This month's tip comes from Asaka Narumi, Web Marketing Manager at Visit Pittsburgh. 

"We all spend a lot of time making sure our sites are highly ranked in the various search engines, but one misstep and you can undo years of hard work.

Before making changes - big or small - talk to your simpleview SEM team to discuss the effects your intended changes could have on your rankings. By discussing your intentions, you and your team can explore how these changes can affect your rankings and site traffic. Together you can plan to capitalize on unique opportunities or have a game plan in place to counter any negative consequences.

On a similar note, it is best practice to communicate all recent changes to site pages and navigation to your simpleview team. Regular communication helps simpleview work more efficiently to update meta data, redirect broken links and find problem pages - helping protect the rankings you worked so hard to maintain.

Communicate with your team to exploit their knowledge and expertise to your advantage!"

This month's tip is from Susan Kimball, Group Sales Administrator with the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau. Susan has been one of our most active forum users, but is leaving the CVB and moving to Colorado Springs. We'll miss her!

"We've all had to clean up data from time to time, right?  I've found that saved searches makes this very easy. Simply build a search that finds data that is wrong or incomplete. The results will be all the records that need updates, and once fixed, each record disappears from the list. Here are some saved searches I've used:

Records with Blank Fields

When I added a custom field for hotel amenities, I built a search to show all lodging accounts where the new UDF was blank. As filled in, they disappeared from the list.

Zapping Weird Zips

Several of our Tour & Travel and Meeting Sales accounts once had weird or incorrect zip codes. I built a search to show zip does not equal %[0-9], which is a wildcard search to pull up all records with letters (including "XXXXX") and other mistakes.

Blocked Rooms for Definite Leads

When you mark a Tour & Travel lead definite, the Blocked Rooms field has a zero, meaning you don't get a reminder to enter blocked rooms on save. But since Blocked Rooms are tracked on the Booking Production Report, it's important to find and fix these before running a report. I built a search for overnight leads in definite status where Blocked Rooms = zero.  

Get Help When You Need It

Of course, if you end up with a LOT of records to "fix" (like in the hundreds), keep in mind that simpleview can help.

Rather than fix one by one in CRM, use a search to pull all the records you need to alter, export to Excel or .csv, fix the data, then upload the file in a ticket so that your project manager can have the data "pushed in."  Be sure to include the appropriate ID# field and user group.

I did this successfully with hundreds of records that didn't have any Market Segment or Category upon initial import when we transitioned from our old system."

Google Places Photos

This is really a tip for your members and industry partners, so pass it on!

When you're driving in a new city, it's easy to miss street numbers and signs. One of the most frustrating experiences of visiting any destination is circling the block two or three times because you can't spot the restaurant you're looking for (or gift shop, gallery, etc.).

Make it easier by showing visitors what your business looks like from the street. Anyone can upload photos of their business to Google Places, but in addition to interior shots, make sure you show how it looks from the street, both day and night.

Google is taking applications now to have their photographers shoot businesses in select cities. You can learn more about it here - but anyone can upload business photos: don't wait for Google!

To find your Google Places page and upload your own photos, search your business on Google Maps. Click the map marker for your business to bring up the information balloon, then click "more info" next to the ratings info to go to your Places page. 

April's tip comes from Marla Allen, Convention Sales Research Coordinator at the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Using filters in 3.0

Filters are a neglected tool in CRM 3.0.  And since filters are found at nearly every level, in every module, I feel it is worth reviewing their usefulness. I primarily work in Meeting/Sales and train the sales team, often I forget about them. 

The primary function of a filter is to focus on a specific type of account, profile, contact, etc., and to reduce the total number of items displayed.  I find it particularly helpful at the trace level, within an account, when I want to see only my traces with a particular trace type.

Also be aware at the communication tab, if you are not finding a communication you are certain was sent, click the filter and select Show All Sent, because it may not show in the default filter of Sent Last 90 Days.

And did you know that you can create a Search, starting with the Accounts Module, build your search, let's say for your top accounts, save the search and select My Filters Only at the dropdown Filter Available.  You now have that list available for you when looking at the list of accounts.

So my tip is, take a few minutes and get familiar with your filters.  They are a useful tool.

March's tip comes from Tim Brechlin, Web & New Media Coordinator at the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau.  

The Power of Participation

It's crucial to avoid putting yourself in a silo when trying to solve a problem or explore a new avenue. Blogs, forums and other forms of social media are exactly that - they're social. So be social through them. Communicate with your peers. The simpleview User Forum is one of my first stops on the Web when I come to the office in the morning, simply because I want to see what my fellow DMO professionals are talking about - and offer my input, if any. The odds are that as smoothly as one of your initiatives is proceeding, someone's figured out a way to do it just a tiny bit better ... and, conversely, the odds are that you're doing something that others would like to emulate. But no one will ever improve their practices unless they ask and answer questions. Post in forums, comment on blog posts, have conversations on Twitter, and failing that, pick up the phone and call up a stranger halfway across the country. Become engaged in the conversation. You'll learn a little, and you'll teach a little.

Remember: You can't keep your wisdom unless you give it away, too.

This month's tip comes from Chris Huot, Marketing & Events Specialist for the Bakersfield CVB.

Simplify your media relations tasks in CRM 3.0 in two ways

1. Create categories for media contacts.  By doing this, you can assign each contact a category and use this category to search for and send e-mails via the CRM to a specific type of media. Let's say your PR department wants to send a news release out to Tourism/Leisure media contacts only. If all of your Tourism/Leisure contacts are assigned to the category ‘Tourism/Leisure' then you can create and save a search to display the Tourism/Leisure contacts only. Other common types of categories for contacts can include: Local Media, Sports (both local and trade), Board of Directors, Meeting/Convention Media and niche media (foodies, wine, etc).

I prefer to keep as much data and communications flowing through the CRM - thus I try to send all my news releases via the CRM using saved searches. This way I can really target my audience to the media contacts that will be the most receptive of the news release content. I don't want to send my tourism news release to my meeting media contacts - or vice versa. By creating categories and corresponding saved searches I increase the likelihood of my release being picked up by a media outlet.

To create categories go to the Media/PR section of your CRM > Admin > Dropdowns > Media Categories > Add New Categories. Once you've added all the categories you want, go back and assign each media contact to a category. Then create a saved search to filter out each category (or multiple categories) for future use.

2. Create a Media Release Template.  One of the best ways to create brand consistency (and make sending a news release easier) is to have simpleview create a media release template that can be selected and inserted into the HTML body of a CRM e-mail. The template I currently use includes our full color logo on the left side and my contact information on the right side (in line with each other). This is much like a header in Word. The advantage with creating a template is over time media members get used to seeing your logo and recognize your contact information. As always, the body of your news release must contain newsworthy information, but a professional and consistent template always creates a good first impression.

This month's tip comes from Mandi Engram, the Director of Internet Marketing for Columbia Metropolitan CVB.

"If you have important, signature annual events to promote, consider setting up a page of signature events with links to individual pages for those events with more robust content than a regular calendar event. That way you can customize pages by adding enhanced content that contribute to your SEO efforts, and add custom Twitter, Facebook or other social media widgets for any pages the event organizers have set up."

To see how the Columbia Metropolitan CVB mastered this, click here

This month, Valeta Sweet, IT manager of Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau, shares this insight into a way to keep operations running smoothly and CRM users working at top efficiency:

"One of the best ideas I received from the CVB Summit when we first started with simpleview CRM was to have weekly meetings with each user group.

The meeting gave each user group a dedicated time to discuss among themselves how to do various tasks and exchange ideas and best practices. It also gave me the opportunity to train everyone at one time on any new processess or functions.  

Because we continued to meet bi-weekly, our transition from CRM 2.5 to 3.0 went smoothly.

We've continued to hold these meetings on a regular basis, and we always seem to learn something new from each other. Its been a great training tool for everyone involved."