Selling tours through my own channels

Promoting and Selling VoiceMap Tours
1

After I finish creating my tour, can it only be sold through VoiceMap or can I sell the tours through my own website? And how does that work?

2

You can sell your tour through your own website using coupon codes. This is a code the user enters into the app to redeem a tour. We’d supply you with a list of codes in a spreadsheet. These codes can be valid for a single redemption or as many as you like, and we let you choose what you’d prefer. From an implementation standpoint, most people find it easier to use a single code or a handful of codes with credits assigned to them, and then “top up” the credits as they are used. You can monitor redemptions remaining on the codes on your dashboard. We sell the codes in minimum batches of 25 at $0.89 per code, and you can just let us know how you’d like them arranged and we’d send the codes along with an invoice. You can read a bit more about your options here: https://docs.voicemap.me/tour-publishers/sell-in-bulk/

4

I am also working on selling the tour on my website, and want to avoid responding manually, hence I will be using the bulk codes. To sell my live tours I used Fareharbor. Has anyone started using their booking system to automate the sales? I wonder if there is any other solution better suited for this product.

5

Hi Olga, and welcome to the forum!

I haven’t used Fareharbor, but my guess would be that they ask for a date at the time of the booking, which makes sense for guided tours. Is that correct? We’ve seen this create confusion with some users who wonder if they’re meeting somebody at the starting point to pick up a device. They also wonder if they can use their voucher code on a different date. That said, I think Fareharbor will do, especially if you’re worried about integrating new tools, but there are probably better options.

Are you using WordPress for your website? There are some plugins that might make this easier, most of them built on top of WooCommerce. You can see an example from a London publisher here. And we’re actually using a third-party solution called Giftup for our gift cards that might work for what you have in mind.

Please let us know how you get on with this.

6

Hi Ian,

I can set it up as “retail” item in Fareharbor which does not have any date attached to it, so it will do for now. They even suggested an automated way to send out unique codes!
I do use wordpress, but I have an awful experience with woocomerce, granted it is from 4 years ago, so maybe it is not as clunky and rigid anymore. I guess I do not want to find out. Besides, it costs 300 dollars;D

Best,
Olga

7

Oh, well that sounds perfect then! Do you have a link to somewhere on the Fareharbor site that describes setting this up?

8

It is a sort of a workaround, so there is not a help doc I am afraid. I will let you know when this starts functioning for me.

1 Like
9

I am wondering if you guys at Voicemap have some template of detailed instructions we can use on our “after purchase” emails for customers that buy on our website?

Best,
Olga

10

We do Olga. I’ve delayed replying because we’re adding these to our tutorial in a section that will deal with vouchers at some length. This is going up early next week. We’ll update you here when that happens.

In the meantime, here are the instructions we use for Viator bookings:

If this is your first VoiceMap tour, please take a moment to read the important notes below.

⤓
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Install VoiceMap from the Apple App Store or Google Play
  2. Create an account
  3. Select Tour Codes from the menu, then select Enter Codes
  4. Enter the code below then select Download Now

YOUR CODE: XMPL3298

This code can be used by every member of your party. If you have booked for three people, for example, three people can download this tour using the same code. Codes are not case sensitive.

⌁
PLEASE ALSO NOTE:

  • You can download the tour at any time, before or after your booking date.
  • It’s best to download the tour before you set off for the starting point.
  • When the download completes, you’ll see a screen with a photo of the starting point and directions to it. The red start button will become active when your are at the starting point.
  • The download should only take a few minutes to complete. If it takes longer, please cancel the download, go to Account, select Purchased and download the tour from there.
  • Remember to bring your own headphones, unless you have booked a driving tour.

:email:
SUPPORT:

For technical support and other queries, please email support@voicemap.me

Viator only allows ASCII in its messages, which is why the symbols are so basic. You can make the message a little prettier by using Unicode emojis.

The instructions under YOUR CODE might need to be a little different depending on how you’ve set up your codes, i.e. whether you have unique codes or one code valid for multiple copies of your tour.

11

Thank you! This is what I was after :grinning:

12

Hi Iain, is the tutorial you mentioned already out somewhere? Keen to have a look.

13

There are two parts to this Olga:

  • This, about how users access your tour overall
  • This, about the voucher dashboard and the best instructions to include with your vouchers

Please let me know if you find any of it confusing! Suggestions are also welcome. Our documentation is a work in progress.

14

4 months on, it is working! My Edinburgh architecture tours are now available to buy on my website www.cobbletales.com via Fareharbor. You can check out how it looks on the front end. Fareharbor is a booking management system that takes a percentage fee from every online booking. This is not too straightforward, I’d call it a work around.

There were a few purchases, seems to work fine, I know a few coupons were used, and people have returned to buy more (yey!). It is all fully automated and I will share how I had it set up. The following is full of Fareharbor jargon, you have been warned:)

1.The audio tours are set up as a RETAIL ITEM, the same kind of an item as a gift card. This way it does not require dates.
2.Then one just sets up the ITEM as any other.
3. Add download instructions to the ITEM CONFIRMATION NOTES. I added the starting point to it as well as the location does not show for retail items as part of the confirmation email.

4.Coupon codes generated on the voicemap dashboard are added as CAMPAIGN CODES. CAMPAIGN is set up with a name that will be used in confirmation emails preceding the codes. Codes can be added to the campaign in bulk, by copy pasting from an csv file that you exported from voicemap. When someone purchases an audiotour, they receive an email with the codes from that campaign. As many codes as there are tickets on the purchase. In the same email the customer receives instructions how to use the above mentioned codes, etc. Voila! My tip is to ask voicemap to generate codes that start with fh so you can tell which coupons were for fareharbor!

  1. The confusing bit is that Fareharbor uses the term “maximum uses” in two different places for different purposes. Under CAMPAIGN, the maximum use is set to 0 and it changes to 1 when the code has been sent out to the customer.

However, under CODE GENERATOR in CUSTOM FIELDS “maximum uses” needs to be set to 1, so codes are sent only one and only time.

  1. Test all your items by buying your own tour, there is a lot of room for mistakes.

  2. You will see that fareharbor adds a booking fee of minimum £1. I have chosen to absorb this fee and it is set up with what fareharbor call “eat the fee” in custom fields.

Fareharbor has been very helpful in working it out, but you have to make sure they understand what you are trying to do, and most importantly you need to know what you are trying to achieve with this. Now that it is functioning, possibilities are infinite.

I think that ultimately for the customer buying on voicemap app directly is much easier than faffing with the website booking, but this way you earn more on sales.

ps this does not work for viator api.

If you need help setting this up, let me know:)

Olga

1 Like
15

Thank you for taking to time to share this Olga!

A number of our publishers use Fareharbor. I’m going to send your post to them.

16

There’s another excellent implementation of this by Michele Davis at thatgirlinvictoria.com/self-guided-audio-tours.

@alicia, could you ask Michele if she’d mind sharing how she did this?