How To Use Photos To Increase Bookings

With a country as famous for its beauty as Scotland is, it's amazing how few tourism businesses really use it to their advantage. The benefits of using Scotland's scenery and landscapes becomes more apparent as you become familiar with the logical steps tourists take in their holiday planning.

Before even looking at tours, attractions, accommodation and other outdoors activities people ask themselves one thing 'What's Scotland like?'. Many will have heard that it rains all the time in Scotland or that it is more or less like Ireland.

To find the answer to their question, people go online and look for photos. No amount of text describing Scotland comes close to seeing photos of it. At this point, people are in the very first phase of the buying cycle. Photos act as the incentive that takes them to the next stage -- reaching the decision to come to Scotland.

They may or may not decide to go through with their plans to visit Scotland but making contact with them at such an early stage and in such a cost-effective way may prove invaluable. Here's what online tourists do:

• If they're completely unfamiliar with Scotland, they first look for general photos of it, not of any area in particular.
• Once they get a general impression, they start looking for photos of specific areas like Edinburgh, the Highlands, Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, etc.
• People save good quality photos for future viewing or to share them with their friends and family. Even if they don't decide to come to Scotland in the near future, they might show them to friends who might.
• Large and good quality photos are often used as wallpapers and kept indefinitely on people's computers.
• Sharing these pictures means that they will end up in lots of different places on the web: photo and tourist communities, linked to by travel websites, etc.

The Benefits Of A Photo Gallery For Your Business

A photo gallery needn't have photos from all over Scotland, just from the areas where you operate in.

The photo gallery should cover as many subjects as possible: landscapes and seascapes, wildlife, towns and villages, attractions and monuments.

The number of photos that actively promote your business (such as photos of company buses, tour coaches and customers, the inside of your accommodation, etc) should come second, but should still be of the highest quality. Include mostly photos of general interest that people would want to look at over and over again, use as wallpapers or show to friends.

Tips for taking photos

• Take photos of the highest possible quality with a good digital camera. These days you can get a good digital camera at £2-300 but they've become so popular these days, that you can borrow one from a friend.
• Read some photography tips and take them yourself or have your employees take them. You might be lucky enough to find that one of them is an enthusiast.
• Take as many photos as possible and keep only the best ones.
• Take photos only on sunny days to bring out the best in them. Many tourists have had bad luck with the weather and photos of places they've been to, in good weather, are a good substitute.

Using the photo gallery for free branding and viral marketing

Before publishing the photo gallery ask someone to include your website address at the bottom left or right of every photo. Make them available in wallpaper-size format to fit even larger screens and include captions for every one of them.

People looking for photos of areas you operate in will stumble across your gallery and save the best ones on their computer. They might use them as wallpaper, look at them later or occasionally sift through them. Either way, your website address is on their computer, on their screen and for an indefinite amount of time. That's free branding.

If the photos are good, people will occasionally come back to your website to see if you've added any new ones. Basically, they will be actively looking to save photos with your address on them. More free branding.

The more people see your website address, the more familiar you become to them. The moment they decide to come to Scotland, many of them will know where to go to arrange their holiday.

Good quality photos, like jokes, are viral in nature:

• Your photos will spread among friends, family and acquaintances promoting Scotland to them, but your website as well.
• Photo-related websites, local community websites or tourist boards will link to your gallery and send visitors your way.
• People that are still undecided to become your customers will involuntarily promote your website by sharing around the website address on the photos themselves.
• Some publications might even ask if they can publish one or more of your photos which will provide you with free publicity. These publications may include foreign travel and holiday guides which would then bring you free exposure to qualified prospects.

Risks And Drawbacks Of Using Photo Galleries For Free Branding

While signed photo galleries work well for branding and viral marketing, there is the risk of some people cropping out your website address. Once that happens, those photos bring you no benefit whatsoever. However, given the benefits of the photos that are still intact, this is an acceptable risk.

The biggest drawback of using photo galleries in your online marketing is not being able to measure the actual impact on sales or your brand.