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Rod Hackman, The Timeshare Beat, Inc.
November 26, 2004
Cendant Timeshare Resort Group, Inc. (CTRG) is the world's largest timeshare development business, with over $1
billion dollars in combined annual vacation ownership interest revenues, and more than 600,000 owners, 10,000 units
and 110 resorts.
Recently this progressive organization made a decision that in time will likely and indirectly answer many of the
suspicions that most Timeshare developers have held for years regarding the profitable utilization of the Internet
for marketing purposes.
Those uncertainties include whether or not developers really need to or should market online? Is the Internet a
viable tool that can attract highly qualified prospects to their websites and then direct those quests to their
sales centers? Is marketing online cost effective? Do consumers rely on the Internet? Who is empowered, the consumer
or the marketer?
Those qualms were actually resolved many years ago by individuals such as Chip Ballew, John Sinclair and others
who understood the dynamics long before most others in the vacation ownership industry extracted the marketing
sleep from their eyes.
A former RCI employee, Chip Ballew was wide awake at the helm when he had a superb idea in the last half of the
1990s and for the cost of a modest dinner for two adults he decided to invest the money and five minutes time to
register and own the domain name (Web site "address") www.timeshares.com.
Another visionary, John Sinclair, who was not associated with Ballew but was just as wide awake several years ago,
also looked into the future and determined that it would be wise for him to register his own unique domain name,
www.timeshare.com.
Ballew and Sinclair must have gazed into their crystal balls and seen that one day a TS company would realize,
as they believed then, that consumers interested in timesharing issues would soon turn to the Internet to get additional
information and in order to do so, as most Internet searches begin, prospective clientele would type the word "timeshare"
and/or "timeshares" into a search engine.
Ballew and Sinclair couldn't have been more on the mark and the fact of the matter is that those two words are
the most used search terms utilized by consumers interested in exploring our industry, product (resorts/timeshare
plans) and services online.
Over the ensuing years, Ballew and Sinclair developed their websites, which included general TS information, ideas,
tips, resale advertisements, etc. and while generating revenue from their efforts both had also attempted to sell
their domain names to TS developers.
For years their solicitation efforts fell on the deaf ears of many developers and their marketing entities that
couldn't recognize the magnitude, value or the potential revenue generating capacities possible from a properly
managed online timeshare marketing campaign.
That is until Cendant Timeshare Resort Group (CTRG) seized the day recently: Quietly and for an undisclosed sum
CTRG acquired both Ballew's and Sinclair's domain names. In one fell swoop they locked up the 'brand' that represents
the industry's product. For now CTRG is using their newly acquired Web sites on a limited basis and are only promoting
a few Fairfield properties but in the future you can expect the company to take full advantage of the power and
reach of the Internet and market more of their resorts online.
That, however, is not the big story but merely a warning sign coming from atop a very large iceberg. Unlike the
doomed Titanic crossing the Atlantic in 1912, the fact of the matter is that there is a way around
this massive rock of ice named the Internet. As our industry chooses to discover that way, the online world will
continue to change forever, in part, the way our industry markets timeshare products and services.
Like Ballew and Sinclair, in 1997 we at 'The Beat' also looked into our crystal ball,
saw the future and recognized the tremendous potential of the Internet and what would surely become one of the
greatest marketing tools available to all businesses-- including timeshare developers/marketers. In 1999 we launched
our online publication and today, The Timeshare Beat has over 2 Million (verifiable) annual individual readers.
Here are a few tips and secrets for those interested in marketing and more importantly succeeding online with their
timeshare prospecting efforts. First of all, although Cendant Timeshare Resort Group now owns those two domain
names, don't be disappointed and definitely don't let other individuals mislead you any longer regarding online
marketing.
It is true that those words (timeshare and/or timeshares) are the most used search terms but the fact of the matter
is that, like The Timeshare Beat's Web site does day in and day out, a strategically planned,
well managed and targeted online marketing campaign will produce more highly qualified traffic (leads/results)
to your Web presence than most TS marketers can imagine.
From a consumption perspective alone, during this Christmas purchasing season American consumers will turn on their
computers, browse around, seek additional information about gifts, services etc. and then, in the blink of an eye
(6 short weeks), they'll generate an estimated $15 Billion ($15,000,000,000.00) dollars in sales online.
From a developer's perspective that little factoid clearly reflects the consumers' interest and more importantly
their use of the Internet, and avoiding those two realities is costing developers, nationally and internationally--
every day of the year-- lost marketing opportunities that are far more cost effective than conventional marketing
methods.
Also eliminate from your thoughts the original rhetoric of the "Information Super Highway" and
instead think of that thoroughfare in terms off site marketing on the famous and most desired stretch of real estate
in Las Vegas, NV, 'The Strip', absent the colossal expense of actually 'marketing' on Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas has more than 36 million visitors each year walking up and down the Strip. Most folks are there for gaming,
eating, going to Shows, purchasing goods and services, etc. as well as just browsing around and window shopping.
Now imagine for a moment that you have a location online that equals the volume of 'consumer traffic' on the 'Strip'
in Las Vegas. And that in order for anyone who comes to your locality to get anywhere else on the "Strip",
they all have to pass through your position first. That result (visitors) is one of the realities about marketing
online and is easily achieved through fundamental tactics utilizing proven methods.
You can have as many visitors to your 'Strip' (website) as you want (or as few); yet unlike the 'Strip' in Vegas,
your online marketing campaign should zoom in on just the type of prospects that meet your criteria and avoid all
other online consumers that don't fit your match. That, too, is another reality of marketing online and is also
easily achieved.
Another tip is that if your marketing departments have not created an effective online marketing campaign that
is evolving in terms of results and that also compliments your existing marketing efforts then let me suggest that
they need a good talking to, and soon.
The same is also true if you are being advised that the Internet empowers the consumer and not the marketer, that
registration issues are preventing you from a powerful and successful online presence; that 'it' just doesn't work
or 'it' isn't worth the time…
Ballew, Sinclair, 'The Beat', CTRG (and many others) have clearly established that
consumers have an 'online' interest in our industry and whether you are an unpretentious developer in an isolated
area or a company with resorts and sales centers around the world one thing is perfectly, factually and demonstratively
clear:
There is no turning back time, the online marathon is going as planned, the race continues and those not in the
front of the pack leading the way historically will rarely come from behind to win and often don't even finish
the competition. Don't let it be you bringing up the rear.
Rod Hackman
President
The Timeshare Beat, Inc.
rhackman@thetimesharebeat.com
Copyright The Timeshare Beat, Inc. All rights reserved.