/U/Marketing

Here’s some tips to help you attract new customers to your venue.

C – Is for customer service. Are you surprised this is the first point? This is the most crucial ingredient in making certain that your customer leave and give your venue wonderful recommendations!

U – Is for utilizing loyalty programmes. These are a great way to create value for customers both old and new.

S – Is for starting small. Don’t throw yourself into any new initiative full steam ahead. Start small and once you begin to see successes, begin to expand on these initiatives.

T – Is for ‘try pay it forward’. It’s okay to take a cut in profits sometimes. It’s nice to give something back once in a while and customers like this. It shows them you’re not all about their money.

O – Is for organising an event. An event is a great way to get traffic through the door and allows people to see your venue pumping and enables you to establish a vibe and atmosphere for the place.

M – Is for measure. Measure everything. How is your turnover looking? Measure your results is you implement anything new, or you change anything related to your service. By doing this you allow yourself to make changes in real time so that there’s no time or resources wasted.

E – Is for execute your advertising initiative effectively. Make sure all your advertising efforts are relative to your industry. Think seriously about your clientele and what they would want to read/hear.

R – Is for referrals and networking. Take advantage of any relationship you have with those around you. Talk about your business with friends and family. Do the same for them – mutual referrals are great for generating foot traffic.

S – Is for strategic alliances. Make connections and deals with industry competitors and benefit from each other’s established resources and clientele.

2014 already saw a sea of changes, with native advertising becoming more important and the trend towards Smartphones and tablets meaning content strategies needed to be rethought for a mobile crowd. It’s a new year, and we’re about to see a whole new range of changes.

In this article, we explore some of the emerging marketing trends for 2015, and look at how your agency can leverage them to gain new clients, offer increased value and establish your shop as a market leader:

1. Personalisation

In 2015, more people than ever are connected across the globe via technology. But with all the brands on the globe shouting into the digital void, what consumers are looking for is localised, personalised brand connections. Personalisation isn’t a trend, it’s the future of marketing – being able to tailor messaging directly to a customer’s interests, demographic, or role.

What this means for your agency? Add personalisation into campaigns by suggesting ways your clients can further segregate lists, or create content to target specific customer groups.

2. Companies will mobilize workers as brand ambassadors

Led by Silicon Valley tech workers, many large global firms are beginning to see the value in having a team of dedicated, enthusiastic employees who promote the brand as cool and hip to their own networks. This is especially true when your staff are made up of motivated millennials with thousands of Twitter followers who are influencers and trendsetters in their own right.

What this means for your agency? Expect to see more projects focusing on internal communications. Work with your clients to find ways they can identify influencers in their own company and incorporate and involve their staff in upcoming campaigns.

3. Platforms will move to a “pay-to-boost” model

According to Jay Bear, President of Convince & Convert, “2015 will be the year of paid amplification.” As companies like Facebook and Twitter are beginning to understand the tremendous value of their user-base, they are focusing on finding ways to monetize their data pool. Post amplification and boosting social media reach is going to become more important, as this focuses on reaching people who are already fans of a brand, as opposed to sourcing new fans.

What this means for your agency? You’ll need to stay on top of changes in the social networks and how they impact how many people see your updates. Include a budget for boosting posts in each campaign, and implement better system to measure which updates work best.

4. Wearable Technology Causes a Paradigm Shift

With Apple Watch and Google Glass hitting the market in 2015, augmented reality and wearable technology has arrived. Its impact on the world of marketing will be massive – but what exactly that impact will be we have yet to discover.

Many brands will want to get in early to pioneer campaigns to integrate with this new technology. There will be new opportunities to create not just integrated, but interactive, marketing that reaches customers in an entirely new way.

What it means for your agency? Keep an eye on this space because by the end of 2015 we will begin to see early marketing applications specifically for wearable devices. Start thinking now about how you can become an early adopter and leader in this space.

5. Marketing becomes more human

Although companies know they have to become an authentic content hub, the content they produce still reeks of sales-speak. Consumers hate feeling as though they’ve been tricked into liking or supporting a brand – they just want interesting stuff to read or watch.

This year, more than ever before, brands have to embrace humour, vulnerability, authenticity, and silliness to win over their audience.

What it means for your agency? Start thinking about campaigns that incorporate humour, kindness, and authentic human experiences at their core. Make this the factor that differentiates your agency’s content from the rest.

6. Marketing Technologists will Have Their Pick of Jobs

As marketing is becoming increasingly tied to the digital landscape, those marketers who don’t just understand how to create content, but have a working knowledge of development and coding will thrive. Recruiters will be looking for marketers with equal parts creativity and technological acumen to drive their digital strategy in 2015.

What it means for your agency? Alongside your creative team, you’re going to need to invest some money into growing your technical abilities, whether that’s hiring someone new, training up a current staff member, or taking on a contractor.

7. Disparate channels will be merged to create end-to-end marketing

Previously, many brand marketing strategies have been somewhat haphazard. They knew they “must” be on Instagram, so an Instagram account is set up. They knew they should be blogging, so they begin blogging, and this is how the marketing suite is created. But none of these brands have a strategy for how these disparate elements fit together, or what they mean in terms of the customer journey.

2015 is the year brands get serious about bringing together all these different pieces and creating a strategic customer journey.

What it means for your agency? You can be an ally for brands in creating a seamless customer experience. Focus on creating a strategy template incorporating different types of content and marketing collateral, so that you can help brands to streamline and strategize.

8. More Data means Micro-Targeting of Campaigns

With increasing levels of detail in the amount of data available to marketers, brands have the unique opportunity to target different consumer groups at a micro level, targeting campaigns based on a customer’s college major, favourite TV show or most frequented fast-food restaurant.

I was at a blogging workshop recently where I learned about micro-targeting in action. A wedding photographer in the UK talked about how she targeted a Facebook ad to women who’d been engaged in the last 6 months, who lived in her local area and who had also liked the Belle & Sebastian Facebook page. She then included some song lyrics in her ad text. The photographer paid less than $50 for the ad over its entire run and booked 8 weddings as a direct result.

What it means for your agency? Explore micro-targeting as a way to get more oomph out of larger-scale marketing campaigns. Perhaps this is a service you could offer as an add-on to your standard packages.

9. Guest posts are out – paid placements are in

As site owners are inundated by low-quality guest post content, and guest-posting platforms being hit by Google penalties, it seems guest posting as a way of sourcing a legitimate, dedicated audience has gone the way of the dodo.

Instead, brands are turning to native marketing and paid placements to get their content on popular websites. Research has shown native ad campaigns deliver higher brand lift than pre-roll video ads – it seems consumers either don’t notice or don’t care about the difference between native advertising and ordinary content – as long as the content itself is of a high quality.

What it means for your agency? Are you offering to help your client run native advertising campaigns? If not, you should be adding this service as part of your offerings.

10. Creative Content Will Win the Day

In one key way, 2015 is no different to any of the years preceding it. And that is the fact that creative content is the key to marketing success for any brand. If a brand is to succeed in the digital space, then they need to be thinking of marketing not as a series of stats and ads, but as a production house, creating stunning articles, videos, images and infographics we love to read.

What it means for your agency? Look at the types of content you’re producing. What has been the most successful? How are you able to stay at the forefront of the market? Remember, as a content-producing studio, other agencies are not your competitors – the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Huffington Post … these are the platforms with which you have to compete for the eyes and ears of consumers.

To learn more about what to expect for 2015, check out our article 15 Fascinating Stats that will Influence Your 2015 Email Marketing.

What trends do you think we’ll see come to fruition in 2015? How is your agency rising to meet these new challenges?

It’s a little scary though, right? Believe me, you’re not the only one who spends hours staring at a blank page with that impatient blinking cursor, willing ideas to appear. What should you write about? Where do you start? Will anyone even find it? Shall you just try again tomorrow?

Thankfully, the internet is here to rescue you from the depths of your blogging despair. As a writer, I make use of plenty of tools to make things easier for myself – so I thought I’d share my picks with you to give you a helping hand!

Here are 50 online tools that you should add to your blogging arsenal:

Idea generating tools:

1. Quora

Quora is a great place to start looking for ideas to get you started. It is a site where people pose questions to do with every industry and topic under the sun. The questions might get you thinking about issues you could answer through your blog.

2. InboxQ

InboxQ uses Twitter to find questions related to your business, industry, products or interests and feed them in realtime to your browser. What kinds of questions are people asking that you can help with?

3. LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse offers you news, content and insights that are relevant to you. You can follow what’s trending and source relevant ideas and resources for your own content.

4. Blog Topic Generator from HubSpot

Blog topic generators are never flawless, but they can be a helpful place to get your creative juices flowing using the suggestions provided.

5. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo allows you to see which topics related to your business or industry get the most attention from your target audience. You can identify content that is performing well in a particular niche – and then create even better content!

6. Twitter

Yes, Twitter is a social sharing tool, but I think it’s also a great source of idea inspiration because you can see what’s trending, what people are reading and sharing and ensure that your posts are current and on point.

7. Quick Sprout

This site allows you to enter competitor URLs and see a breakdown of the most popular content that they have written for their site. While you certainly don’t want to copy your competition, it may help you generate ideas for content you could write better, offer a differing view or give you ideas on what NOT to write!

Organisational tools:

8. Trello

Blogging becomes a breeze when you’re super organised! Trello helps you keep your ideas and tasks in one place, and is perfect for collaborating with team members or freelancers.

9. Evernote

Once you’re on a roll, the ideas will keep on coming. Organise all your ideas in one place so you can get rid of all those Post-its with your random musings stuck everywhere!

10. Wunderlist

If you’re a lover of lists, then this app is for you. Wunderlist is pretty handy if you’re compiling a list post and want to keep a record of all your ideas to include in the list. You can also access public lists and get ideas off others.

11. Editorial calendar

Editorial Calendar is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to see when your posts are scheduled and manage your blog.

12. Pocket

If you’re like me, you come across lots of articles, ezines or posts that you think look interesting, but you don’t want to divert your attention from what you’re currently doing. I always think: ‘I must read that later’ but then can never find it again. With Pocket, you can put articles or videos into Pocket and come back to view them later.

13. Mind Meister

This app allows you to mind-map on the go as well as collaborate with others and brainstorm on ideas.

14. Google Calendar

Google has a free online calendar perfect for keeping track of your content schedule. Share with others and collaborate on your content ideas.

15. Wridea

Don’t forget your awesome ideas! Wridea is a free idea management service which allows you to enter and categorise your ideas, and then share those ideas with others for a virtual brainstorming session.

Content creation tools:

16. Google Keyword Finder

This free tool can help you plan your content and ensure that your articles are getting found by your customers by including targeted keywords.

17. Google Docs

Using Google Docs is particularly handy if your work is reviewed by peers or you work collaboratively on your blog content. It will also help ensure you pick up any spelling or grammar errors before you enter your content into your blogging platform. Plus, you can access the content from anywhere!

18. Write or Die

If you’re the kind of person who needs someone cracking the whip behind them to get words on a page, then try Write or Die. It provides, er, encouragement, to help you beat down writer’s block.

19. Omm Writer

I’m guilty of having four browser windows open with 20 tabs each on two different screens (that’s probably a good reflection of how my brain operates). So if you’re like me, try Omm Writer. It gives you a distraction-free zone (complete with relaxing forest or ocean sounds if you want them) where you can concentrate, think, write and be productive so you can knock out your next post in no time.

20. My Hours

Writing is one of those tasks that is hard to measure time-wise. Sometimes you might be riding a brainwave and the words flow easily, other times it’s a painfully laborious process. Keep track of your time easily with this free time management app, My Hours.

21. ProWriting Aid

Not everyone finds writing easy, but ProWriting Aid is your personal writing coach that will have you looking like a pro. Not only does it check grammar and spelling but will also help improve readability, improve sentence structure, check for consistency, eliminate redundancies and more.

22. Thesaurus.com

The thesaurus is my best friend – but now I don’t need to keep one on had at my desk. Expand your vernacular repertoire and use Thesaurus.com to smarten up your articles (and improve your crossword-solving game).

23. Brainy quote

In the words of Letitia Landon “An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence”. Brainy Quote is a library of quotes where you’ll find a quote for just about any topic to complement your writing.

24. HARO – Help A Reporter Out

Need some real-world examples? HARO connects you with experts on a variety of topics, just pose a question, specify your target, and you’ll receive responses from sources that match your needs.

25. Portent Title Generator

Writing one sentence for your title is often the hardest part of the whole blog post. Use this title generator to give you a helping hand with the creativity.

Tools for images:

26. PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a free online photo editing tool. With its suite of effects, fonts, designs and more, you’ll give your blog photos a completely professional touch.

27. Canva

With Canva, you go from business owner to design pro. Canva makes graphic design easy for everyone, so you can turn your ideas into a professional design without fuss. There are also templates for creating social media posts for those of us with zero design skills.

28. PhotoPin

Don’t want to pay for average stock images? Try PhotoPin, a collection of free photos for bloggers and creatives.

29. Meme Generator

Everyone loves a good meme. Create your own with this meme generator and sit back and watch your image go viral.

30. Skitch

Skitch certainly isn’t on par with Photoshop, but it’s much easier to use and perfect for screen captures and quick edits to photos.

31. Pixlr

Give your pics a photo-edit finish with Pixlr. It lets you use photo editing tools and effects so you can customise your blog images.

32. Free Digital Photos

This is a free stock images site with a massive library of photos, so you’re sure to find a pic that perfectly complements your post.

Tools for infographics:

33. Visualize.me

This site is targeted at people who want to create visual resumes, but the tree map and pictogram tool is perfect for using in blog posts to display stats and data.

34. Easel.ly

Infographics can seem like an epic task, but not with Easel.ly! They have a tonne of templates to get you started so you can effectively present your message visually.

35. Piktochart

“Making information beautiful has never been easier” with Piktochart. Use ready-to-use themes or create customised infographics with their editing tools.

36. Infogr.am

Bring out the best in your data with graphs and charts. Also perfect for professional presentations and pitches.

SEO Tools

37. Keyword Planner

I’ve already mentioned this one above, but just to reiterate that it’s super important to include keywords and search terms in your blog content, tags and titles.

38. Tag Crowd

This tool helps you visualise word frequencies in text by creating a word cloud, text cloud or tag cloud often seen on blog posts. It’s useful to improve onpage SEO and to help your readers digest topics and relevance in a single glance.

39. Google Webmaster

This tool helps you understand where you rank in search engine results, understand your search traffic and how people are finding your site, and make optimisations that will improve your visibility.

40. Scribe

If you don’t mind paying for software, then check out Scribe. It gives you on-page optimisation advice plus content development guidance to help your page start climbing up the search result ranks.

Tools for sharing your content:

41. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an all-in-one dashboard where you can manage all your social networking accounts and schedule your posts, monitor community and engagement and view all your stats for each platform.

42. Click to Tweet

Click to Tweet boxes can be included anywhere in your blog post. It makes it super simple for readers to tweet out a quote from your article to their followers with a link back to your page.

43. MailChimp

Sending your blog posts out to email subscribers doesn’t require complicated systems – spread the word with emails sent to your database through MailChimp.

44. Outbrain

If you want to get a lot of eyes on your post then Outbrain will send you plenty of traffic at a low cost. It works by promoting your content on other media sites so it is discovered by a wider audience. However take note – lots of clicks doesn’t necessarily equal qualified traffic.

45. LinkedIn

Professional networking site LinkedIn is perfect for sharing industry specific content, particularly if you can target industry group. Post your blog content here and watch your stats soar.

46. Twitter

Use hashtags to reach readers who are interested in your blog content. Don’t forget to include social share buttons on all your blog posts to make it easy for readers to share your content on their own social platform.

47. Buffer

If managing your social platforms can feel a little overwhelming, then try buffer. Similar to Hootsuite, it allows you to push out content to all your accounts with just one click.

48. Bitly

Bitly is a URL shortening service. It’s handy because it allows you to include links in your social media posts without a long link taking up all your character space, giving you more room to get creative with your promotion.

Tools for measuring results:

49. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is essential for measuring how your content is performing, where your search traffic is coming from and the keywords that people are searching for to find you. You can then use this information to drive your content plan going forward.

50. Mention.net

Follow your brand online and get real-time alerts whenever your name, brand or a chosen term is mentioned anywhere online, including social media, news pages, websites or blogs.

What is it you think that makes up a memorable experience? There’s a number of things that fit into the psychology of a customer and certain factors that make up their perception of you.
Let’s create a short list of things that may become apparent to you during your visit that could contribute to a bad experience, and how a business can contribute to a loss in customers.

• Your customer can find the same quality for a lower price elsewhere 
• You potentially haven’t remedied any negative online reviews 
• You aren’t working on establishing an emotional attachment between the business and the customer 
• You’ve lost your ‘wow’ factor 
• You’re not listening to your customers 
• There’s a lack of atmosphere within the venue 
• Product knowledge – are your employees trained and knowledgeable on the products they are trying to sell? 

Remember to constantly measure your results. There is always room for improvement, and those businesses that are able to quickly identify areas that may be lacking are the ones who are going to hold the top spot.

With the nature of the industry changing so frequently, it’s imperative that you are always monitoring your progress and consistently working to develop a competitive advantage within your line of work.