Hi my name is Nicky McMillen, I am a senior In the University of Utah’s Parks, Recreations and Tourism Program and I interviewed my friend and classmate Madison Martin about life as a PRT student. Madison is also a senior of the program; her emphasis area is Commercial Recreation Management and she grew up in Park City Utah. It is there that she found her love for recreation, skiing- among many other recreational activities was one of her favorites, not many students know this but she was on the Olympic development team growing up. Madison’s love for skiing has since taken the back seat to her passion for music, she has found her free time consumed with multiple concerts a week. This love for music was a big factor in Madison’s choice to pursue a degree in Commercial Recreation Management. Madison chose this path of study with the goal of planning and managing the most renowned music festivals in the United States, and I know she will accomplish that goal. The University of Utah was an obvious choice for Madison when determining which college to attend, and the PRT program has the means to help her reach her final goal. Mark my words in five years this woman will be the head honcho of the best music festival in the country, so you may want to make that connection now. Madison gained experience working in concerts through her small internship this last summer where she worked for the Red Butte Garden Summer Concert Series. In her internship work experience Madison learned a lot about the behind the scenes work that goes into planning concerts and her excitement grew to graduate and dive into the industry. While working as a ticket taker, which is certainly not the best job in the house, Madison fed off the fans energy and excitement, this emotional connection to the field of her dreams confirmed that she is studying at the right school, in the right program, and has the right goals. Madison is a smart girl that is going to do great things in her life.
This semester I took an Electronic Marketing Class at the University of Utah with Dr. Linda Ralston. This class was a great experience filled with fun lessons about interesting topics which are all pertinent to tourism and the hospitality industry. Some of my favorite tools we utilized this semester include: Adobe PhotoShop where I learned how to do everything from fixing and combining multiple photos into one- to making neat titles like the one featured above. You can see more examples here, I had a little bit more trouble getting used to Adobe Flash but once I got the hang of it I feel like possibilities are endless with that program, but most impressive (to me at least) is that I was able to learn how to make the ePorfolio. In making this website we learned a broad set of skills including AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) standards of website design, standards of usability, readability, search ability and accessibility including how to evaluate/ test said standards. We worked a lot with social media marketing and its importance in harboring and keeping good customer relationships, as well as social medias power in word of mouth marketing. One of the most eye opening lessons in this class was our experience and research into social media applications and trends and there impact on travel and the tourism industry as a whole. For more information I recomend you take a peak a Dr. Linda Ralston's website here. AIDA
Did my goofy photo catch your attention? Were you interested in what AIDA was? Did you have a desire to read more? Maybe you took action and clicked the button, which linked you to Dr. Linda Ralston's AIDA blog. To make the explaining AIDA easier I will break it down. Attention= the goal of any website is to grab the attention of its visitors, to make you want to stick around and explore what the site is offering. Examples such as slide shows, videos, songs, or just appealing images in the header surge the purpose of getting your attention. Interest= once the website has your attention, the web-master wants to get you interested. Your interest is what will keep you around exploring all the elements and reading all of the text. This is as simple as using small paragraphs with appealing headers. Desire= the goal of getting your attention, and grabbing your interest is to develop a desire, to make you think that you want what ever it is the site is offering. Comparing prices, or telling why their option is better than any other may do this. Action= this is where the whole process of AIDA is tied together, after giving you the whole sales pitch; they are trying to seal the deal. If they have kept you interested this long the may have you ready to take action. This may be as simple as a flashy "Book Now" button or as simple as "like us on Facebook" Now that you have a better understanding of the AIDA principle you will be able to spot this Emarketing technique in most all websites you visit. Everything you do builds up to the call to action. If you cannot catch the reader’s attention you will have no chance to get their interest. Without getting the reader interested in what you have to offer they will have no desire to take |
AuthorNicky McMillen Archives
September 2014
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