Angee joins us today to share how she built and grew Taste of SLO Walking Food Tour.
She discusses how she researched the San Luis Obispo tourism market before starting her business and outlines how she networked and collaborated with bars and restaurants.
She talks about the point in the journey she started investing in paid advertising and reveals her secret sauce to maximizing Facebook ads.
Angee also underscores the value of maintaining a working relationship with bar and restaurant staff and highlights the importance of keeping your tours fresh.
“Once you get an idea in the head, you have to go out and taste what’s going to get featured in your tour—what’s good, what’s special.“
Brian Cain, CRAWL New Orleans
This week on Tourpreneur, the Tour Operator Podcast:
- Angee’s background and her Taste of SLO tour business journey
- How the closest women in Angee’s life helped build her business
- Beginning her market research before starting her tour company
- Taste-testing the tours, managing tour logistics, and beginning market research
- The first time Angee reached out to restaurants to collaborate and the first tour she had
- Her advice to Tourpreneurs who are nervous about approaching bars and restaurants
- How food tours benefit bars and restaurants
- The importance of keeping tours fresh and how Taste of SLO has evolved over the years
- Maintaining a stellar working relationship with bar and restaurant staff
- Guerilla marketing techniques and how Angee acquired her first paying customers for her food tour
- Creating the website for Taste of SLO
- Directly tapping into your target market through Facebook
- The power and challenges of Facebook advertising
- Narrowing your target audience and Angee’s tips for utilizing and maximizing Facebook ads
- Why you shouldn’t put an end date on your Facebook ads
- How hiring staff and tour guides has benefited Angee
Today’s episode of Tourpreneur is kindly sponsored by Tourism Marketing Agency and Arival Las Vegas
More about today’s guest…
Angee Johnson of Taste of SLO Walking Food Tours
Angee Johnson is the founder of Taste of SLO Walking Food Tours.
Angee has over 20 years of experience in the food service industry and began her career by working in numerous bars and restaurants as she completed her bachelor’s degree in Marketing at the College of St. Scholastica.
Her passion for food and fun was further enkindled when she later moved from Minnesota to San Luis Obispo, California.
After years of tasting everything the town has to offer, Angee founded Taste of SLO, a walking food tour that features San Luis Obispo destinations that Angee loves.