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How To Create Videos For Your Tour Business With No Money.

In this guest blog post for Tourpreneur, Chris Wilson of Typically Swiss Tours shares 10 tips on How To Create Videos For Your Tour Business on a Budget.

During the COVID-19 crisis, there has been plenty of opportunities for tour operators to devote time to learning new marketing activities. Ensuring that their product offering is best placed to capture customers once the lockdown eases and tourism recommences.

I chose to invest time (and no money) to create videos for my tour business. According to Chris Torres, from the Tourism Marketing Agency “People process video information a lot faster than reading written comment – Google claims it`s 60,000 times faster!”

Personally, a cool, well-produced video will always hit the spot and that`s why I went down this road and it has been fun too.  Please bear in mind, I am a technophobe so if I can do it, you can too.

In this blog post for Tourpreneur, I will share my top 10 tips on How To Create Videos For Your Tour Business on a Budget.

So here`s a brief checklist on what I did to produce the 14 tour videos that have gone on Social Media and YouTube over the last 10 weeks.

Whether the tour videos will bring in bookings, I am not sure but for brand awareness purposes, I reckon the videos have been a success. 
  1. Do your research and see if creating videos for your tour business is for you.  Evaluate if it`s going to benefit your business and ensure that you can somehow imagine what your product will look like and how viewers and potential customers will think about your video and whether it improves your brand.
  2. Continuing this theme, check out other videos online, there`s plenty out there and simply see which work for you (and those videos that do not!.) Take the best ideas and riff off them with your style and message.
  3. Watch some educational videos about how to create videos on YouTube repeatedly until you understand it.

    I remember watching the same video at least 5 times on a cross-trainer.  Here`s the guy I watched who taught me how to use IMovie on my mac. There are other similar do it yourself programs for pcs too.

  1. Think about a concept, whether you are going to present in the film or simply top and tail borrowed footage. If it is the former, make sure the filming is as professional as possible in terms of equipment, staff, location, script, preparation, etc – this will go a long way to making your video as professional-looking as possible. “how would you like others to see you or your company?
  2. If you borrow footage, approach the organization and be honest and upfront and say you want to promote their brand on social media and whether it would be ok to change any aspects of the video or audio.

    All of the 15 attractions I contacted were happy to share footage and this clearly is a great way of using superb, professional, expensive (helicopters and drone footage, etc) which you would never be able to afford.
  3. In terms of content, be as creative as you can be. However, like humour, (see below) be pragmatic and realistic.  Your message and narrative must be compelling for a wide market and not just a niche that shares your personality.  Try and be general in your approach here.
  4.  This one is very personal and subjective but try to keep the content of videos as professional as possible and be careful on humour – just because you think something is hilarious does not mean others will too.  Ask a friend for a second opinion before you post and possibly keep humour fairly general and nothing too controversial that will in any way damage your brand.
  5. Technically and linguistically, again make no mistakes as this will damage your brand. A poorly produced with bad sound issues or spelling mistakes is not acceptable.  A video on the other hand which is not perfect and homemade is acceptable as this shows authenticity and people do not expect a fantastic product if they know it is being produced by an amateur.
  6. Post two videos a week to your Facebook page and other relevant groups you may be involved in (check with the admin first.)  Track the feedback from friends and listen to their feedback and improve if necessary.

Set up a Page on YouTube so you can promote them to people. Here`s mine where the Typically Swiss Tours videos are stored. Sending the link is an easy way for people to locate and watch them.

TST You Tube

  1. The best advice is, video making is like anything, the more you do the better and easier it becomes. It took me 4 hours for my first one and now I can produce a video for my tour business in half an hour. The process is a bit fiddly but totally worth it and IMovie is a simple tool – finding the footage is just as hard. 

To conclude, good videos will enhance your tour brand and add value. It is proven and the good news is, it is within anyone’s grasp to make cool videos that will showcase your tour business and tours above your competitors who may not have a video. Admittedly it is only a part of the marketing mix but a worthwhile one.

Take a listen to Episode 62 of the Tourpreneur Podcast and hear the story of Chris’ tour business – Typically Swiss Tours.