Building & Editing Promotions

· Promotions enable you to create your own specials that you can display on your website or include in your Email Marketing or Newsletter.

· You can create Promotions for Cruises, Tours, Resorts, or Package Vacations. Additionally you can build a Promotion for either a single itinerary or for multiple itineraries from a specific Supplier, Destination or other grouping.

· Also available to you is the ability to create Promotions for Activities, Interests, or even for a specific Destination.

Topics covered in this How-To Guide are:

• Building Promotions Using the Promotion Wizard
• Choosing Promotions for your Home Page
• Choosing Promotions for your Newsletter or Email Marketing
• Editing Promotions

Building Promotions Using the Promotion Wizard back to top

• From your Dashboard, click on "promotion wizard" in the "your wizards" section of the page. This will open a second browser window.

Figure 1:

• Start by specifying which type of Promotion you want to build.
• There are 2 types of Promotions:

· Type 1: These are Promotions for Cruises, Tours, Resorts, or Package Vacations. You can build a Promotion for either a single itinerary (a single promotion) or for multiple itineraries from a specific Supplier, Destination or other grouping (a blanket promotion).

· Type 2: These are Promotions for Activities, Interests, or Destinations.

• For demonstration purposes, we're going to build a promotion for some Group Space that we have on a specific Carnival Cruise sailing in a few months.

• Select "type 1A cruises", select "single promotion" and then click the "next" button.

Figure 1

Figure 2:

• On the next screen, select "Carnival Cruise Line" from the pull-down list and click the "next" button.
• After you select "Carnival", the page will refresh and will show you a list of all the available Carnival Itineraries.
• The Group Space that we're going to be promoting is on the "6-Day Bahamas Roundtrip from Norfolk - Saturday Departures" so we're going to select it from the list, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "next" button.
• NOTE: If you want to see the details of the Promotion, you can click on the Promotion name and view all of the details.

Figure 2

Figure 3:

• On this page we're going to be entering the information that will show up in our Teaser Box.
• The Teaser Box is the summary of your promotion that your customers will click on in order to see the details of your promotion.
• We can add a summary Description of our custom Promotion, add an image, establish our "display" dates and include any disclaimer information.

• Our Description is going to be: "Special Rates. Call us today before they're all gone!"

• To add an image: you can either upload your own image, or you can select one from the images you selected to include from the Image Library. Click here for more information on the Image Library.
• Using the pull-down list of Image Library images, you'll see the names of the images you selected to include.
• When you select one from the list, a small preview of the image will show up on your page so you can make sure it's the image you want to use. (NOTE: You will want to use your thumbnail sized images when you're selecting which image to use here.)

• If your Promotion has an expiration date (i.e. a date that you no longer want it displayed on your website) you'll want to enter start and end dates.
• By entering an expiration date, your promotion will be automatically added on your start date and then automatically removed on your end date.
• If your Promotion does not have fixed dates and you want the Promotion to always show up on your website, you don't need to enter an expiration date.
• After you enter you enter your expiration dates, you can add a Disclaimer for your Promotion (i.e. Prices are based on double occupancy etc…) at the bottom of the page.

• When you're done with the content for your Teaser Box click the "next" button.

Figure 3

Figure 4:

• Next you'll add your Promotion dates and pricing.
• Check the box next to the sailing date you want to promote and enter your special pricing in the price field.
• You can also add a new date by selecting your date, entering a description and clicking the "add" button.
• Once you're done with your dates and pricing, click the "next" button at the bottom of the page.

Figure 4

Figure 5:

· On the next page you'll add the Promotion Content.

· This is the information that your customers will see when they click on the Teaser Box (which is the content we entered on the previous page.)

· We're going to leave our "title" as "6-Day Bahamas - Round Trip from Norfolk - Saturday Departures. "

· In the "sub title" field, we're going to enter "Fabulous Vacation Getaway".

· In the "body" field, we're going to enter "Enjoy the vacation of your dreams onboard this beautiful ship. BOOK NOW and receive a special gift worth $300. We are here to help you create beautiful memories. Call us today!"

· Once we've entered our text, we can select an image to use on our actual Promotions page. You can either select the full-sized image of the Thumbnail we used in our Teaser Box or select a different image all together.

· When you're done entering your text and selecting your image, click the "next" button.

· Advanced: Use HTML in the "Body" field so it will match an existing site and still have all of the functionality surrounding the page.

Figure 5

Figure 6:

• In order to help your customers find your Promotion (if they're browsing for vacations by Activities or Interests), we want to select the appropriate Activities & Interests from the list on this page.
• There are 2 types of attributes you can select.
• The first type is Lifestyle and Interests. You can use these attributes to determine where your Promotion will show up in your website.
• We want the Promotion we built today to show up not only on our Home Page and the Cruise Section (since this is a cruise) but we also want it to show up in the Singles and Honeymoons/Romance section of our site so we're going to check those boxes here.

• The rest of the attributes can be selected to help your users find your promotion if they do a search.
• You can select as many of these attributes as apply. But make sure not to over-promise, you want to pick the ones that highlight the things that your customers can do on their cruise. Since this is a cruise to the Bahamas, we're going to pick beach and snorkeling/swimming.

• Now that we've selected our things to do, we're ready to move on so go ahead and click the "next" button.

Figure 6

Figure 7:

· On this next page, you can define some of the things that a Search Engine or web crawler will use to find your Promotion.

· We're going to enter our "description" (the description will be displayed in search listings if your site is found when someone searches) as "Carnival Cruise Line to the Bahamas from Norfolk, Saturday Departures, Discounted Rates."

· Next we'll add our "keywords" that are the terms that someone might type into a Search Engine if they were looking for a vacation like the one we're creating a Promotion for. We'll enter "Carnival Cruise Line", "Honeymoon Cruise", "Singles Cruise", "Norfolk Cruise", and "Bahamas Cruise".

• Before you finish your Promotion, you'll want to take a look at how it’s going to look just in case you want to make any changes. To do this, click the "preview your promotion" link. Your Promotion will open in a 2nd window.

Figure 7

Figure 8:

• Here's what our Promotion looks like.
• Since we're happy with the way it looks, we're going to close it (by clicking the "X" in the top right corner of your browser) and go back to our Meta Tags page.

Figure 8

• On the Meta Tags page, click the "finish" button.

Figure 9:

• The page below confirms that you have built your Type 1 Single Cruise itinerary through Carnival and gives you a quick summary of your promotion.

Figure 9

• You can create as many Promotions as you'd like using the Wizard. This will help keep your content (and your Newsletter and Email Marketing) fresh and interesting for your customers.
• To close the Wizard, click the "close window" link.

Choosing Promotions for your Home Page back to top

Figure 10:

• From your Dashboard, Click on the "pages of content" link on your Dashboard.
• This will take you to the editable version of your Home Page.

Figure 10

Figure11:

• On your editable Home Page, click on the yellow "promo" button.
• This will take you to the Promotions Selection Tool.

Figure 11

• On the first page, you can select which Promotions to include in your Home Page content box.

• Your options are manually select Promotions and automatically update my promotions using a randomization preference.
• Manually select Promotions: Selecting this option will provide you with the ability to choose from all of your Promotions and Supplier Promotions.
• Automatically update your promotions using a randomization preference: This will establish your preferences regarding how your Promotions will automatically be changed out by OLA's application. You can choose from the following options:
• None (do not randomize, use only your Featured Supplier ranking)
• Complete (select randomly from my included suppliers)
• Combination (use a combination of my Featured Supplier ranking and random selection)

• For this example, we're going to manually select promotions. Select the " I would like to manually pick specific promotions" option and then click the "next" button.

Figure 12:

There are 5 different types of Promotions that are available to you:

• Premium Promotions: These are Promotions that cover more than 1 itinerary (i.e. Holiday Cruises) or are specialty Promotions (Cruising Close to Home).
• Your Promotions: These are the Promotions that you can create using the Promotions Wizard.
• Association Promotions: If you are part of an Association or Consortia (as part of your OLA membership) these Promotions will be made available to you here.
• Featured Supplier Promotions: Promotions from the Suppliers you chose to both "Include" and "Feature" (using your Supplier Wizard described earlier) will be displayed here.
• Other Supplier Promotions: Promotions from the Suppliers that you chose to "Include" but did NOT "Feature" will be displayed here.
  

· Go through each of the types of Promotions and select the ones you want to show up on your Home Page.

· NOTE: We suggest that you select 10 or less total Promotions in order to ensure that your Home Page doesn't become too long.

Figure 12

· To add the Promotions you select to your Home Page, simply follow the instructions provided in the Promotion Selection Tool.

· You'll be able to customize the ranking order your promotions are listed in, change the title of your Promotions Box and much more.

· When you're done, click the "finish" button. This will take you back to the editable version of your Home Page.

Figure 13:

Scroll to the bottom of your page and you can see that the promotions you selected are now included on your Home Page.

Figure 13

Choosing Promotions for your Newsletter or Email Marketing back to top

• From your Dashboard, Click on the "email marketing" link on your Dashboard.

• Click on the name of the campaign you would like to modify.
• Click the "edit" button.
• Review your campaign name and click the "next" button.
• Review your template and click the "next" button through the 2 template screens.

Figure 14:

• On the format page, click the yellow "promo" button. This will open a second window with the Promotions Content Wizard.
• On the first page of the Wizard, you will start to select which Promotions to include in your Campaign. Your options are manually select specific Promotions or to automatically update your Promotions based on your Supplier settings.

· I would like to manually select promotions: This option lets you pick specific promotions to include. If you're using this option, make sure you verify that the promotions you have selected to include aren't going to expire before your email goes out (according to the schedule you'll establish in future steps.)

· In other words, a few days before your email is scheduled to go out, you should check and make sure that none of the promotions you have selected to include have expired, and therefore would not be available to be included in your Newsletter or Email Marketing. (You can schedule a reminder email for yourself in future steps.)

· Automatically update my promotions using the following randomization preference: This allows you to set your promotions on a type of "auto-pilot". Each time your Newsletter is generated and sent out (according to the schedule you'll establish in future steps), OLA will automatically include and format your promotions according to the business rules you'll establish here.

The following are your options for automatic updates:

· None: This will include promotions based upon your Featured Supplier ranking and will not randomize the selection.

· Complete: This will include select promotions randomly from your Included Suppliers.

· Combination: This will include promotions based on a combination of randomization and your Featured Supplier ranking.

· Additionally, you can establish the maximum number of links you want to show in your email by entering a number into the text box.

· For this example, we're going to select the "combination" option and enter a maximum number of links. When you're done with these preferences, click the "next" button.

Figure 14

Figure15:

· The next page lets you determine the order in which you want your promotions grouped. If you do not want to include a specific group of promotion, simply click the "no" button. Promotion groups are: Cruises, Tours, Packages, Resorts, and Vacations

· To rank your promotion groups, assign them a number in order of preference (with 1 being the 1st to be displayed). When you're done with your ranking, click the "next" button.

Image 15

Figure 16:

· The next page allows you to format your Promotions.

· Title: This is the title of your Promotions Box. For example, you can enter text like "Our Promotions" or "Hot Deals".

· Link Style: Select whether you want to include the link only or the link and the logo for the supplier providing the promotion.

· Extras: Determine if you want to include borders, group titles, and view more links at the end of your promotion lists.

· When you're done, click the "finish" button. This will close the Promotions Content Wizard pane.

Figure 16

· Now that you're back on your editable version of your Email, if you'd like to preview your Email, click the "Preview" button at the top of the page. When you're done with your preview, click the "close" button.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you selected to have your promotions automatically updated (in Figure 14), the actual promotions that you see in your preview may NOT be the promotions that are included in your email. As Online Agency sends out the most current supplier content for your campaigns, the automatic selection of your promotions will occur at the time your email is generated. (For example, if your email is scheduled to go out tomorrow, the promotions included in your email will be based upon tomorrow's most current content--which may be different from today's most current content which is what you're seeing in the preview window.)

Editing Promotions back to top

• From your Dashboard, click on "promotions" link in the "your site" section of the page.

Figure 17:

• Click the "edit" link next to the name of the Promotion that you'd like to edit. This will open the Promotion Wizard in a second browser window.

• If you want to no longer display a Promotion: select it from the list and click the "unreleased" button.
• If you want to display a Promotion that you unreleased at a previous time, select it from the list and click the "released" button.

Figure 17

Figure 18

• On this page you can edit the information that will show up in your Teaser Box.
• The Teaser Box is the summary of your promotion that your customers will click on in order to see the details of your promotion.
• You can add a summary Description of your custom Promotion, add an image, establish your "display" dates and include any disclaimer information.

• To add an image: you can either upload your own image, or you can select one from the images you selected to include from the Image Library. Click here for more information on the Image Library.
• Using the pull-down list of Image Library images, you'll see the names of the images you selected to include.
• When you select one from the list, a small preview of the image will show up on your page so you can make sure it's the image you want to use. (NOTE: You will want to use your thumbnail sized images when you're selecting which image to use here.)

• If your Promotion has an expiration date (i.e. a date that you no longer want it displayed on your website for your customers) you'll want to enter start and end dates.
• By entering an expiration date, your promotion will be automatically added on your start date and then automatically removed on your end date.
• If your Promotion does not have fixed dates and you want the Promotion to always show up for your customers, you don't need to enter an expiration date.
• After you enter you enter your expiration dates, you can add a Disclaimer for your Promotion (i.e. Prices are based on double occupancy etc…) at the bottom of the page.

• When you're done editing the content for your Teaser Box click the "next" button.

Figure 18

Figure 19:

• If the Promotion you're editing includes dates and pricing, you can edit them on this page. If not, you will skip to Figure 5.
• Check the box next to the sailing date you want to promote and enter your special pricing in the price field.
• You can also add a new date by selecting your date, entering a Description and clicking the "add" button.
• Once you're done with your dates and pricing, click the "next" button at the bottom of the page.

Figure 19

Figure 20:

· On the next page you'll edit your Promotion Content.

· This is the information that your customers will see when they click on the Teaser Box (which is the content we entered on the previous page.)

· You can edit your "title", "sub title" and "body" fields, by clicking on the associated yellow button and entering your changes.

· Once you've entered your text, you can select an image to use on your actual Promotions page. You can either select the full-sized image of the Thumbnail you used in our Teaser Box or select a different image all together.

· When you're done entering your text and selecting your image, click the "next" button.

· Advanced: Use HTML in the "Body" field so it will match an existing site and still have all of the functionality surrounding the page.

Figure 20

Figure 21:

• In order to help your customers find your Promotion (if they're browsing for vacations by Activities or Interests), we want to select the appropriate Activities & Interests from the list on this page.
• There are 2 types of attributes you can select.
• The first type is Lifestyle and Interests. You can use these attributes to determine where your Promotion will show up in your website.
• For instance, if you want your Promotion to show up on your Home Page and the Cruise Section (if your Promotion is for a cruise) but you also want it to show up in the Singles and Honeymoons/Romance section of your site, you would check those boxes here.
• The rest of the attributes can be selected to help your users find your promotion if they do a search on your site.
• You can select as many of these attributes as apply. But make sure not to over-promise, you want to pick the ones that highlight the things that your customers can do on their cruise. For instance if you're promoting a cruise to the Bahamas, you might want to pick beach and snorkeling/swimming.
• Once you've selected your things to do, you're ready to move on so click the "next" button.

Figure 21

Figure 22:

· On this next page, you can define some of the things that a Search Engine or web crawler will use to find your Promotion.

· The "description" will be displayed in search listings if your site is found when someone searches. For instance: "Carnival Cruise Line to the Bahamas from Norfolk, Saturday Departures, Discounted Rates."

· Next you can add your "keywords". These are the terms that someone might type into a Search Engine if they were looking for a vacation like the one you're creating a Promotion for. For instance: "Carnival Cruise Line", "Honeymoon Cruise", "Singles Cruise", "Norfolk Cruise", and "Bahamas Cruise".

• Before you finish your Promotion, you'll want to take a look at how it’s going to look just in case you want to make any changes. To do this, click the "preview your promotion" link. Your Promotion will open in a 2nd window.

Figure 22

• Once you're with the way it looks, you can close it by clicking the "X" in the top right corner of your browser. This will take you back to your Meta Tags page.

• On the Meta Tags page, click the "finish" button.

Figure 23:

• This will bring you to a confirmation page that summarizes the Promotion you just finished editing.
• You can create as many Promotions as you'd like using the Wizard. This will help keep your content (and your Newsletter and Email Marketing) fresh and interesting for your customers.
• To close the Wizard, click the "close window" link.

Figure 23