How to Use Hiking Trails to Market
Yourself / Your Business / Blog / Photography

Business Advertising with Content Marketing

Content Marketing How To Video

Imagine a system where your business can create advertising using hiking trails. Well, now you can with the eh Canada Hiking Trail Content Marketing Tool! It is so easy too. All you need to do is contribute text and photos about a hiking trail which is located in your community, in a nearby park or while you were hiking on vacation in another part of the country and within minutes you will have created a content marketing ad linking you and your business as the “go to” resource for that trail.

One of the most effective marketing tools in today’s internet is content marketing. eh Canada Travel is the first fully functional content marketing, interactive tourism website in Canada to implement the power of content marketing. The content marketing tools are only available to Members who have signed up as travelers, bloggers, photographers or advertising tourism businesses on eh Canada Travel.

To access the content marketing tools one must click on the “Add Content” link located on the top tab of your Member Profile. Doing so opens up a bevvy of content marketing options including adding communities, parks, trails, travel tips, photos, activities, videos, beaches, historic sites, waterfalls and many more.

Once the content is added and matched with the appropriate community, province, territory and national categories your business is featured/highlighted as the source of the information. Who do you think the traveler is going to contact if they want to stay in that community, or participate in an activity or hike that trail is going to contact first?You! As the trail example in our video (above) and on the screen shot below shows – the Business Contributor is highlighted with an avatar and a business link.

Lets use the example we just created in our video training series – the West Coast Trail (WCT). Now, some may say I have never backpacked or hiked the WCT. So what…  most people who write for our Government tourism associations have never hiked the trail either, let alone removed themselves from behind a desk. If you do the research, have access to photos, have talked to guests who have done the trail, and provide good, reliable information helpful to our visitors then go for it.

What is important here is that you research accurate information and ask yourself if posting the trail connects visitors to your business. Is the trail a big feature in your community? Is the trail not far from your business? Do some of guests stay with you prior and after hiking the trail? Is the community tourism scene big on promoting the trail?  Yes, to any one of these questions means doing a little research and creating content works great for your business as it connects your business to one of your target markets!

This is called piggyback marketing – when a business piggybacks the popularity of another feature of the community to expose themselves to a certain target market. Here are some businesses ideal for piggybacking the West Coast Trail  – backpacking companies,  tour companies, fishing guides, hiking clubs, photography clubs, nearby campgrounds, trailhead community accommodations and camping and hiking stores and manufacturers of outdoor equipment. Any business, with a little research,  can contribute information and associate themselves to a trail. Doing this you have already started the relationship building process with that visitor.

“Traveler gratitude can easily lead to revenues.”

Guidelines to Trail Content Contribution:

1. Research your content. You must appear to be knowledgeable and helpful so the traveler has confidence in contacting you.
2. Make content educational and unbiased. (any miss use of content to strictly self promote will be removed and a warning will be issued).
3. Write the content prior to contributing to the website. Make sure to spell check. Professional content looks good on your business. Poor spelling and punctuation looks bad on your business.
4. Resize all photos to a reasonable size like 800 pixels by 500 pixels. (Remember each photo is also like having an ad promoting your business)
5. Research the longitude and latitude of the trail on the internet for easy input on to the map feature of the website.
   
6. Place all the photos and text information somewhere on your computer that is easy to access when you are online ready to input the data

Piggyback marketing with content marketing is one of the best ways to advertise your business long term to a new or current target market. The more quality content you create the more you advertise your business.