Marketing Your
Alaska Hunting or Fishing Business
On the Internet

by David M. Johnson, General Manager
©1998-2005 Outdoors America Communications

The good news, of course, is that more than one out of three American adults use the Internet, and the numbers continue to increase. Rapidly expanding audience reach makes the Internet an increasingly effective mechanism for marketing your business.

The problem is the same as with other marketing channels -- being seen, and having been seen, being called, and once called, making bookings!

I think it helps to view your Internet marketing efforts as a pyramid. Your Internet marketing efforts will reach their peak when all the levels are in place.

The foundation is your business itself. The ideal business would be one in which everyone would not only want your service, they would NEED it. Most of us operate in a much less ideal business situation, of course, but here is the point: no amount of marketing is going to make a success of a business idea that has little customer appeal. The business must also be well run. Studies show that unsatisfied customers will often tell a number of friends about their bad experiences. Satisfied customers, on the other hand, will often point friends to you. Most outdoor businesses I talk with depend on word-of-mouth advertising for a substantial fraction of their future customers. This being the case, you can count on referral clients who check you out on the web before making a booking.

With a solid business foundation in place, Internet marketing blocks can be laid. The following are the levels I suggest you pay attention to.

An Internet presence is your first level. Web pages are relatively easy to build with some recent word processors, shareware HTML editors and full-fledged HTML editors and web site managers. (HTML stands for hypertext markup language, the internal workings of a web page) However, you will probably find that a cheap web site will not serve you very well. More on this at the next level.

An often overlooked part of an Internet presence can be your own personal participation in the `net. I suggest you make people aware of your expertise by posting replies to questions on various forums, and Usenet newsgroups. Lots of people are seeking information about Alaska outdoors. You may be giving away something for free, but remember this: the number of people who read these posts FAR outweighs the number of people who actually post. MANY people may see your response over a period of months or even years. Depending on the forum, your replies can often include a hyperlinked reference to your web page. This way, people who see your expertise can immediately check out your business.

A poorly designed web site will serve you just as badly as a photocopied brochure or a lifeless display ad. So that’s the second level: a GOOD web site. Here are the some elements of a good web site:

1. Carefully crafted text - If you aren’t a writer, find a friend or a professional that can make your ideas come alive. Don’t put too much text on a single page. Web surfers are a lot like television channel surfers. You must get your ideas across quickly and succinctly. If there is more that you need to say, use additional web pages.
2. Your absolute best photos – We usually put quite a bit of effort into images for the web sites we build because we know they, more than the text, will sell the product or service for our clients. Make an effort to have photos of your clients in action. If necessary, stage some pictures that accurately show what you do. Bright colors are best. Use action pictures of people doing things. Get in close when you snap the shot -- the interesting part of the picture is the people and what they are doing.
3. Easy contact information - It is important to be easy to contact. I believe that an e-mail address works best for most businesses -- after all, the prospect is sitting at his computer already!  A toll free number is probably a good second. Candidly, however, you will probably find that many of your e-mails are from "tire kickers." The problem is that it is not always possible to separate these from the active prospects, so you pretty much have to answer each one. One solution to this is a friendly form response customized where necessary to answer specific questions. The contact form can also help to eliminate spam.

Good visibility for your web page is the third level. Most people find web pages by using the various search directories (Yahoo, etc) and search engines (Google, Netscape, AOL search, etc.)  You would be astonished at the number of web pages I see that do not have the basic HTML "meta tags" to make them usable to some of the most important search engines. A web page without these basics is like putting up a sign in a dense forest: it’s out there, it’s just not likely to be seen very often!

Links are critical -- both in their own right as sources of traffic, and now as a means for rating your pages on important search engines.  You must have links pointing to you website....or you will not be found in the major search engines.

Widely placing free and paid links to your page will combine together to make improved "traffic" from many sources. Free links often require reciprocal links on your page, which will have to be added by your webmaster. Another valuable source of links comes from "gateway" sites, which by their nature have large amounts of traffic. Our gateway sees thousands visitors every day (see the numbers in the orange box at upper left) because of the large and growing quantity of outdoors information we offer. We offer inexpensive but effective hyperlinked advertisements from our gateway directory pages. There are other Alaska gateways with a similar plan.  We also offer effective advertising locations on area pages and on magazine article pages.

The importance of links has been underscored by the emergence of Google as one of the top-ranked search engines.  Your page ranking on Google depends heavily on how many links point to it.  More high quality links means better rankings.  Links from "free for all" links pages will hurt your rankings; not help.

The next level is good salesmanship on the telephone, by e-mail and letter. Skill in these areas and effective follow-up can mean more business with less advertising outlay.

For most businesses, nothing beats talking on the telephone with potential clients. The problem is this: how do you get the prospect’s telephone number if it doesn’t come in the e-mail message? Here are some tactics:

1. Use a web-based response form. Your webmaster can build one of these for you. You will often get more useful information from potential clients….such as mailing address and telephone number.
2. Ask for the `phone number in a return message

If a telephone call is not possible, a short, friendly, well-written e-mail message or "snail mail" may work well for you. Consider making a short form message that you can customize for the specific client. Again, if writing isn’t your forte, get help from a friend.

If we can be of service, please do not hesitate to call us at 1.907.895.4919. Or, if you prefer, drop me an e-mail message at djohnson@outdoorsdirectory.com

Good luck with your marketing for the coming season!

David Johnson