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Campground Manager SoftwareŽ & Bookyoursite.com : Online Screencasts

October 2009 Newsletter
October 7, 2009 - Vol 4, Issue 5


 Greetings!

Hi Folks,
This is the fifth newsletter of the year. Hope everyone had a good and prosperous summer and have a good upcoming fall planned.  Increasing numbers of parks are doing huge business on Halloween in addition to Canadian Thanksgiving so we wish everyone luck with that.
Please email me if you have any questions or concerns.Thanks again for your trust and your business.
In This Issue
Online reservation trends
Online Training Screencasts
E Invoices
Upcoming Events
Office Hours
Scott's Tech tip
Quote of the Month
Join Our Mailing List!

Quick Links
Online Reservations
bookyoursite websiteRecently I was doing some reading about online reservations as it pertains to the hotel industry. I was interested in seeing the difference between the two industries.
I know I am probably repeating myself however if you are not taking online reservations (preferably through Bookyoursite.com) then you are not serving your customers.
I have done some research and came across the following info.
  • 66% of travelers use the Internet to search for hotels and plan their vacation. Up from 35% in 2000.
  • 31% of travelers use an online travel agency such as Expedia
  • 26% rely on search engines such as Google
  • 56% of the travelers surveyed use the online reservation system. Also keep in mind that another 44% aren't using the system so they will most likely call to make a reservation. Remember to put a call to action with a link to your reservations page and your phone number on each page of your website.  
  • 66% of Leisure Travelers use the Internet to plan some aspect of their trip but remember another 34% do not. That means you must continue to market off-line, with TV and print, to reach the percentage of people not using the Internet and to reinforce your brand with those who are.  
Please remember these numbers are for hotels and taken from the National Travel Monitor data base. To read the whole article please click here.
Your Internet business will continue to grow if we follow the trends in the hotel business. Make it a major part of your marketing and operational strategy. It is what the public wants. Be interested to know your thoughts, please feel free to email  or call.
Online Screencasts (continued)


Online Training Videos
As we discussed last month we are trying to capitalize on video/Internet technology more and more. We have
4 webinars listed on the front page of our website. We also have over 15 movies in the esupport section of our website.

We are now going to produce some screencasts to demonstrate new features when we release them.

We currently have 4 screencasts available.
1. The new IN/Out feature.
Click here to start the screencast.
2. The new bulk email departure letter for a 3rd party to send out.
Click here to start the screencast.
3. The new email departure letters sent direct from Campground Manager SoftwareŽ.
Click here to start the screencast.
4. A new promotional screencast demonstrating our Campground Manager SoftwareŽ Central Reporting Module.
Click here to start the screencast.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to
email me or give me a call.
Hope you like them!

Thanks!
Mission Management Invoices- 2ND NOTICE
company logo Doing our part to save the Planet!
 
Future invoices will be sent via email ONLY!  Please email your appropriate email address to Christina in our accounting department at cbabin@gmail.com .  Please include your park name.

Thanks in advance for your anticipated support!
Upcoming Events
We have a couple of events coming up I would like to share with you.ARVC  logo

Insites 2009. We will be attending our 14th straight annual ARVC conference in Orlando, November 8-14th. We are a sponsor of the show and this year we are in booth 213 on sponsor row. Please drop by and see us! If you have not signed up or have never attended you should give it a try. Go to the ARVC website and check it out! This year the Insites show also includes the LSI- Jellystone Park annual symposium. We will be especially busy at the show as we are the software vendor or choice for the Jellystone park system. If you would like to pre-book an appointment at the show please email me.

Campground Manager SoftwareŽ Webinar- We are having an online webinar with the topic being Campground Manager SoftwareŽ overview. This will be an introductory webinar on how the systems works and a basic review. If you have new employees and want to introduce them to Campground Manager SoftwareŽ then this would be the place. If you have any interest in installing our product at your park then this would be a good intro to the product. You have to pre-register for this meeting.
Thursday October 22nd at 1 PM Eastern Please click here to register.

Bookyoursite.com Relaunch Webinar- We are re-launching Bookyoursite.com with a fresh new look and are very excited. Please join us for a live online webinar kickoff to show the new format. This is the week before the ARVC Insites show and will be a major part of our show promotion. You have to pre-register for the meeting.
Tuesday November 3rd at 1 PM Eastern. Please click here to register.

For those of you not familiar with how the webinar format works, here's how.
Once you pre-register you will get an email with a link to join the webinar. At the appointed time you click on that link and it should fire up. Once you join the webinar you will get a conference call line to call for the audio portion from your regular phone. You will have a chance to ask questions at the end.

So please join us! Thanks in advance.
Canadian Thanksgiving
Our office will be closed Monday October 12th for our employees to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. Emergency support will be available as usual. Thanks in advance for your support.
Scott's Tech tip - Links in Departure Letter.
In the previous section we have a link to the departure email letter screencast. You can now put a link on the departure letter to your home page or even better your reservation page on Bookyoursite.com .

Within your Departure Email Letter, you can embed a hyper link that the recipient can click on and be directed to a website. Below is an example of a departure letter.

Dear Valued Customer

Thank you for staying with us. We hope you enjoyed your stay. Please check our website for future specials.

Come again soon!

The Manager
http://www.jellystoneniagara.ca

<a href='http://www.jellystoneniagara.ca'>Jellystone Niagara</a>


To make the link work, you need to add a prefix and a suffix to the URL.
<a href='http://www.jellystoneniagara.ca'>Jellystone Niagara</a>
To customize this link to suit your own needs, change http://www.jellystoneniagara.ca to one of your sites. This would be useful in order to redirect a customer to a survey site.

Any questions please call or Email myself.

That is about it for this month. Please feel free to send us your comments or post your thoughts in our user forum, on our blog, or our social networking site.

Next Month- I would like to start a customer feedback area within this newsletter. Have a special event at your park you would like to tell the world about? Have an editorial you would like to add to this newsletter? Send it to me and we will consider it for next Month's "Customer Corner" feature.This newsletter goes out to over 2000 of the most connected people in the industry.

Please remember,

"Success is meaningless if you can't sleep at night because of harsh things said, petty secrets sharpened against hard and stony regret, just waiting to be plunged into the soft underbelly of a 'friendship.'

Margaret Cho, Margaret Cho's Weblog, 04-12-2006

Until next month! Hope to see you in Orlando!

Sincerely,
Peter Kearns
Campground Manager SoftwareŽ
www.campgroundmanager.com
www.bookyousite.com
www.campgroundmanagerjobs.com
peterk@campgroundmanager.com
800-547-9147
Direct 403-278-3279