In 2000, Wigwam Holidays developed its first website. It looked much like other websites at the time; clunky, text heavy, and filled with little square buttons to impress your big white arrow on. It contained information on the few sites that made up the Wigwam Holidays network. The most important of this information was the site's phone number, which you would need if you wanted to make a booking.

The site's Google ranking was not something we gave much thought to. People would find our website if they searched for us. Google was not yet the world's chief question answerer. Most of our customers found out about us in other ways - print, trade shows and through word of mouth. Digital marketing, in the year 2000, was not very important.

Fast forward 23 years and things look very different - marketing has changed profoundly.

Print media doesn't enjoy the numbers it used to, younger people barely watch any television, and anyone with a smartphone can build an online following that rivals the very biggest movie stars. The internet has indeed changed the world and almost all of our bookings now come from here.

For just about any business to succeed today, it will need a strong presence online. For a holiday business reliant on online bookings, it’s crucial. Your target audience not only uses the internet to book, but they also use it to explore and learn. As a holiday business, you have to be meeting customers here and attracting them to your product. The maxim, ‘content is king’, does hold real truth.

‘Content’ is a horribly general word that has come to occupy an important place in the vocabulary of marketeers. It’s what used to be called the Ikea catalogue, or your yellow pages listing. It now means roughly anything you put online in relation to your business, and you need to be creating a great deal of it in order for people to know who you are and what you do.

Different types of content marketing serve different purposes for both you and your potential customers. You will need content for digital ads, content to explain your products and services, content to answer the questions of people who may not even know quite what they are looking for.

You will need content that promotes your brand's values, content to engage customers on social media, content for email campaigns and a great deal more. You will need content that explains, promotes, engages and inspires. Content is indeed King and we are its faithful subjects.

Narrative based video content has become an important battle ground for businesses in recent years. Only just behind Google, Youtube is the world's second largest website and there is huge scope here for connecting with customers. There are three central aims for narrative based video content:

Grow an engaged following of subscribers who share your business ideals and ethos.
Create opportunities to connect with other businesses, organisations and individuals through the stories you’re telling.
Bolster your website and blog copy for SEO.

1. Grow your Social Following

The first of these aims is not much different than the opportunity presented in other social media platforms. Engage with people who understand and value the things your business does, and use the platform to create awareness and sell your product - simple…ish.

2. Create Opportunities

The second is a little more covert but equally as valuable. Google ranks your website higher if it includes links from other industry-relevant websites, acting as a vouch of confidence in the eyes of Google. These are known as backlinks, and they’re an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Creating a video story involves finding subjects, and this is a fantastic opportunity to build connections with people and businesses. It’s a win-win for anyone looking to promote something - whether that’s a business they run or work for, a charity they’re involved with, or their own personal brand or marketing channel.

3. Update your website and blog post regularly for SEO

The third aim is related to the second - marketing today has a lot to do with Google and Google likes videos. If you can have both text and a related video on a website page, Google will value that page more than if it were just text.

This means your business will appear higher on Google search, which in turn means more people will find your business, and you’ll sell more of whatever you're selling. It is for these reasons that we’re seeing more and more video content marketing. It’s also why we started to develop our At Home Outdoors Series.

At Home Outdoors, Wigwam Holidays

At Home Outdoors is exciting for us because it aims to express what we, as a brand, are fundamentally all about. Yes, we can talk about the cost of our holidays, we can talk about what cabins are available at what sites and how a Wigwam Holiday is warm and cosy at any time of year.

We can explain why our franchise model is a great option for people looking to start a glamping business, what our cabins are made of and how we build them to last. These things, though, are not why we are in business, they’re not why we get up in the morning, and they in themselves do not drive us forward.

We are driven by the life-changing power and joy to be found in outdoor experiences. From climbing mountains in Northern Wales to enjoying simple country walks in Devon - we want people to explore our wonderful country and absorb the immense beauty, peace and joy it has to offer.

We want to give them great holidays in the great outdoors. Our video series, At Home Outdoors, lets us focus on people who share our love of these spaces and in turn, lets us share what moves us - the ‘why?’ behind our business. It also helps us sell holidays of course.

Time to get started

Creating and sharing content has always been important for business owners. The internet has made the need for content creation greater and has made its distribution more complicated. It’s also, however, made it possible to share impactful and relevant stories that most businesses couldn’t even dream of before its arrival.

With our At Home Outdoors series, we can share stories of people who love the outdoors as much as we do while at the same time and finding and connecting with customers. For all it’s changed the world and the job of marketers that is something worth celebrating.

Learn More about Wigwam

The Wigwam brand consists of two separate but overlapping businesses - Wigwam Cabins and Wigwam Holidays.

Wigwam Holidays operates a franchise, booking system and website. It is one of the top glamping businesses in the UK, consists of over 80 UK locations and welcomed over 100k guests last year. Wigwam Holidays offers a tried and tested franchise model to its franchisees, and great holidays in the great outdoors to its guests.

Wigwam Cabins is a manufacturer of high quality wooden cabins. It’s the business that invented the ‘glamping pod’ over 30 years ago. Today, from its workshop in Perth, Wigwam Cabins focuses on building a range of glamping pods and timber lodges. You do not need to be a part of Wigwam Holidays to buy products from Wigwam Cabins.

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Learn How to Boost Your Glamping Business with Content Marketing