

The first benefit for your business is the website traffic that VisitMaine.com will provide. The traffic will come through “link-backs” on your business profile page, getaway listings, including packages and specials and events listings. A “link-back” is a one-way URL link that takes a Web user from one website to another.

There are other opportunities, but here I’ll focus on the link-back traffic opportunities generated through a business profile page, getaway listings and the events listing.

Let’s talk traffic. I recently researched the monthly statistics for VisitMaine.com at Quantcast.com, a company that measures Web traffic. On average, 78,000 people from the USA visit this website each month, with a further 14,000 people a month coming from foreign countries. The total traffic is around 90,000 a month. In the summer, the traffic statistics go into the hundreds of thousands.

VisitMaine.com has a Google page rank of five out of 10. Websites that have page ranks of five or higher are generally highly trafficked ones. VisitMaine.com’s Alexa rank is 155,764, which places it among the top 200,000 websites on the Internet. Alexa calculates rankings by a combination of the average daily visitors and page views on a website over a 30-day period.

To acquire traffic back to your website, you need to register and create a business profile. A business profile page will display your business contact information, description and be indexed in the VisitMaine.com search engine. There is a field to list your business website URL, and this is the important link-back you’ll receive.

The second benefit is that by adding your business profile, you will help increase your own website’s search engine ranking positions at Google as your business website will be linked to a larger, more authoritative travel-related website.

I believe the primary factor to getting your business website listed high in the search engine results is the number of websites that are linked to your site and the authority (high page rank) of the website linking to you.

VisitMaine.com is ranked very high, so linking to it will help your own business website become more relevant and rank higher in the search engine results.

The third benefit is an advertising opportunity to advertise your business’s packages, specials and events. Package getaways must bundle a two-night stay with two or more travel-related add-ons — including breakfasts, dinners, vouchers, gift certificates, tours, activities, workshops or programs, performances or cultural events — that are normally booked separately.

Special getaways can be any tourism-related product such as lodging, meals or activities that promote a single travel product or service. Special getaways are an opportunity for your business to generate sales during off-peak periods through pricing incentives. Specials also can be used to liquidate inventory at the last minute.

Events are special events or occasions that occur in a town or region, or at an individual business such as a fair, festival, lecture, sporting event, etc.

When you add a package, special or event at VisitMaine.com, an individual Web page for that offering is created and is indexed in the website.

The individual Web page includes the getaway offering, a link to your business profile and a link to your business website. Every time you create a new offering you create another opportunity to gain traffic back to your website. This is a win-win opportunity as you not only can promote and advertise your travel offerings but you also can gain visitors.

VisitMaine.com is one of the most-trafficked websites in Maine. The Maine Office of Tourism has created a great service in making this online marketing platform available. You should not underestimate its power. Set up your profile, and get going.

This column was first published in the Bangor Daily News.

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How to email market in your travel and tourism business.

Matt — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:54:25 +0000

In an earlier column, I discussed an offline e-mail acquisition tactic that restaurants and lodging properties can implement to build a list of clients. Now I’ll discuss storing your clients’ e-mail addresses and contact information and how to deliver an e-mail message to them.

First transfer addresses from paper into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Make three columns — e-mail, first name and last name — and save as your offline client e-mail list. If you have staff, this is an easy task you can set up to be performed either daily or weekly based on the number of e-mails you have acquired.

Next go online and set up a Web-based e-mail-marketing account with iContact.com, aWeber.com, ConstantContact.com or GetResponse.com. The cost starts at $9 a month for storing 250 e-mails. As you build your list, you can upgrade your service to store more e-mails. You will store your e-mail here and also send e-mails to your list through this account.

E-mail marketing services have features that enable you to create an e-mail template with business images, company logos, headers and footers. You can write an e-mail, save it and choose a day to have it delivered. The services help you become more efficient.

On a weekly or biweekly basis, you should import your Excel spreadsheet into your account. When you first set up your account, notify the company that you will be importing e-mail addresses from clients that you have acquired offline. Tell the company that you have a restaurant or lodging property and that you were given permission from the clients to add their e-mail address and contact information for the purposes of sending them e-mail messages concerning your business.

It’s imperative that the company knows this. E-mail marketing service companies are very concerned about spam and may question your intent when you import e-mail addresses into your account. They want their clients to acquire e-mail addresses online through Web-based forms, so just check with the company.

Now that you have compiled a list of clients’ e-mails, it’s time to send your first message. E-mail marketing is the most effective and inexpensive strategy to reach clients with a direct marketing and sales message.

On your list are people and businesses that previously have bought from you so you must keep this in mind and focus on creating messages that build on the value of your business relationship. Sales, rewards and client appreciation messages are the most effective messages to send.

A sales message may be about a new product offering or an event at your business. Sales messages include a “call to action,” in which you ask the client to make a purchase. A rewards message is an incentive to maintain loyalty to your business. Client appreciation messages are softer in tone and are used more to keep contact with your clients, offering a discount or special percentage off your product.

I recommend that you do not e-mail your client list more than once per week to start. E-mail delivery frequency depends on the type of business you operate and how frequent you want your clients to buy your product. Restaurants can e-mail once per week, as this is an opportunity to promote the weekly specials. Lodging properties may want to e-mail once per month or bimonthly to start.

This article was first published in the Bangor Daily News by Matt Zito.

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How to build a 2,500 email list in 30-days for restaurants and hotels.

Matt — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:38:48 +0000

E-mail marketing is the most effective and inexpensive strategy to reach prospective and current clients with a direct marketing and sales message approach. It also is a great way to communicate upcoming business events, specials and product offerings.

My quick-start, 30-day e-mail marketing strategy is a hybrid approach: an offline e-mail acquisition tactic combined with an online e-mail direct marketing system. If you don’t have an e-mail list-building strategy in place, this simple yet powerful tactic will get you started.

Here’s an e-mail acquisition tactic to build a solid client e-mail list directly from the people who have visited, stayed or bought a product at your hospitality or lodging business. This is one of the best offline e-mail list-building tactics I have ever seen:

My wife and I attended the Common Ground Country Fair in Unity in September of last year. We went to dinner at the China-Dine-ah. It was a cool restaurant with a great atmosphere and good food. After drinks were served, the owner of the restaurant stopped by our table and introduced himself. He was a chatty character, and I knew that our food and experience would be great because only at the best restaurants do the owners ever come over and actually greet you. As he was talking, I got the impression that this was not just your ordinary meet-and-greet. I was anticipating that a marketing or sales pitch was on the way. I was anxious and waiting, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

After he finished the story about how he started his restaurant, he pulled two business-card-size pieces of paper out of his pocket. He laid them on the table with two pencils.

He said if we filled out the paper with our name and e-mail address, we would be entered into a weekly drawing for the chance to win $100 worth of dinners at the restaurant. We told him we were just traveling through, so it wouldn’t really help. He said if we won the drawing we could use it any time in the future. He said thanks for visiting and that the waitress would be back soon to take our dinner order.

He made the entire proposal and interaction laid back and inviting. My wife and I both filled out the paper forms. Then the waitress came back for our orders and took them with her. The entire process was a pleasant exchange of our name and e-mail address for the restaurant’s e-mail list. It was very clever, and I admired his e-mail list-building tactic.

Yes, every week we receive an e-mail from the China-Dine-ah, including information on who won the drawing and the upcoming weekly specials and discounts that the restaurant is offering.

I can see any restaurant using this strategy to build an e-mail list of clients into the thousands in a very short period of time. It also can be implemented at any type of lodging property in the following manner:

At check-in for walk-in clients, ask them to fill out the form for the chance to win a monthly lodging giveaway and-or gift certificate. Leave the e-mail form in the guestrooms on the table or on a desk. The guests can then fill it out at their leisure and the cleaning crew can pick it up later.

This e-mail acquisition strategy can be implemented immediately. In a very short period of time, you will build a list of clients in the hundreds to the thousands. In the next column I discuss how to deliver e-mails to your list.

This article was first published in the Bangor Daily News by Matt Zito.

Case Study: I received this email from Arthur Cervantes on May 25, 2010.

Good morning Mr. Zito!
I wanted to first thank you for helping small business owners with your great column, any help we can get these days is an extremely welcome one!
Here is my personal success story… This is so simple and effective-everyone love a FREE anything!
I have printed receive a FREE annual birthday & anniversary gift certificate! Upon signing up for our email savings club you get a bonus gift an appetizer or dessert of your choice!

I have had so much response I have two staff members working on this! Along with this I had a staff incentive of whichever staff member collected 100 email/contact info would receive 100 dollars cash!
Its amazing how cash is still the leading motivator!!

Within 1 month I am up to 2500 good contacts (and growing) who now receive a weekly text and or email with my weekly in house special!

I thank you in advance for your continued assistance and support for business owners.

Arthur