Booking-World.com Doing Business on “Niche” Markets

What Is a “Niche”?

Let’s get down to business and define just what the term niche means. It sounds like kind of a fancy French term (which it is). It sounds like it rhymes with riche, as in nouveau riche (which it does). And while the nouveau riche (the newly rich) are often made fun of, it is better to be nouveau riche than never riche at all! The word niche brings to mind something small. Something manageable. A realm in which you can build your business and avoid many of the pitfalls waiting for any entrepreneur. And so a niche business is…what, exactly? Simply stated, it is a business created to profitably serve the needs of a niche market. And doesn’t that sound like where you want to be?

Why Niche?

What’s so great about starting and running a niche business? Business is business, right? After talking with hundreds of businessowners we’ve come up with some compelling reasons why you, too, should niche and get rich. v You’ll stand a great chance of succeeding. Now that is a big claim to make. Why should a niche business be any likelier to succeed? Because you are positioning yourself as a bigger fish in a smaller pond. With that comes greater market power and with greater market power comes greater stability, pricing power, and profitability, and a more loyal customer base. You aren’t as exposed to the whims of the economy, nor to those of the competition.

• It will be easier to find customers. Easier? Why? Because the tighter your niche, the better you will be able to capture customers, focus on their needs, and meet those needs. The customers you capture will be the right customers—ones you can do business with over and over again.
• You’ll have less competition. A famous American general maintained that the secret to winning is to “get there firstest with the mostest.” You’ll be the first to serve your niche and should therefore capture the largest market share. Market leaders control markets so long as they preserve their advantage. They are the first to respond to trends, set the pace on product and service deployment, and set the terms on price. Isn’t that where you want to be? You understand the market and lead the way in meeting its needs—creating what Warren Buffett would call a “moat” around your business and protecting it against competition as long as you stay in touch with your niche. Competition may happen, but you’ll have a leg up, especially in the beginning.
• You’ll make more money. Not only will you have more control over pricing and profit margins in your business, some operating expenses will be lower too. With a captive niche less will be spent for promotion and advertising to acquire new customers and preserve market share. Word-of-mouth is a powerful advertising tool in a well-defined niche.
• You’ll be able to do it over and over again. Once you’ve built one successful niche business and understand the thought process behind it, what is to stop you from using that same knowledge to build a similar business that serves a slightly different niche? Or to add products and services to more profitably serve the existing niche? Such crossover niching works well—to identify new products and services to serve your existing niche or find new niches receptive to your current products and services. Online entrepreneur John Drummond and his wife, Amy, founded Unicycle.com, and quickly built a successful business shipping unicycles to customers around the world. “Now that I know how to build a Web site that caters to a specialized niche, I’m on the lookout for more ideas. Ideally I’d like to have five different niche Web sites, each pulling in a million dollars a year,” says John. Maybe accident and health insurance is a good “crossover” product to introduce to the unicycle niche? More seriously, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and other “ephemera” would work, and who’s to say unicycles couldn’t “cross over” to the extreme sports, scooter, and skateboard crowd?
• You won’t be caught off guard by market changes. In many niche businesses you are the perfect target customer; when your interest or needs shift or change, you’ll know your customers will soon be shifting as well. Large corporations run from remote headquarters offices are the last to hear their customers have changed, defected, or otherwise moved on. But if you run a store for middle-aged surfers because you are a middle-aged surfer who didn’t feel comfortable buying in an atmosphere designed to appeal to young boys, you will be smack dab in the thick of things. And when your customers start looking for bright green shirts instead of pale yellow ones, you’ll know it immediately. As a niche business owner, you will be nimble and swift. Just as in the example above, you will be able to quickly adapt to changes in your niche. A niche seller of ethnic cooking ingredients will be able to adapt much faster and more favorably than a supermarket to the latest cooking trends.
• It is often easier to get financing for a niche business. A lender who thinks you understand your market and are well positioned to serve it profitably is more likely to invest in you than another “me too” business and business plan.

Ανερχόμενος γαστρονομικός προορισμός λόγω κρασιού η Ελλάδα

Όπως επισημαίνεται, καθώς αυξάνεται η εκτίμηση των Αυστραλών απέναντι στο καλό φαγητό και κρασί, αυξάνεται και το ενδιαφέρον τους για γαστρονομικές εμπειρίες σε μη αναμενόμενους προορισμούς.

Η Κάρεν Ριντζ, ιδιοκτήτρια του εξειδικευμένου ταξιδιωτικού πρακτορείου «Food and Wine Travel», υποστηρίζει ότι πρόκειται για μια πολύ μεγάλη και δυναμική αγορά και ότι οι ταξιδιώτες δεν αναζητούν μόνο το καλό φαγητό, αλλά ενδιαφέρονται για την όλη εμπειρία που συνδέεται με το φαγητό, όπως η παραγωγή των υλικών και η προετοιμασία του.

Σύμφωνα με την κ. Ριντζ, η Ισπανία, η Γαλλία και η Ιταλία είναι δημοφιλείς γαστρονομικοί προορισμοί, αλλά η ίδια αναμένει ότι θα αναδειχθούν και η Αυστρία, η Ελβετία, η Κροατία, η Τουρκία και η Ελλάδα. Όπως επισημαίνεται επίσης, η οινοπαραγωγή στην Ελλάδα είναι πολύ υποτιμημένη, ενώ διαθέτει πολύ διαφορετικές ποικιλίες σε σχέση με την Αυστραλία.

Αφιέρωμα στο ελληνικό κρασί φιλοξένησε και η εφημερίδα «The Age», με την υπογραφή της Τζέιν Φάουλκνερ, κάνοντας ιδιαίτερη μνεία στον παραγωγό Γιάννη Παρασκευόπουλο.

Η Φάουλκνερ αναφέρεται στη ρετσίνα, στην οποία αποδίδεται το κακό όνομα των ελληνικών κρασιών στο εξωτερικό, «εξαιτίας του γεγονότος ότι συχνά παρασκευάζεται λανθασμένα», σύμφωνα με τον κ. Παρασκευόπουλο.

Αλλο δημοσίευμα της ίδιας εφημερίδας κάνει λόγο για την καλλιέργεια των ελληνικών ποικιλιών Ασύρτικο και Ξινόμαυρο εκτός Ελλάδος. Το μεν πρώτο καλλιεργείται στην Αυστραλία από το κτήμα Τζιμ Μπάρι (Jim Barry) στην περιοχή Κλερ Βάλεϊ (Clare Valley) έπειτα από πρόσφατη αγορά κλημάτων από τη Σαντορίνη, ενώ το δεύτερο καλλιεργείται στην Κίνα, με την πιλοτική συνεργασία του κτήματος Κυρ-Γιάννης με την κινέζικης κρατικής ιδιοκτησίας εταιρεία Mogao.

Word-of-mouth in digital communities (social networks)! : Thomas' site

Word-of-mouth in digital communities (social networks)! : Thomas' साईट

Why is word-of-mouth different now?

Today, people are organized in social networks and can take action together. They can discuss isolated instances of bad customer experiences and place them in context. Thus, they express concerns and dissatisfaction more loudly than they have ever been able to. What is more, they can take action to challenge business activities and people in power. In the digital environment, the voice of a few can inspire and reach many. The facilitated (and constant) flow of information among different social networks makes the voice of every single customer that much stronger. This is where customer evangelism becomes critical.

The fact that the customer’s voice has gotten louder shouldn’t scare you. On the contrary, it should motivate you to be a better marketer. It highlights the idea that if your customers are happy, they will share satisfactory experiences with a broader social network and earn you more followers.

In fact, people who share positive emotions tend to have a larger following. (Tweet this)This premise is backed up by HubSpot’s social scientist Dan Zarrella’s analysis of over 100,000 Twitter accounts. Negative remarks, which included negative feelings and morbid comments, belonged to people with smaller reach.

Positive Comments Are Shared More Often

Positive remarks, on the other hand, are exchanged a lot more frequently. Zarrella’sresearch of linguistic content shows that positive comments are the second most shared item among Facebookusers. So how do you take advantage of this phenomenon? By encouraging your customers to become marketing evangelists.

Characteristics of Bad Customer Service.

This post, the Ten Characteristics of Bad Customer Service, is a great checklist to pass around to the team just as a reminder of those negative customer service behaviors that we all trip over – usually unintentionally.

In customer service, it only takes one negative incident to lose a client for life. In this article, we will take a look at ten common characteristics of bad customer service with the purpose of showing alternatives that would serve customers much more efficiently and positively.

1. Failing to greet customers when they walk in the door.
A customer that is not acknowledged upon entering your business will not feel like the valuable commodity that they are.

2. Hanging up on an angry customer.
No one likes being yelled at, but disgruntled customers sometimes need time to vent before dealing with their concerns in a rational manner. If the customer becomes abusive, get a manager. Never hang up on a customer.

3. Eating in front of customers.
No one wants to watch someone eat their lunch – or even a mid-morning donut. Leave the food for the break room and keep your mouth clear for talking to your customers.

4. Putting a call on hold without asking first.
It is a simple courtesy to ask before putting someone on hold. In addition, you are less likely to have the customer hang up in frustration when the elevator music starts to blare.

5. Avoiding eye contact with a customer.
When you are talking to someone, you want to know that other person is listening to what you say. Customer service representatives who do not make eye contact look rude at best, and downright shifty or dishonest to others.

6. Socializing with other employees when customers are present.
Customers do not care to hear about your plans for Friday night. Unless you are asking a question about your customer’s business specifically, stop all personal conversations until there are no customers in the vicinity.

7. Forgetting to use common courtesies.
“Please” and “thank you” are mainstays in customer service. Unfortunately, they are not used nearly as often as they should be. Common niceties exude professionalism, as well as courtesy, and should be used without fail.

8. Yelling at a customer.
Let the customer vent and then deal with their complaint in a calm, rational manner.

9. Using technical jargon when talking to customers.
You do not need to talk down to your customers, but it is helpful to use language they understand when explaining company policies and procedures. Leave the technical jargon for your coworkers.

10. Complaining about the company to customers.
There are no exceptions to this rule. There is never an appropriate time to bad-mouth your own company to a customer. This could potentially cost your company money or even lose the customer altogether.

Bad customer service is prevalent today, but it is not hard to overcome. By studying the bad, you can replace it with stellar service that will boost your customer base and your profits.

Video Marketing.

Hotel video content has been around a few years in an attempt to sate the seemingly ceaseless craving for information by online shoppers before booking a hotel room.

As a medium it arguably offers considerably more than static web pages and even virtual tours by providing a truly authentic peek into a hotel's facilities with a nice scale of depth unmatched by photos or most virtual tours and is best integrated into the homepage of a hospitality facility.

However, the number of hotel websites incorporating video remain relatively small and hoteliers would do well to take note of a recent survey by emarketer which found that by 2014 "77% of US Internet users will be watching online video content at least monthly".

And demographics show that it is Gen Y, a key market for hotels beginning in the near term, that is a big follower of online video viewing, most of whom have gone beyond snack-size clips to adopt full-length TV and movie viewing on the Web.

Marketers in other industries such as retail are taking note. In the recently concluded Internet Retailer 2010 Conference and Exhibition in Chicago noted that retailers have begun adding "videos to their sites" and they have found "that videos boost sales conversion rates and reduce abandoned shopping cart and product return rates."

Small hotels and hotel companies daunted by the cost of producing high quality video content can take heart from an interesting case study highlighted at the Internet Retailer conference where an industry minnow, BeautyChoice found that "there were people on YouTube doing makeup videos that already had large followings. The company chose to use those clips and and formed relationships with those YouTube "celebrities".

Of the top 50 retailers in the US who are offering some form of video on their websites skyrocketed the ratio moved up from 18% in 2008 to 68% in 2009 according to a Forrester Research study, “Online Retailers’ Adoption of Online Video Content Is Ahead of Consumers’ Preferences.”

Video SEO is also on the rise and ranking techniques include the incorporation of a "video site map" which enables Google to grab descriptive information of a video such as title and duration, Along those lines a company called Truveo has launched a video search app on Facebook that will allow users to browse the company's database of more than 500 million videos and share clips with friends.

A search of "New York Hotels" for example reveals an interesting list of hotels but few, if any, are actively marketing their hotels. The industry would do well to ramp up the pace of video content to keep up with consumer demand for that medium.

Online Κρατήσεις Ξενοδοχείων με το Booking-World.com

Κάτι καινούργιο συμβαίνει στο χώρο των online ξενοδοχειακών κρατήσεων αυτές τις ημέρες! Σε περιόδους κρίσης είναι που εφαρμόζονται οι πρακτικές και καινοτόμες επιχειρηματικές ιδέες σε ένα χώρο, μάλιστα, με ιδιαίτερο ανταγωνισμό. To Booking-World.com σύστημα online κρατήσεων για ξενοδοχεία, δεν είναι ακόμη ένα site για εύρεση ξενοδοχείων αλλά ένα σύστημα διαχείρισης διαθεσιμοτήτων με απ' ευθείας πώληση των δωματίων από τα ξενοδοχεία και πληρωμή απ' ευθείας στο ξενοδοχείο χωρίς επιβαρύνσεις.

Στο σύστημα αυτό, το ξενοδοχείο δημοσιεύει τις διαθεσιμότητες (δωμάτια) όπως επίσης και τις τιμές για κάθε ένα από αυτά. Λόγω του ότι δεν υπάρχει παρέμβαση ή προμήθεια στις τιμές και στις διαθεσιμότητες από το σύστημα, δεν γίνεται επιβάρυνση με extra κόστος για τον τελικό πελάτη. Επίσης τα ξενοδοχεία μπορούν να μειώνουν τις τιμές των δωματίων σε νεκρές περιόδους ή χαμηλής ζήτησης, προσελκύοντας με αυτό τον τρόπο περισσότερους πελάτες. Ο πελάτης πληρώνοντας απ' ευθείας στο ξενοδοχείο δεν έχε επιπλέον επιβαρύνσεις στις τιμές που πληρώνει με αποτέλεσμα επιπλέον κέρδος.

Ο ρόλος του συστήματος είναι να προωθεί τις διαθεσιμότητες των ξενοδοχείων και να διαφημίζει την ύπαρξή του σε διάφορα μέσα (online και offline) και να εμφανίζει τα δωμάτια των ξενοδοχείων στο μεγαλύτερο δυνατό αριθμό οθονών ταξιδιωτών. Αυτός είναι και ο λόγος της χρέωσης κατά την εγγραφή ενός ελάχιστου αντιτίμου - ετήσιας συνδρομής - των 50€.

Με την μικρή αυτή επένδυση, ένα ξενοδοχείο μπορεί να έχει πολλαπλά οφέλη.

Invest in the Direct Online Channel.

Hoteliers need a robust Direct Online Channel Strategy, accompanied by adequate marketing funds, to be able to take advantage of the steady growth in the Internet channel and the shift from offline to online bookings in hospitality (due to declining GDS and voice channels). Hoteliers must carefully employ ROI-centric initiatives including website redesign, website optimization and SEO, paid search, email marketing, online display advertising and sponsorships, mobile marketing and proven social media initiatives.

Even in this economy, you should not decrease or eliminate your hotel Internet marketing budget. The Internet, and especially the direct online channel, is the only growth channel for hoteliers and the only “light at the end of the tunnel” in this environment. As indicated above, even in these difficult times we see significant ROAS and ROIs from the Internet marketing campaigns we run for our clients.

Market researchers envision growth rates in online travel as high as 11% in 2010 as projected by eMarketer. The online channel, and especially the direct online channel, provides hoteliers with the only viable option for any growth during these trying economic times.