Unfortunately, I only explored this city for about one full day, but I will still offer tips on what to do, even if I didn’t do them!
Where to stay? Vienna is a pretty big city and there are tons of cool neighborhoods surrounding it. The main attractions are near Stephansplatz, the main square…It’s a good idea to try and find a place close to there. Otherwise, there is a great subway that’ll get you into the main part of the city if stay outside it.
What I did there:
St. Stephen’s Cathedral – In the heart of Stephansplatz, lies this gorgeous Roman Catholic Church. There are plenty of places to eat and shop around the main square.
Stephen’s CathedralStephen’s Cathedral
Schonbrunn Schloss – A massive gorgeous palace surrounded by gardens. I did not get the chance to go inside, but I highly recommend that you do. This castle is a short train ride out of the city.
Schonbrunn SchlossSchonbrunn SchlossSchronbrunn Schloss
Wine! There are tons of wineries in Vienna. You have to explore them! There are multiple tours you can take to see the different wineries…but we decided to tour them ourselves.
Mayer Am Pfarrplatz WineryMayer Am Pfarrplatz Winery
Other wineries we checked out (they are near each other):
Weingut Wein Cobenzl
Schlumberger AG
Landhaus Mayer
Landhaus Mayer
Walk around and stumble upon gems. There is some cool street art/graffiti to see around the city. Sometimes you should ditch the agenda, explore, and see what you find.
This book is a wonderful persuasion as to why you should focus solely on permission marketing instead of interruption marketing. Everyday we are interrupted by thousands of ads, (commercials, print ads, radio ads, etc), that create a lot of clutter in our lives. We are unlikely to pay attention to these interruptions, because were are usually not interested, nor want to stop what we are doing to pay attention.
Permission marketing allows you to receive permission from the consumer to market to them, so that your interactions are relevant, and expected. The book explains how to go about obtaining permission, using it, and leveraging it.
Great read, and highly recommended to anyone interested in boosting their marketing knowledge!
My thoughts:
Get permission to sell to consumers (ask for their email) through interactive dialogue. “A business can now ask a customer directly if he’d like more information and then deliver it. A business can now reward a customer for receiving and acknowledging it’s message, ensuring that the consumers own interest is served by learning about a new product or service.”
How? Offer a coupon or cash incentive. Play a game. Accumulate points. Sponsor a contest or drawing. Offer birthday gifts. Free samples.
Interruption marketing is the old way…interrupt what the viewers are doing and get them to think about something else (commercials, print ads, etc.).
“Mass media is dead. Long live niche media!”
A catch 22 of interruption marketing is, “the more they spend the less it works. The less it works the more they spend.”
The problems with this catch 22:
Human beings have a finite amount of attention.
Human beings have a finite amount of money.
The more products offered, the less money there is to go around.
In order to capture more attention and more money, Interruption Marketers must increase spending.
Increase in marketing exposure costs big money.
Spending more and more money in order to get bigger returns leads to ever more clutter.
POWERFUL ADVERTISING IS ANTICIPATED, PERSONAL, AND RELEVANT!!!
Anticipated – people look forward to hearing from you.
Personal – the messages are directly related to the individual.
Relevant – the marketing is about something the prospect is interested in
You need to provide the consumer a benefit for paying attention!
The incentive can be a sweepstakes, information, entertainment, or outright payment for the prospects attention. The incentive must be overt, obvious, and clearly delivered.
Once you have the prospects attention, it is much easier to teach him about your product. You can focus on specific ways the product will help this prospect.
The ability to talk freely overtime is the most powerful element of this marketing approach.
You must reinforce the incentive. Overtime it will wear out. You can fine tune incentives for each consumer.
It’s wiser to focus more on increasing sales to a smaller percentage of your existing customers than to find new ones.
You need to be frequent when advertising. Repeat yourself, drive it home.
When you increase your frequency by 100%, you usually increase your effectiveness by 400%.
Marketing guru, Jay Levinson, figures you have to run an ad 27 times against one individual before it has its desired impact. Only 1 out of 9 ads is seen, and you’ve got to see it at least 3 times before it sinks in.
The most trusted brand is also the most profitable.
Permission marketing replaces continuing interruption with ongoing interaction.
Once you know that the vast majority of people you target want to hear from you, frequency starts looking pretty attractive. When you can use the new media to deliver that frequency for free, you’ve hit a home run.
The highest and best level of permission is intravenous. You as a consumer are giving the company permission to spend your money. You pay ahead of time for products or services..automatic replenishment of water jugs or milk. Subscriptions, etc.
Use points programs!
“Permission leveraged is permission enhanced. Permission rented is permission lost.” If you give your email for one news letter and that company rents your email to another you are not interested in, you will stop paying attention.
Really think about how you can get people to come back to your website…what can you offer?
Permission marketing rewards individuals for giving up their anonymity.
There are 10 questions to ask when evaluating any marketing program:
What’s the bait?
What does an incremental permission cost?
How deep is the permission that is granted?
How much does incremental frequency cost?
What’s the active response rate to communications?
What are the issues regarding compression?
Is the company treating the permission as an asset?
How is the permission being leveraged?
How is the permission level being increased?
What is the expected lifetime of one permission?
An interruption marketing is a hunter. It involves loading a gun with bullets and shooting until you hit something. You can take a day or a week or a month off and it won’t take you long to get back into successfully bagging a few.
A permission marketer is a farmer. It involves hoeing, planting, watering, and harvesting. It’s infinitely more predictable, but it takes regular effort and focus. If you take one month off, you might lose your entire crop. On the other hand, farming scales. Once you get good at it, you can plant ever more seeds and harvest ever more crops.
The moment you sell the data you collect, you have devalued the permission you were granted!
Opt-in marketing is much better than opt-out. Opt-out takes power away from the consumer and provides a flimsy opportunity for the marketer.
Test your marketing strategy. Testing is discipline. Test the length, the pricing, the voice, the creative execution, the reward systems, the compression, the demographics of respondents – everything you can imagine.
Go get permission from your consumers to continue to market to them, and sell, sell, sell. Good luck and thanks for reading!
Prague, Czech Republic. What a beautiful city! It was an extreme adventure to get there from Germany due to a few mishaps, although. Long story short, we got on the wrong train, ended up in small town at 10 pm where no one spoke English. I had to use the little German I knew, because most Czech people understand a little German, at least, to communicate with people and try to find a hotel to stay in for the night. We eventually got to one hotel, which had no one in reception and the doors were locked, so we had to find another one. We finally did a few hours later and were so so happy! So – lesson learned…make sure you get on the correct train, and definitely ASK if you are not sure!
Where to stay in Prague? If you’re traveling with few people, find a nice hostel. If you’re traveling with more than a few, I’d suggest looking into hotels, airBnB’s or home-stays to get the most for your money. You’ll want to stay near the main square, Old Town Square.
Old Town Square
If you don’t stay near the main square, that’s fine, there is a lovely subway to take you everywhere.
Muzeum Stop, Prague Subway
What I did there:
Sandeman’s Free Walking Tour – The guides work based off your tips, so they do a great job. Our guide happened to be from right near my hometown in Wisconsin…what a small world! Book ahead online for the tour, they fill up fast here. The tour included Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, the famous Clock Tower, churches, synagogues, and more. Check out their website for specifics.
Clock TowerOld Town SquareCharles Bridge
Prague Castle. You do have to pay to get in, but it’s not that expensive. It is absolutely massive, with multiple buildings that make up the “castle”. Check out the parks surrounding it as well!
Park surrounding the castleSt. Vitus CathedralSt. Vitus CathedralSt. Vitus CathedralSt. Vitus CathedralSt. Vitus CathedralTiny houses/shops within Castle groundsView from CastleView from Castle
The Jewish Quarter. It is the most expensive neighborhood to live in, in Prague. It’s also very gorgeous, but comes with a sad history. There were many synagogues we visited here, saw artwork from children who had been in concentration camps in WW2, and a cemetery where 110,000 were buried.
Names of Jewish people who passed in WW2Cemetery in Jewish QuarterSpanish Synagogue, Jewish QuarterRolls Royce getting towed!
Tips to know:
Their currency is the crown (kc). 200 crowns is about 7 usd. You should be able to get a good meal and a beer for 200 kc, if not, you are over-paying. Overall, Prague is pretty cheap compared to other European countries.
St. Norbert’s is a great area to find good food and craft beer. There is also a mini version of the Eiffel Tower built in a park in Prague, that you can see in the distance in the picture below:
View from St. Norbert’s neighborhoodView from St. Norbert’s neighborhood
Try the Trdelnik – a pastry doughnut topped with sugar and walnut mix. They are delicious.
Prague is full of gorgeous parks, most of which have fantastic views. I can’t recount all the names of the parks, but any map will serve justice. The architecture there is also extremely colorful, especially with gold, which gave the nickname to Prague, the Golden City. Also nicknamed the city of stars/points because of all the church steeples.
Park overlooking most of PraguePrague architecture
The only thing I did not do here that I would suggest to you, is taking a river boat tour!
Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you make it to Prague!
You can always check out my website to find out which destinations I’ll be writing about next.
Also, you can follow me on Instagram to keep up with my day-to-day. @jessica_pfeiffer_
Morocco is an extremely interesting destination to visit. The culture was a bit of a shock for my American self, but I loved it!
We arrived by plane after a stressful flight cancellation in Rome. We were told by airport officials to look at the screens in baggage claim to see how much we should be paying for a taxi into the part of the city we were staying.
Outside of the airport, drivers will approach you, and give you a price. The driver told us a price $10 (American dollars) more than what we knew we should have been paying…reluctant to get where we were going we paid it anyway. You don’t have to give in so easy!
Right off the bat you’ll notice the culture difference…people riding mopeds with no shoes on…that would never happen in America.
We got to the city center of Marrakech (Jemaa el-Fnaa), and were told by our taxi driver our hostel was just up the street and around the corner. A minute into our walk, we were approached by a guy that looked around our age (early 20’s). He basically knew where we were staying, and said he worked there and could show us the way. Allowing him to do this was a mistake! When we got to the door of the hostel he demanded money from us, and when we refused to pay him he started to get a bit aggressive. We knocked on the door of our hostel, and they let us in and told us that happens all the time. WATCH OUT! Don’t listen to people on the streets…they just want your money (There are obviously exceptions to this, but be careful).
Jemaa el-Fnaa
After a so-so introduction to our trip, we were greeted by the most hospitable people ever. We stayed at the Hostel Riad Marrakech Rouge. SO very highly recommended. I think they were even rated the #2 hostel in the world in 2010.
They fed us cakes and tea right off the bat, gave us a map of the city and gave us ideas of what to do. They showed us to our room and made sure that we were comfortable. Mind you, if you need A/C to survive, this place isn’t for you. It cools down at night, and they provide fans…but it’s still Africa, and it’s still hot.
Moroccan Whiskey (mint tea) & Chess!Roof of HostelOur room – on the roof!There were turtles on the roof, I named him Painty.
There were tons of cool colorful pillows and couches to chill on, and great free WiFi. You can also pay them $5 to smoke hookah, and $5 – $10 to do laundry for you. I loved the vibe here! (see below)
Hookah!
A couple tips to consider:
Women are very conservative in Morocco. A lot of them cover their entire body, besides their hands and face. Being a woman, it’s respectful to abide by what they believe in, especially if you don’t want to be starred at. BUT, it is so so so hot here, especially in mid-summer. I wore long skirts with breezy T-shirts, and occasionally shorts. You can wear whatever you want, but just be mindful! (Guys you’re lucky, and don’t need to worry).
There will be people on the streets hollering at you, begging you for money, and everything in between. Ignore it, or play along…whatever floats your boat. Just remember, playing along may cause them to follow you.
Buying things…negotiate. Expect to pay 1/2 or even 1/3 of what they originally offer you. Things are cheap here, get a good price. They are alllll about their textiles.
The streets around the main square are filled with shops, and peoples homes. The streets are extremely narrow, and there are still people on bikes and mopeds cruising through them…watch out, seriously.
The heat. It’s really hot in the summer, and it will cause you to not want to go outside. Try to go in the cooler months.
What I did there:
Rode a camel! There were multiple tours that our hostel suggested/provided for extremely good prices (about $20 pp). We were taxied to/from the camel riding spot, and were on them for about an hour. It was a private tour, with a guide, and we got to wear some really cool traditional clothing! =) Our guide even made us little camels out of palm tree leaves – amazing! Annnddd….a camel baby followed his momma the entire time.
,
Shopped around the main square, tried lots of great food and drinks (couscous, orange juice, TAGINE, mint tea). Make sure you get out into the square at night too – it pops off! Lots of bars and restaurants to hangout in. A must try restaurant in the main square – Tiznit. Get the tagine (meat, potatoes, veggies in a delicious sauce)!!!
You can also check this out for more recommendations on what to try in Morocco!
Jemaa el-Fnaa at nightJemaa el-Fnaa at night
Koutoubia Mosque – amazing architecture, right near the main square, and a must-see.
OUZOUD FALLS!!! The second largest waterfall in Africa. EASILY one of my favorite destinations from my 21 country trip! Again, we took a day trip tour, that the hostel recommended. I think it cost about $35 per person, which included a ride to and from the waterfall…bring money for lunch. If you get car sick, take dramamine…the bus is hot and the roads are curvy. We had a guide walk us down to the waterfall, show us where we could swim/jump off some falls, and meet monkeys! Let the pictures speak:
Textiles for sale on the walk down to the waterfall
We got to jump off a smaller waterfall, and swim!
Swim spot – jumped off the waterfall!Ouzoud FallsOuzoud Falls – it’s massive!
There’s a balcony you can get this view from:
Taste the rainbow!
We were total badasses and walked up behind the waterfall (I was scared), it was dangerous and sketchy, and you’re not supposed to do it…but do it! =)
We then got to interact with a bunch of wild monkeys. Be careful, They will take your stuff! But they love your food, and will love you even more if you feed them.
Our Guide
There were amazing views up by where the monkeys were too:
If you go to Morocco, you will be disappointed if you miss this spot!
I spent 3 full days in Morocco, and it was definitely enough time…it was just way too hot to spend a lot of time outside, which is why we missed what I mentioned above.
,
Jet Jess 