{"id":6115,"date":"2016-06-02T03:54:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T01:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?page_id=6115"},"modified":"2021-05-18T16:24:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T14:24:48","slug":"internet-marketing-italy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/internet-marketing-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Marketing in Italy \u2013 A Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Internet Marketing in Italy \u2013 A Case Study<\/span><\/h1>\n

Learn how I helped a tour business in Italy QUICKLY scale their customer leads with a simple digital marketing campaign.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I worked with Laura from \u201cDigging up Roots in the Boot.\u201d She\u2019s an American woman living in Calabria who performs family document research, and conducts heritage tours for the descendants of Italian immigrants from the U.S., Canada, and Australia. When I met her, she was doing a pretty good job establishing a name for herself via word of mouth. And that was fine, but as we all know, these days information travels at the velocity of high-speed Interne<\/strong>t<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I was glad that Laura had such a good business model in place, which was key, because nothing helps a bad business fail faster than effective marketing<\/strong>. Put another way, some people (falsely) believe that you can sell anything if you just market it well.<\/p>\n

So with Laura, there were no issues with the quality of her services\u2014she\u2019s top notch all the way. But there were a few challenges in getting her message heard beyond the reach of her own voice.<\/p>\n

Some of the challenges that we faced:<\/strong><\/h1>\n
    \n
  • Limited experience in technology and marketing<\/strong>. While she\u2019s an undisputed expert in genealogy research and heritage tourism, her knowledge of tools like WordPress was limited. Further, she\u2019s never really considered herself a good writer\u2014although I personally dispute that point.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • She\u2019s a one-woman operation<\/strong>. She\u2019s doing it all on her own. Yes, she worked with me to get her platforms all set up and running smoothly. But at this point, she\u2019s doing everything from answering emails to writing blog posts to connecting with people on social media. All of that in addition to the actual activities of her business.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Hers is not really the biggest niche in tourism<\/strong><\/span>. Millions of people visit Italy every year, <\/span>but not many want to travel to the remote villages of their ancestors. Even people with Italian heritage usually gravitate to the tourist centers of Northern and Central Italy.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Competition<\/strong>. Despite the specificity of her niche, there are still plenty of people doing almost exactly what she does. And many of them h<\/span>ave had an established online presence for a while.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  • She\u2019s in a small town<\/strong><\/span>, <\/strong>not a big city<\/strong><\/span>. Since she lives in an area of Calabria where few other expats live, it\u2019s harder for her to network in person.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \"Internet<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Small social following. <\/strong>Before starting our collaboration, Laura wasn\u2019t very active on social media, consequently her numbers of friends, followers, and fans was low. Thankfully, at this point, it\u2019s growing fast. About a week into her launch one of her Facebook posts \u201cwent viral,\u201d reaching almost 4,500 people and getting shared 49 times! (See Facebook Post above.)<\/span><\/li>\n
    • No email list.<\/strong> I tell all my clients that building an email list should be your top priority. Laura didn\u2019t have one, but we set one up right away and she was able to capture 130+ email leads in the first week alone using an excellent opt-in offer that we created.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Internet Marketing in Italy \u2013 the Results<\/strong><\/h1>\n

      Laura\u2019s website took off almost immediately. Just 11 days after the official launch, she was getting over 1,600 hits per day to her site. People started emailing her left and right<\/strong>\u2014so much so she was overwhelmed. Here\u2019s an exact quote from what she wrote to me:<\/p>\n

      \u201cOMG!!!!!!!! Rick, I can\u2019t keep up! As I am responding to 1 email, 3 more come in. I have responded to over 50 since yesterday and have another 20 in the queue. They are coming in around the clock from the USA, Canada and Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Laura<\/h4>\n

      Owner, Digging Up Roots in the Boot<\/em><\/p>\n

      \"increased<\/span><\/p>\n

      Before creating her website, social profiles, and email list, she wasn\u2019t getting that many inquiries in a month\u2014not even in two months! Needless to say, she\u2019ll now be bringing in as many leads as she can handle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

      I\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to have worked with Laura. She was the perfect client; she knows her business and her \u201cideal\u201d customer; she\u2019s flexible and open to creative suggestions; and she realizes that having a professional platform is only half of the job\u2014the other half requires active participation by her, the business owner.<\/p>\n

      Together, the end result was exactly what we had both hoped to achieve.<\/p>\n

      Let\u2019s Talk!<\/h2>\n

      So if you believe that your business activity could benefit from the same type of online success, please get in touch with me. The initial consultation is always free, and I\u2019d be happy to give you my insights on your current digital marketing efforts. Ciao!<\/em><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Internet Marketing in Italy \u2013 A Case Study Learn how I helped a tour business in Italy QUICKLY scale their customer leads with a simple digital marketing campaign. A few years ago, I worked with Laura from \u201cDigging up Roots in the Boot.\u201d She\u2019s an American woman living in Calabria who performs family document research, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6117,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}