Leyland tiger vintage bus in the Lake District on BBC breakfast news

Click here for Cumbria Classic Coaches website

Nothing wakes you up quite so much as seeing one of the companies you have been involved in on BBC breakfast news. After all, there aren't that many companies in the UK who hire out vintage and classic buses, nor who have a 1949 Leyland Tiger, better known as the Kendal Klipper.

All jokes about "Will's on the bus" should be put on hold, whilst we promote this family run bus company based in Cumbria, with one of their fleet currently loitering around Glenridding and equally beautiful places, full of people suffering from the effects of the current economic climate. From people who had moved to their dream retirement in Spain and who have been forced to come home and rent a house in Carlisle, through to other hard working folk who have seen their savings and wages decrease to little or nothing.

Nice juxtaposition of a 1940s bus with current economic issues, and the Lakes make an ideal setting for all of this news story. We await the next installment tomorrow with interest, and of course, a personal delight at seeing Cumbria Classic Coaches on mainstream TV. The double decker is in Birmingham at the NEC and is apparently the star of that show.

However, from a promotional point of view, there is of course a salutory story behind all of this blog post. A job, whether for the BBC Breakfast news team, a wedding or private hire, is always also potentially an opportunity to market your business online. CCC should have had a headline story or a landing page up designed to capture those who are looking on the search engines for an old bus or classic coach to hire for weddings, parties or to enjoy a trip through the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District on one of the heritage routes.

You are bound to get casual visitors following up news stories and so on, so you don't necessarily want to inundate your usual website and home page with people who just want an authentic bus ticket, so a landing page is perfect. Set it up to capture anyone coming in from the particular TV or radio station, news article etc and give them all the info that they may be seeking to ensure you weed out the serious business enquiries from those just interested because you have a great product that has caught their fancy this fine morning.

Add all the keywords and phrases to your landing page that will hit the search engines, and Digg it, add it to Facebook and social network sites, and submit to the channel or publication showing/publishing your details for a great roundabout marketing mechanism.

And then of course, contact all of your fan club and get them to post a link. Like this blog post!!! Here is the link to BBC Breakfast News and hopefully shortly there will be a video clip or similar showing Cumbria Classic Coaches.

Aside: Was Pete Blezzard really asleep in that last clip?!!

UPDATE:Just over one hour after posting this, I checked Google for some long tail terms to see how we were doing.
#1: bbc breakfast old bus lakes
#1:BBC breakfast vintage bus
#1: pete blezard bus
#3: bbc news old bus cumbria
#3: pete blezzard
#6: bbc news bus lake district
#7: bbc news lake district bus
#9: bbc news bus cumbria (#10 Cumbria classic coaches!!)
#11: bbc breakfast bus

Thinking about what people might search on has brought up terms such as credit crisis, economic situation, economy and much more about the actual story, but I wasn't taking much notice of the financial and economic reasons for the bus being used on TV!!

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