Issue 2 - November 2015 CoaChing Community news Inside this month: WIN THIS BRAND NEW CAR Simply answer the question on the inside cover of this flyer to be in with a chance of winning www.donttravelempty.com Competition Details The competition is a six month draw, to be drawn in May 2016. Simply answer the below question by selecting either A, B or C and then select the option that explains how you qualify for the draw. “The link from the DTE Trusted Partners management systems creates and automatically matches your empty legs and available vehicles. None of your customer details or prices are ever sent over to DTE to ensure you are protected. This is all possible via what is known as an “API”. What does “API” stand for?” A B C How do you qualify? I’m an enhanced member of DTE who actively uses DTE. I’m an operator who signed up to DTE before May. Amazingly Annoyed Application Powerful Panda Programming I’m an operator who helped a DTE member with a Iceberg Innuendo Interface Passenger Recovery. I’m a DTE member who purchased a DTE Trusted Partners coach management software system. I’m a DTE member who uses a management system from one of DTE’s Trusted Partners and takes the link to DTE. Your Information Name Address Company Contact No. Email Terms and Conditions date and entrants who are not contactable within 30 days after reasonable 1 - Open to UK residents, aged 18 and over, excluding employees of Don’t means, shall be disqualified, lose their entitlement to the prize. Unclaimed prizes Travel Empty Ltd , their immediate families or anyone professionally connected will be void and may be used for future prize draws. with the operation of the prize draw. 10 - By entering entrants agreed to participate reasonable publicity in the event 2 - No Purchase Necessary. that they are a winner. This may include use of their name and image in online 3 - To Enter: submit a fully completed entry form for the selected prize draw publicity, in emails, and through any other print or social media;. If you don’t within the dates as stated on the entry page. agree with this we recommend that you do not enter into the draw. 4 - There is a maximum of one entry per company via the main entry route, 11 - The Promoter reserves the right to suspend / terminate any prize draw at however additional entries may be available to those recommending friends or any time if it has reasonable grounds for doing so, which may include without others at the sole discretion of the promoter. limitation a prize draw (or the website on which it is presented) being subject to, 5 - No bulk, third party or automated entries permitted or those submitted via or affected by, any denial-of service (DOS) attacks, bugs, viruses or any other macros or similar. The Promoter may disallow entries, refuse to award any prize, technologically harmful material or act of hacking by a third party, or in the event or seek its recovery, in the event of an entrant’s fraud, dishonesty or non-entitle- of any wilful attempt to breach these terms and conditions. ment under these terms and conditions. 12 - To the extent permitted by law, the Promoter other members of our group 6- For the name and county of the winner(s), please send an SAE to [name of of companies and third parties connected to ukprize.co.uk hereby expressly promotion] c/o Don’t Travel Empty Ltd, the Old School, Aylmerton, Norfolk, exclude: NR11 8RA within four weeks of the relevant closing date. 13 - all conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied 7 - No cash or other alternative to the stated prize is available, except in the by statute, common law or the law of equity; event of unforeseen circumstances the stated prize is no longer available, the 14 - any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred Promoter reserves the right to provide a similar prize or a prize of equal or by any entrant or winner in connection with any prize draw or any entry. greater value 15 - As a condition of your entry into any prize draw, you agree to indemnify us 8 - Winners will be selected from all valid entries in a random draw to be and our affiliates, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all conducted within 7 working days of the end of May 2016 and for your total liabilities, other expenses (including costs and legal fees) and damages arising confidence to be conducted by Divcom , publishers of Route One magazine out of claims resulting directly or indirectly from such entry. 9 - Winners will be notified by phone, e-mail or post within 14 days of the draw T: 0845 548 5003 E: [email protected] Introduction Introductionwww.donttravelempty.com Welcome Dear Member, In this month’s issue we have a “meet the team” section so you can learn a bit more about the Welcome to issue two of DTE’s new Coaching people behind DTE (and we are a people business Community News magazine. Your reactions to first and foremost) and an article on websites which issue one were brilliant and you seem to like what we hope you find useful. we are doing both on the website and in print so thank you. Please keep the ideas coming, some of We hope you enjoy your coffee whilst reading this the best features on DTE were recommended to us issue and here’s to a busy December by you, ultimately DTE is nothing without you. All at DTE It’s been a really busy month on DTE with plenty of members posting work and getting assistance which is great as historically this can be a quiet time of year but you have kept us busy thank you. We hope you found the article on coach management systems interesting last month and if you don’t currently use one then you are now starting to think about using one. Seriously, the sooner the better. Once you do you will genuinely Anthony Marett wonder how you ever managed without it. DTE Founder and Owner of Maretts Chariots This Month’s Contents Welcome 01 Your Website 02 Meet the Team 06 This Months Best Quotes 09 Maintenance Records 10 Coaches For Sale 15 www.donttravelempty.com 01 p13.indd 13 21/04/2015 15:38 How to get more customer online: Your Website and the importance Digital Marketing In September 2014 a milestone was reached, the Common faults are: one billionth website went live on the world wide web, that’s one billion websites. Think about that number for 1/ Old photos of old vehicles now not in your fleet a moment, it is a colossal amount and the internet is 2/ A website that only fills half a page as it is so old growing so fast that number will almost certainly double 3/ Incorrect contact details in a much smaller amount of time than it took to get to 4/ Quote forms not working a billion in the first place. Every single second of every 5/ Website not properly optimised so nobody can find it single day over 15 million Google searches are entered and over 330 million e-mails are sent.....every.... single.... The nice thing about working in the coaching industry is second. that you won’t have a lot of competition for the terms you want to be found for. Let’s take Cheltenham as a random When you search for something on the internet Google example. If you do a google search for “coach hire doesn’t immediately go off and do your search for you Cheltenham” now, the top three, without even checking there and then, it is constantly, searching every line of will nearly all be coach brokers. every page of every website in the world and storing that information so when you do your search it already has the results. More about what Google is searching for later. So, the questions are: 1/ do you have a website? 2/ if so, can your potential customers find it? 3/ if so does it convert lots of visitors into enquiries? 4/ do you respond to e mail enquiries? 5/ if not why not? DTE’s research lead us to believe that approximately only 70% of operators have a website and of those who do you have a website? do a large percentage had one built and thought “job done” and have never updated it. Of the ones who have We were right. This image shows two brokers and one a website, have optimised it so it can be found and genuine coach company (a DTE member) actually who have kept it updated many don’t respond swiftly to based in Cheltenham. The second two are both coach quotes coming in. companies (including the same DTE member who has a Google ad word presence) and who have added their Why is it important to have a good website? details to Google maps which is free. Now, if I were a customer looking to book a coach I wouldn’t know who Simple, most of your customers (even the older ones) was a bonafidi local coach company and who isn’t will look for you on the internet now, nowhere else. If and anyone not on the first page wouldn’t even get the you haven’t got a presence they will not find you, even chance to quote let alone get the job.