Are you looking to increase the number of bookings and improve the quality of reviews for your tour or activity business? It all starts with capturing memories of your customers.
That’s exactly the conversation that Ryan O’Grady, Founder and President of Fotaflo, discusses in a recently published podcast with Shane Whaley at Tourpreneur. The podcast covers a range of topics including:
- Memory marketing and how it improves the customer experience
- The benefits of sending photo memories to past customer
- How photo memories can help build brand advocates
- The difficulty in selling photos
- How to take great photos of your tour customers
- How to offer photo memories to customers for the first time
- Why you should prioritize quality over quantity when taking photo memories
- How Fotaflo helps tour and activity operators improve and manage their memory marketing strategy
- The benefits of sending photo memories to customers through email and text
If you don’t have time to listen to the podcast, we’ve summarized a few of the key points below:
What is memory marketing?
Memory marketing starts with a brand creating an experience that their customers actually want to remember.
But the best part is that customers already have the expectation that they’re going to create a memory before they show up. So tour and activity operators have this incredible opportunity because our customers already want to remember their experience.
By helping them to remember their experience, not only are they going to advocate for our businsiness, they are also more likely to return because of that connection between brand and memory.
Memory marketing is all about embedding your brand, and your story, within the memories of your customers.
What’s the benefit of sending out photos to past customers?
This is truly dependent on the goals your business wants to achieve. One example is a business, which wasn’t actually a Fotaflo client but followed our recommendations around using photos in a campaign to past customers, that wanted to generate more reviews.
To do this, they sent photo memories to past customers and included a video message from the owner asking if the customer had a good experience and, if so, would they be able to leave a review of their brand.
Instead of us as marketers creating and curating content and trying to appeal to a wide demographic, we can really drive meaningful outcomes when we send personalized messages that help people remember their experience at our business.
What’s most powerful for tour and activity operators is the compounding nature of this for their business. When we maintain an emotional connection between our past customers and our brand, by helping them remember and intentionally sending them photo memories, not only is that going to create repeat business but people are also going to continue to refer and advocate for that business years after their actual experience.
Is providing free photos only worth the time of adventure tours, where it’s more difficult for the customer to take their own photos?
I’ve yet to see a business that shouldn’t intentionally be providing photo memories. Your guides understand the experience and know the places along the tour or activity that will provide customers with the best memory.
The best performing photo is the easiest one to take. It’s the people that booked together standing together and smiling. These outperform any action and candid photos during the actual experience itself.
Even in walking tours, bus tours, food tours or any of the less adventure-type activities, guides are already doing the work because guests are asking them to take a photo. But when they consume and share that photo it doesn’t include the brand of the business. When you intentionally do this then you are proactively promoting your brand and taking control of the message.
Regardless of the type of activity, you’re also adding service and any time you can add service you are enhancing the guest experience. No matter the type of activity you organize, people are investing in your business to leave with that memory. When people leave without a photo of your walking tour, it’s like it didn’t happen.
How to take great photos of your tour customers
People only really care how they perceive themselves in the photo, they don’t really care what camera it’s being taken with. The content that people share the most is the photos where they look the best.
That’s why the best advice is to be intentional. Don’t take candid photos as people don’t look their best when they are taken by surprise. Customers just want a simple, initial photo where they are smiling.
Interested in learning more about how photo memories can increase tour bookings and bring in higher-quality reviews for your business? Get in touch with Fotaflo today. Our team of tour and activity operator photo marketing specialists would love to answer your questions.
