Dear Elis: What To Do If My Client’s Campaign Blows Up in Smoke? (Literally…)

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DEAR ELIS: I have a client whose website provides a large variety of Alaskan travel tours.  Since a good portion of successful marketing can be attributed to timing, what do you think of the idea of my client developing volcano tours of Mount Redoubt, AK?   Not while it is actually erupting of course!  Your thoughts are anticipated. ~~A search marketer in doubt.

Mt Redoubt: Take A Picture, It'll Last Longer -Flickr/creative commons, img by Uri Breitman

DEAR NO DOUBT: Certainly you are right about one thing in this case – it’s all about timing.  With volcanic experts predicting the imminent eruption of the breathtaking spot (pictured), it may be too late to add it to 1,000 Things to See Before You Die book. Never fear, it sounds like your client is hoping to help the mountain make its own Bucket List, in a last attempt to affect as many lives as possible and see something majestic.

While I certainly admire your client’s creative ability and willingness to undertake such a risk – (hey, it wouldn’t be called adventure travel if there was no risk involved, right?) I will have to play both sides of the fence here, since I will assume you mean ‘before’ tours – and presumably, to view the ‘aftermath’.

For this travel company to pull it off, you’ve probably got to think of it like a throwing blowout party, which of course is an appropriate theme here. On the other hand, he (likely) can’t risk investing too much into this campaign if it turns out to be a dud, or if the guests arrive too late.

Last Minute Deal Distribution. To get customers out there in time, I’ve got to believe this is going to be the best – well, the only- way to piggyback on the impending event.  So getting those last minute flight deals and lodging accommodations set up quickly will be the first step in marketing this package. Do you know if the local hotels will dole out a discount for ash in the hot tub? I wonder if ‘volcanic mineral bath’ qualifies as a spa service? Just be sure to cool down the water enough so skin doesn’t melt off.

Positioning. As with any time-sensitive event, a sense of urgency is going to be the play here. The client will obviously want to target the curiosity seekers, geology nuts, mountain photographers – but yet not give out any promises or guarantees about what they may see. But honestly, I’m not sure I could adequately give advice on targeting that demographic.  Playing with a call to action along the lines of  “Book Now Before It’s Too Late”, seems like it would have some universal appeal.

Paid Search Advertising. Ah. This is an interesting case, because you’ll want to be prepared for a spike in potential impressions and traffic. Again, a bit dangerous in terms of overall budgeting. If this client were going to do something like AdWords, you better make sure there’s as much constant monitoring in place as the USGS and seismologists have on the mountain itself. But at least there’s currently very little ad competition on “Alaska Volcano Tours”. Might I suggest a little creative like this:

Get their attention, get the sale!

Online PR/Social Media Campaign. If I said this had the potential to be linkbait as popular as say, a bacon explosion, I’d probably be lying. But an actual volcanic explosion does have potential to blow the lid off some travel site headlines, if you can feed the content to the media outlets in the right fashion. Travel bloggers hungry for some bacon-like action surely might find a way to include your off the charts charter package, so you’d at least get the short term play. The upside is – that it would actually likely pay off much later, after the volcano does blow and after the dust settles, when the surrounding communities once again become an attractive tourism destination.

Potential Partnerships. Toss in a free copy of Dante’s Peak courtesy of an online DVD shop, and perhaps some complimentary face masks to help prevent breathing in fallen ash.  Find a travel insurance provider with an affiliate program, but more importantly a clause which adequately covers travelers in the event of such natural disasters. Luckily, that’s pretty much the reason travel insurance exists. Private aerial tours & helicopter rides (given by either daring or desperate pilots) are probably the next best avenue to attack. Of course, if it’s for the latter category, then I suggest you truly target thrill seekers, with a high level of disposable income. Microsoft AdCenter has demographics for that, right? Or maybe try Facebook ads.

Pardon the erruption, but I’m fresh out of hot, molten marketing advice and lame lava references on this ‘ash’ Wednesday. ‘Til next time.

Special thanks to James Svoboda, President of Realicity Internet Marketing,  for being such a good sport in posing this question. To submit a question to Dear Elis, visit this page for more details & contact info.

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