No one started a river-rafting company with a 5-year plan for listing on the stock exchange.
Equestrian guides don’t wake up at 6am in the morning to feed the horses because shareholders expect to see a return on investment. Rafting guides don’t live in trailers near remote rivers because they’re in it for the money. Scuba diving, sky diving, eco-tours and every other tourism business you can imagine probably started the same way.
The people behind tourism made lifestyle choices around their passion. Their businesses grew through that enthusiasm and a natural demand for their services. Cycles and trends sometimes cause natural demand to waiver. Then passionate people are forced deeper into business to find new customers.
Marketing can be challenging when you’re already busy trying to run a business and don’t have the budget. To many, social media sounds like a silver bullet because its free. Never forget that online tools just trade advertising expenses for somebody’s time and skill in knowing how to use them. Nothing is free.
How can you use social media to help your customers buy more of what you’re selling?