Are you starting a new Tourism Business? perhaps you’re rebranding a business that you’ve bought? or you own your own business, right now is the time to get things right with your online brand.
Scenario One – Starting up a brand new business
Your business name is one of the first things you decide on, after all you need it to set up your business right? You do all the checks when you register the business name, make sure it accurately reflects what the business is about. Then you begin the hard slog of building your business.
Scenario Two – You bought a business
Your excited to start your brand new venture, all the paperwork is done and dusted and the moneys changed hands. Now it’s time to stamp your personality on the business, work hard and watch it grow.
Both these scenarios have similar issues, both will either have to create or use digital assets and naming consistency is a good idea, Why? because variations on names confuse consumers and nobody needs that!
Scenario Three – You own an existing business
You may not have been involved in the creation of your digital assets or you may not be responsible for them, you may have had a few staff involved, then it’s time for a spring clean!
The Must-Dos
Below are what you need to know and do to make sure you’ve got under control so that your target market isn’t confused.
Do you own your domain name?
You may be surprised to hear that 50% of the businesses we work with do not own their domain name. This would corresponding to owning a house on a piece of land that isn’t yours. If you’ve bought your business name, the domain name might be still owned by the former owner.
To check who owns your domain name head over to Whois Domain Tools , enter your domain name and look for the word ‘registrant’. Is this you? If not make sure you contact whomever is listed there and get it updated. Don’t know how to do that? Ask in our support forums.
Is your business name/trading name the same as your website address?
By this we mean that if your business is “My Cottage” then your website should be www.mycottage.com or www.mycottage.com.au. It certainly should be.
Does your email match your domain name?
You can use your first name@ mycottage.com.au (Jenny@mycottage.com.au) or something generic info@mycottage.com.au, bookings@mycottage.com.au, reception@mycottage.com.au. Avoid hotmail, Gmail accounts if possible for business purposes, this doesn’t look professional.
Your business Facebook account
If you can make sure the Facebook account name is the same as your business name and Website address. If this is not possible make sure the business logo and imagery is the same and don’t forget to link your Website to your Facebook page and visa versa.
Are you other Social Media accounts aligned?
Whether you use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or any of the other Social Media platforms, your customers need to “establish” the link between that account and your business. So make sure they all use a similar name (e.g. @visitagnes1770 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).
What else can you do?
If your digital asset names don’t match exactly and you can’t change them then we suggest the following to assist your customers.
- Make sure all your assets carry your logo and contact information
- Make sure they are branded alike with recognisable images
- Link them where ever possible
- Reference them in your email signature
- Cross promote them
- Get a family member to try and find your digital assets and act on what they tell you, what makes sense and what doesn’t
Remember to try and make it as easy as possible for your customers to find you on any platform and “funnel” them to your primary digital asset to book, your website, that’s the end goal…….bookings!!
