So the weeks press has been littered with stories of anguish and stranded travelers because of the volcano eruption in Iceland.
The worlds aviation bodies trying to clear up the Icelandic volcano mess have been operating under a cloud of expectation. How much volcanic ash can the state-of-the-art airplanes safely fly through? Where precisely is the ash, how dense is it, and where will it be in a few hours and days? with the lack of reliable answers to these questions, authorities are playing it safe and stopped thousands of flights after the eruption of the little known volcano, Eyjafjallajokull on Apr. 14, stranding passengers globally and causing airlines to lose $200 million a day.
What has this got to do with my business I hear you ask? well imagine that in the first summer month of the year, the holiday market quadruples between March and April annually, so your Joe Average and your online looking thinking about booking a holiday. In this time of stranded passengers and late or canceled flights are you really going to book? No, you are going to use your hard earned cash on another “desire”, be it a new TV or a course to learn the science behind volcano’s.
Good for Google?
Google relies on searchers, with such a global event brings interest, that in turn creates buzz and frenzy when searching around the subject. With the added searchers comes inquisitiveness, an “I will just look at this while I am here” approach. So your small time high ranking product offering sitting top of Google will benefit to some extent to the incidents in Iceland.
Just think of the added publicity the frozen food retailer Iceland are having, they are riding high on the miseries of the airlines.
There are plenty more fish in the sea!
In any globally known event such as this brings a silver lined cloud, a golden egg, a cash cow. All you have to do is discover, anticipate and plunder into the methodology behind a searcher, what are they looking for? What will they want? more importantly what can you sell them?
My first thought when hearing about the closures in airports world wide, stranded passengers and families without parents and children was “I wish I had a boat”, I wonder how boat sales have risen since the disaster. Or, in fact how have the ferry crossings around the most affected areas have doubled in revenue. Even if you are a small time carp fishing forum webmaster, your chances of gaining income have been boosted, albeit very minimally but you have had your chances increased. The closer to the eye of the storm will be directly proportional to the size of the change you will see, a ferry crossing service in Iceland is now the cash cow of the business world!