Q&A: Drone Video for Hospitality Marketers

in Photography & Video by Ally Cardello

Almost every wedding, destination, and hotel marketer has or is considering investing in a drone video. We went to the source to help you pick the right one.

New Castle, New Hampshire’s David Murray of ClearEyePhoto has enjoyed an interesting career, reaching back to a passion for amateur photography in high school, a high-flying Silicon Valley run through the ’90s and mid 2000s, and finally, into his own photography business over the last decade or so. He’s experimented with RC aircraft for decades and was an early adopter of the DJI Phantom. (He now flies the DJI Inspire-class drone.)

We spoke to him about best practices, do’s and don’ts, and the right moments to consider drone videography for your destination, hotel, and wedding venue marketing needs. (And a note on semantics: We’re using “drone videography” and “drone photography” interchangeably throughout this piece.)

Why is drone videography such a natural fit for those in hospitality marketing?

The value in many great hotels and wedding venues is that they’re based in a really special location. There’s no better tool for capturing and conveying a grand, beautiful setting than drone video.

What does drone photography offer that traditional aerial photography doesn’t?

If you get up in a plane or helicopter, it’s tough to get down low enough to capture the perspective, and if you’re on the ground, it’s hard to show the surroundings well. A couple hundred feet is the sweet spot, and you can really show the setting in a way that’s just magical. I love it. It’s always exciting to get the drone in the air and discover what you can see, with the client looking over your shoulder at the screen, because sometimes they spot things they didn’t expect.

How can hotels and venues find the right drone photographer for their project?

The first thing you should do is make sure the operator you’re planning on working with is certified by the FAA to do commercial drone operations. You should always operate legally – don’t hire people who aren’t certified. And they’re out there. If you have an FAA-certified drone pilot, it indicates that they have a sufficient interest in what they’re doing, have gone through the trouble, and are probably serious about it.

From there, you need to focus on their ability to take the photos and videos you want by evaluating their portfolio. If you haven’t looked at much drone photography or videography, use Google and YouTube to find examples that have won awards so you have some sort of point of reference. The images shouldn’t be hazy or unclear. No curved or tilted horizons or strange color. Broadly speaking, their video should be smooth and keep you engaged, with any music or narration fitting in well with the footage in terms of timing and mood.

Aside from that, it’s not much different from working with any other commercial photographer or videographer – they should be reliable, easy to communicate with, and capable of doing the type of work you’re looking for. Talking to past customers of theirs is helpful, and spending the time to talk to them about the project before you get too far into it is important, too.

What’s a common mistake drone videographers and their clients make?

The most common mistake I see is people thinking that drone shots stand alone as compelling storytelling, because the perspective seems unique to them. But there’s so much bad drone footage out there now that people are getting more used to it and beginning to tune it out, so we’re at the point where people want some story or drama. Sequencing scenes, tying in music effectively, mixing in ground shots – you have to put it together in a coherent roll that’ll take the viewer on a bit of a journey and draw them in and keep their interest. Finally, there are some basic photography principles to follow – I can’t believe how often I see drone photos shot with no regard for the sun. The image quality is really poor.

What are the technical specs drone photographers – and those hiring them – should be seeking these days?

As far as DJI drones are concerned, anyone who is serious about doing commercial work is flying at least a Phantom 4 Pro, or an Inspire 1 Pro or Inspire 2. This is especially true when capturing still photos for use in print media, where image quality needs to be higher than for use on websites and in social media. A key distinction between the cameras on these drones and the ones on older or lesser drones is the size of the image sensor. The older ones use the same size sensors used in most point-and-shoot cameras (about 1/2″), while the more capable drone cameras have larger sensors (1″ or 4/3″).

Generally speaking, image quality and low-light performance improve as sensor size increases. The lens quality is also better in the drones I’ve mentioned above. Phantom 3 Pro drones were great flying camera platforms when they came out, creating better stills than the best GoPros at the time, and almost as good video. But they are now pretty behind the times, using small sensors and inferior lenses. There are also older Inspire 1 drones out there whose “X3” camera is essentially the same as the camera in a Phantom 3 Pro.

Of course, the photographer’s skills are more important than just the camera itself. Just as a great photographer can often take a better picture with a cell phone camera than a poor photographer might take with a $3,000 dSLR he or she does not know how to use, a great drone photographer with a Phantom 3 might deliver better results than a poor photographer who’s using an Inspire 2 with X5s camera. So, it’s really most important to look at the quality of the work, rather than just the equipment itself.

Is drone photography being overused at this point?

I think done right, especially if there’s architecture involved, even if it’s a one story building, a drone can provide a valuable perspective. But the easy mistake to make is going up and showing context that you don’t want to show. If your resort is next to a trailer park or a quarry and you’re marketing it as a high-end property, it’s not a good idea to show it from that angle. A second example would be if you have a building that looks wonderful from a ground perspective, but has a flat roof with a bunch of ugly equipment, stains, and debris on top.

I hear people say “I’m supposed to shoot drone footage here,” so they fly around the building and technically capture drone footage, but don’t show any aspects of the building that would make anyone want to go there. It’s purely gratuitous at that point.

What do you think the best way to capture a wedding would be?

The key thing with wedding drone photography is to capture the setting, and to do it in a way that isn’t obtrusive. You typically don’t want to be buzzing around during the ceremony itself, unless the couple really wants that. It’s usually better to get a little farther away and get a shot where you can clearly see that there’s a wedding party there, but that they’re overlooking the golf course or ocean. The role of the drone is to capture context – just far enough away to show the setting beautifully.

Dissecting Airbnb’s Destination Content Marketing Strategy

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

Airbnb has long been on the minds of hotels and destination marketing executives for eating market share. But while the level of threat for established hotels and resorts is still out, what’s clear is that those in hospitality marketing should have their eye on another aspect of Airbnb’s presence: it’s content marketing. It sells its destinations and the Airbnb traveler lifestyle through a variety of slick, authenticity-first experiential marketing tactics, a philosophy Hawthorn preaches via our print and digital content marketing products.

From their new print magazine (yes, you read that right) to beautifully edited professional video to a community-generated recommendations section, we dive into Airbnb’s content efforts that are relevant to those in hotel or destination marketing, and offer takeaways you can apply to your own strategies.

Airbnbmag: Bridging the Digital and Print Divide

In conjunction with Hearst, Airbnb launched the Airbnbmag in May. The second issue of the print-only magazine is coming in September, and if all goes well, it’ll be back in 2018 with a more frequent publishing schedule. The magazine’s primary distribution is via direct mail to top hosts and guests, supplemented by newsstand presence in some bookstores and airports. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told the Wall Street Journal that print intrigued him because “It isn’t ephemeral, as opposed to content on a feed that expires.”

What may be the most intriguing and interesting aspect of this project? It’s how this digital-era trendsetter is using data to drive their content decisions in an analog publication. What Airbnb is doing is using all that digital data they have to make it simple for editors to define what destinations should be the focus of their biggest features in the magazine. “We know how many people are searching to stay in Havana, Detroit, or Tokyo, and we know how many people want to go based on search dates for future trips,” Chesky explained in the Wall Street Journal article in May. “No one has billions of demand search data points for nearly every country in the world. That gives us a leg up.”

Takeaway for Hotel & Destination Marketing Professionals:

You may not have access to the same pool of big data that Airbnb has, but you can still look at your hotel’s or destination’s website analytics and see what sections of the site people are spending the most time on and let that help shape your content. You could also look at booking timeframes and take note of things like an uptick in last-minute getaways in a certain season or to a certain place and draw ideas from those stats, too. Even simply a few broader conversations with Revenue Management could shed some light on some content themes  you may not have considered before.

Blog: Giving Hosts What They Need

Airbnb’s blog, which lives as a subdomain of “atairbnb.com,” covers tips primarily for hosts, as well as Airbnb’s partnerships and initiatives. The stories on the blog – like “Make Your Listing Accessible to Japanese Travelers,” “How Airbnb Delivers Insights to Hosts,” and “Opening More Homes to People in Need” – are relatively economical in length, clear in language and intent, and effective with messaging. They also mix videos and photos into the story as needed, too. Airbnb occasionally goes deeper on the blog with features like the Hospitality Index, highlighting Airbnb’s most hospitable cities, or the Economic Impact study, which takes a deep look at the effect Airbnb has had on cities.

Takeaway for Hotel & Destination Marketing Professionals:

Your stories don’t have to be long, but they have to have a point. Don’t create content to fill a quota; create content to do a specific job. You never want to discount SEO and keywords, but if the intended message is most effectively conveyed in 300 words, then that’s enough. If it takes 2,000 words, that’s OK, too.

Neighborhoods: A 10,000-Foot Destination View

Neighborhoods is a finely organized blog-like feed of the boroughs within a given city. If you select Los Angeles, for example, there are 60 neighborhoods to choose from, and tags at the top to filter the choices down, like “Trendy,” “Peace & Quiet,” “Touristy,” and “Celebrity Status.” Within an individual neighborhood, there’s an embedded Google Map at the top of the page to orient yourself, followed by a long-scroll blog approach to highlighting the neighborhood through top-quality images and brief caption descriptions to give you the full lay of the land. Finally, at the bottom of the page, you’re led to a few potential choices for Airbnb homes in that neighborhood. There’s a clear funnel to a sale.

Takeaway for Hotel & Destination Marketing Professionals:

You don’t need us to tell you we live in a visual world. But this is an interesting approach to sourcing those top-quality images by prominently partnering with a local photographer (who they feature at the bottom to give extra exposure for that photographer). Alternatively, they could have just hired the photographer, given photo credit, and left it at that. It adds authenticity – that holy grail of all content these days – by showing it’s a true local’s perspective. Pros in destination and hospitality marketing could certainly do the same, choosing to profile the local who is providing the content, not just showing their work.

Guidebooks: Host-Recommended Picks in Every Destination

If Neighborhoods is a beautiful photo scroll , Guidebooks is Airbnb’s Lonely Planet or Zagat, helping you make sense of a city’s coolest things to do. But here’s the key: It all comes directly from the mouths of hosts who live there. First, you pick a city – we’ll stick with Los Angeles for this example – and then you can select verticals like “Food Scene,” “Drinks & Nightlife,” “Arts & Culture,” and more. When you pick one, they’re listed in order of rank according to local Airbnb hosts, and their comments are included, too. On the right side of the screen, there are pins dropped to a map, helping you easily figure out where these places are and how they fit into your trip.

Takeaway for Hotel & Destination Marketing Professionals:

Done successfully, user-generated content may be the ideal form of content marketing. It provides that level of authenticity since it’s coming from locals, and once you’ve built the plan, it can mean little time investment from you and your team (only light curating). But Airbnb hosts are natural and willing content suppliers. And Guidebooks took significant developer build-out. What’s the low-hanging fruit equivalent for you? Seasonal UGC photo contests like the ones we’ve executed? A way you harness existing area/destination reviews for future guests? Maybe it’s even analog – some highly visual gathering space where guests can give recommendations of what to see or do on a chalkboard wall.

Community Stories: Finding New Hosts through Emotional Stories

Community Stories is a profile series – both written articles and video – about Airbnb hosts (primarily), to entice others with that idea in a very editorial way. It gets readers daydreaming about how Airbnb could change their life and routine. Tessa, for example, used to work 100-hour weeks and traveled frequently. Now housebound due to a neurological disease, Airbnb “brings the world” to Tessa, as the story puts it.

Takeaway for Hotel & Destination Marketing Professionals:

People like stories about people. While you may not have the marketing budget that Airbnb has for story-specific video, profiling people will always be a classic content approach. In the case of hotel and destination marketing, the natural approach is profiling locals who are doing fascinating things and who can bring the great “why I love it here” aspects of your area or destination to life.

Project Profile: Allison Inn Custom Magazine

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

The annual Roots custom magazine we’ve produced for The Allison Inn & Spa since 2014 has been one of the most successful magazines in our 16-year history. And we know it has for our client, too. The hotel marketing team and hotel Managing Director Pierre Zreik have worked hard to establish their authenticity and, no pun intended, roots in the Willamette Valley. It’s that kind of connection with the surrounding area that has helped turn the hotel marketing magazine into a valuable tool for guests to maximize their stays and a must-advertise-in publication for local wineries and businesses, too. Here’s the story behind how Roots cements this luxury resort’s reputation as the “living room” of Oregon wine country.

The Client

Newberg, Oregon is the gateway to the booming Willamette Valley, named the “2016 Wine Region of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast and known especially for its pinot noir. And the 85-room boutique hotel that opened in 2007 has become the place to stay for luxury guests enjoying this wine country escape less than an hour southwest of Portland, Oregon. Despite that close proximity to its major feeder market, the resort has successfully shifted the mindset from the region being considered a day-trip destination into a place that guests could enjoy for days. Hoping to expand on the hotel’s growing credibility in the winemaking world, our client commissioned Roots to continue those efforts.

The Project

The 96-page, annually published Roots magazine first ran in 2014, and highlights the region, winemaking, and winemakers in three out of the four feature stories included in each edition. While we also profile things like the hotel’s 15,000-square-foot spa, acclaimed Jory restaurant, and $1 million art collection (featuring 500 pieces by Oregon artists), the focus of Roots is the region’s world of wine, and it serves as a strong destination marketing tool for the resort and advertisers – in fact, we sold out ad space in 2017. To make sure the magazine maintained its editorial feel and didn’t get taken over by ads, we guaranteed a certain ad-to-content ratio to the client. We’re happy to oblige, and our client is happy, too, as those ad dollars help increase the number of content pages we produce in each issue.

Our Take

To integrate print and digital efforts for their hotel marketing and speak to the client’s desire for user-generated content, we developed a cross-medium campaign built around the hashtag #mywillamettewinetime in the 2016 issue. We then created the print collateral to be used on property to encourage guests to share photos of a tasting with friends, a favorite bottle of wine, or a vineyard. More than 230 Instagram posts have included the hashtag since, and its use has expanded beyond the hotel, something that reinforces our client’s vision of being a part of the fabric of the region. To turn the magazine’s spotlight on the readers, we then came full circle, pulling the best photos to create a spread in the 2017 issue of the magazine.

Last Thought

More and more, reviews are a central part of any hotel’s marketing ecosystem. So how do you help garner positive ones? It’s all about making sure guests have great stays, and then helping them post reviews with friendly reminders when they’re leaving and after they’ve returned home. An in-room custom magazine that arms guests with ideas of what to do and connects them to the local culture is a great tool to that path to positive reviews for new business, and repeat bookings from those original guests as well.

How Millennials Shop for Wedding Venues

in Brand Strategy, Event Venues, Photography & Video, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Corey Scarano

You’re probably sick of hearing about millennials; millennials are probably sick of hearing about millennials. But for most marketers, they’ve become the most important consumer generation and will be for the next 15 or so years. Those working in hospitality marketing, and more specifically, wedding venue advertising and marketing, need to understand that millennials buy things differently than their predecessors, and how this affects the way they book wedding venues. In this piece, we outline five millennial buying habits, and how venues should capitalize on them in their marketing plans.

They Do Their Homework (Reviews Are Important)

Even if millennials put down their phones long enough to physically go somewhere to buy something, chances are, they’ve already done their research. Reviews are imperative to the millennial buying experience. They walk in the door with an educated opinion, as they have a strong desire to be informed and feel like whatever they’re buying is worth it, and they don’t visit more than a very small handful of venues, if that. More than ever, thanks to reviews, the best products and experiences are thriving, while those that disappoint don’t last. It’s the reason movie studios are blaming Rotten Tomatoes for killing movies that aren’t very good.

What Venues Should Know:

With resources like The Knot, WeddingWire, and Wedding Spot, today’s engaged couple is doing a whole lot of research before stepping foot in a venue. And this is where reviews – social media’s version of word of mouth – make a huge impact. Incentivize couples to write an honest review. Authenticity is key here – don’t push them in a particular (read: positive) direction – just ask for their honest feedback and experience. Encourage them to tell their story. Reviews for The Knot, Wedding Wire, and Facebook, in particular, show up prominently in Google search results, so steer couples in that direction.

OUR WORK

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Within the first three months, this new site drove a 200% increase in conversions

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Social Media (Posting and Consuming) Is Part of the Experience

Whether you have an official presence on social media or not, your business is being discussed by customers and potential customers on the core platforms. So it’s important you do two things: 1. Start building your social media marketing strategy if you haven’t already; 2. Start listening and responding when appropriate.

What Venues Should Know:

They’re checking you out on Instagram. Imagine Instagram as a sort of mobile website. What does yours look like? For many brides and grooms, it’s the first (and potentially only) engagement they’ll have with you online. Couples want to be able to scope out your venue before touring the grounds in person. Give them as broad a sense of the experience of getting married at your venue as you can, using your feed, Stories, Stories Highlights, the bio, the URL field, etc. Also: Consider making a custom Snapchat Geofilter available to new couples for their big day. It’s a true value-add for you and the couple.

SOLUTIONS

Social Media Marketing

They’ll Fall Head
Over Heels For

Explore our highly successful newly engaged social campaigns

Let’s Get Social

They Have to Show an Interest for Your Wedding Advertising to Hit the Mark

The amount of media and messages being thrown at millennials has made them very savvy at sniffing out marketing – heads go down to phones during TV commercials, new tabs open if there’s a pre-roll YouTube ad, and listeners tap the 15-second fast-forward button during podcast ads.

What Venues Should Know:

The key to being heard for those in hospitality and wedding marketing, then, is finding the right distribution point as well as message so you can be confident they’ll value it. Make sure you’re listed (and invest in premium placement) for venue-listing platforms. Instagram ads, now with the power of Facebook’s ad muscle, allow very granular targeting, and could be a worthwhile investment for a venue that promotes a post targeted only at local women who follow @theknot, for example. The aforementioned custom Snapchat Geofilters act as native, guest-distributed ads, and are an easy way to capture impressions. Even print – that “dinosaur” you always hear about – can also still be effective. We’ve continued to see venues, vendors, and couples find value in our print event brochures, because they’re handed to couples during a site visit. It’s that in-hand distribution after they’ve shown initial interest that continues to make this product a success.

They Spend Money on Experiences, Not Things

Airbnb and Uber are in, RE/MAX and Ford are out…at least for now. Millennials are putting off major life milestones so they can spend big on them versus big purchases that will tie them down. They want memories that they can document and share on social media. According to a study by EventBrite, 78 percent of millennials “would choose to spend money on a desirable experience or event over buying something desirable.”

What Venues Should Know:

This is a massive opportunity for wedding venues. While the average age of engaged couples may be rising, when they come in as warm prospects, they may be more open to up-selling. Push the once-in-a-lifetime, memory-making angle. In your marketing, weave the wedding in as part of their bigger life’s adventure, and as a rite of passage worth celebrating right. Go back to couples who got married at your venue five years ago, offer them a gift certificate to a local restaurant or spa for their time, and get them to tell you how much and why they loved their wedding at your venue. Use their stories on your website, as photo-driven testimonials on social media, and in other parts of your wedding venue marketing.

They Expect Convenience and Flexibility

Everyone likes convenience and flexibility in the buying experience, but millennials have grown to expect them. Whereas you used to have to call your friends to keep in touch, now there’s Facebook. Asking someone out on a date can be anxiety-inducing, and now you can just match on Tinder. Hailing a cab could be a pain – now there’s Uber. Optionality and speed are expected.

What Venues Should Know:

It’s easy when you’re dealing with this every day to forget that settling on a wedding venue can be a stressful time for a couple. Venues that prioritize making the process helpful, easy, and transparent will stand out. What else could you provide during the venue vetting and planning process to make couples feel like they’re in the driver’s seat? Could you package together with a customized video of the venue spaces they considered as a site-visit follow up (piecing together the templated video parts with a custom introduction)? Does your venue have planning tools that make the process that much simpler at your venue in comparison to your competitors? If so, highlight that at the outset. No matter the price point, if what you’re offering is truly great value, millennials will gravitate toward your offering, so it’s up to you to identify what you do well for them and then find the best ways to sing its praises.

How to Book More Corporate Event Business with Shelly Archer of 360DG

in Content Marketing by Dan Seitz

Many of our clients in hotel marketing and some in special event marketing already know the acronym “DMC” and what these “destination management companies” do in the corporate group event industry. For those who don’t, DMCs act as on-the-ground experts in particular destinations to help corporate planners and their groups take full advantage of an area and all it has to offer. Their services range from logistics and transportation to the finer touches like creative corporate event concepts and decor. In other words: They live, eat, and breath corporate group business in those destinations.

Any DMC professional is thus filling their daily cup with expertise on corporate group business; we know firsthand that Shelly Archer’s cup overflows with that knowledge. Archer has worked in the industry since 2004 and is a partner at 360 Destination Group, a DMC with offices around the country and a Hawthorn client since 2011. 360DG brought us on last year to overhaul their marketing strategy and efforts ranging from a new enterprise website and marketing automation to email marketing and collateral.

But we’re not here to talk about our work. Since we know so many of our clients in hospitality, destination, and event marketing are looking to supplement that leisure and weekend business with weekend corporate groups, we thought we’d turn the tables. In this Q&A, we tap Archer’s wealth of knowledge to help hotels and venues make adjustments to their hotel promotion, group sales strategies, and on-the-ground programming. She touches on why corporate planners are looking beyond Vegas (a good thing for our clients), how boutique hotels and smaller venues can still capture midweek corporate business, and how to position your venue for different types of corporate groups.

What are some things that corporate planners are looking for in a host venue these days?

Flexibility is the key right now, because hotels are being booked up far in advance. It’s a seller’s market. So for a corporate planner looking to place a group, I would say that they value availability and flexibility – flexibility with their space, flexibility with rates, flexibility with fees that can be waived. Also uniqueness – smaller hotels should tout their privacy and uniqueness. Planners get used to the big hotels because they offer a ton of space, but you lose that sense of privacy. So smaller hotels can highlight the fact that they can make a group feel like they’re the only ones in the hotel or venue.

Hotels that aren’t in metro centers can have a tough time securing group business. What are some ways that great vacation destination hotels or venues can get corporate planners’ ears about booking with them in more difficult-to-reach locations?

They could offer clients a transportation credit — let’s say $1,000 or $2,500 — and absorb the cost of transportation for the group from the airport to the venue. In fact, I would play up the remoteness.

How can being hard to get to be a benefit for hotels and venues?

It gives the client a chance to capture the attention of their group without any distractions. That’s partly why planners don’t go to Vegas, because they feel like there are too many distractions. If you’re in a faraway, remote area, you can get attendees’ attention.

What has changed about what corporate planners are looking for now, versus, say, five years ago?

The biggest trend I see is the shift to a sellers’ market. A few years ago, it was a buyers’ market. The economy is better, people are booking more meetings, and they’re booking them further out. They’re checking availability not just for this year, but when they see that it’s already close to full, they book for 2018 and 2019, too. So all of the sudden, availability for hotel space is at a premium. And because the rates go up, planners are trying to lock in rates now because they’re worried those rates will keep going up. So, that’s an advantage for a smaller property –  you could do a social media or email promotion highlighting your availability during hot dates like fall and spring, when everyone is scrambling to book.

Any tips for smaller venues and hotels with group capacity of 100 or fewer?

With that small a group, you can be a little more fluid. Instead of being confined to the ballroom, maybe you meet somewhere else and take advantage of the property. Or, you can go off-site and take them to a local venue or restaurant. Since it’s a smaller group, you have more flexibility where you can place them. So it’s important that small venues sell themselves on those attributes, and also sell how that flexibility can be customized.

How do you look at sub-segments of corporate groups and how particular details make landing corporate group business for each different?

An incentive group is really basically wining and dining. There may be a bit of time for meetings, but the remainder of it is fun and relaxing. So if you’re going after incentive group business, you could put together some promotion that shows your hotel or venue’s combination of the necessary meeting space but also really focuses on the ways that fun can be had at your doorstep. At 360DG, we make a day-by-day grid that lays out in a visual format what a typical three- or four-day program may look like. A hotel could do something similar. You could do multiple grids – one for executive retreats, one for sales incentive trips, one for conferences, etc. Conferences are the meat and potatoes. There, you almost play down the fun stuff. But in those, maybe you play up the conveniences – “it’s an intimate area,” “there are places for conversation where people can break off to have one-on-ones,” etc. It’s all about how you frame it.

How to Pick Typography that Speaks to Your Message

in Brand Strategy by Kristen Noonan

Often an overlooked component in marketing messages, typography is the written version of “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” Two messages containing the exact same words can have two entirely different messages, depending on the typography choices. At Hawthorn, it’s something we notice every day on the monitors of our designers’ – it’s amazing to see how different text can look and feel based on the typography choices they make. Look at two examples of our work below:

The scratchy typeface on the graphic on the left (from Mosaic magazine, produced for Benchmark Hotels & Resorts) matches the content – in this case, a story about the reintroduction of wolves in Wyoming — by invoking associations with the wild. On the right, this image (from Noble House magazine, produced for Noble House Hotels & Resorts) features a condensed typeface that expresses an “into thin air” feeling that goes hand-in-hand with the title: “Evaporating Art”.

Creative software offers people the ability to easily toggle between typefaces and fonts (and yes, there is a difference). And interestingly enough, we may have Steve Jobs to thank for that. During his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005, Jobs discussed how he had taken a calligraphy class 10 years before designing the first Mac, and because of that, the Macintosh was the first computer with beautiful typography, and likely prompted the same progress in all future PCs, too.

While a different typeface is just a click away for today’s marketers, the same is true for their competitors — and because of that, it’s more important than ever to distinguish your brand with meticulously-selected typography. But how?

3 Burning Typography Questions, Asked and Answered

Typeface vs. font – what’s the difference?

The term “typeface” would broadly apply to Times New Roman and all its versions. A font, on the other hand, describes a specific subset of a typeface – Times New Roman, bolded, in 14 point type, for example. Today, most people use the terms interchangeably, though some designers still prefer to be accurate in their terminology.

How should you approach picking fonts for print versus digital use?

Not every font can be used online. “Web safe” fonts are fonts that are either standard system fonts (fonts that your computer comes with), or fonts that are specified in the code of a website and are rendered in your browser. Print, of course, has no such limitations. If there’s a print font that you’d like to use that isn’t web safe, try to find a comparable font to use for digital projects.

What’s the difference between a serif and a sans serif font?

If a font is considered “serif”, that means it has flourishes on the ends of at least some of the characters. Think Times New Roman. Most novels are written in a serif font. Sans serif fonts, on the other hand, don’t have these flourishes — a well-known example would be Arial. Sans serif fonts are often considered more readable on the web for long passages of text.

The Impact of Typography on Brand Messages

We’ve remixed some iconic slogans with different typefaces. The typefaces they use range dramatically but work perfectly for those specific brands. Look at how much less effective those messages are in a different font:

Typefaces to Consider

Forth and Create posted an excellent resource for choosing a font for your brand. Consider your customers and how you’d like them to see your business. What type of font would best help you deliver your message?

If you’re in tourism marketing and your target audience is families, a non-threatening, inviting, rounded font may be an appropriate choice. If you’re creating tourism ads and would like to inspire a sense of adventure, a distressed font may give your message an audacious flair. If you’re working on a hotel promotion targeting seniors, a classic, recognizable serif font would be a safe pick.

Influence Via Typography

Still not convinced whether the typography you use will have an impact on your marketing? The New York Times set out to get to the bottom of the issue by quizzing more than 45,000 readers in an informal study in 2012. Serif fonts – specifically Baskerville – ranked as the ones readers most agreed with, while Comic Sans ranked dead last. Ah, ol’ Comic Sans rears its ugly head again. Safe to say, you won’t find that font used in any of our work today.

Top 5 Super Simple Blog Posts You Can Write

in Content Marketing by Catherine Shane

Whether you’re marketing a hotel, destination, or wedding venue, you’ve heard how important content marketing is. Blogs have become a pillar in hospitality marketing for DMOs as well as hotel digital marketing. The same can be said for wedding venues looking to drive brides to their websites. But no matter who you are and what type of organization you work for, you feel like you don’t have time to produce solid content. Here, we outline five easy blog posts you can write on the tightest of schedules.

Q&A

The beauty of the Q&A is that it’s an easy format to write, even easier to read on digital screens (always key), and gives your readers something they’re yearning for in the form of expert insight. The only real key is making sure your expert is someone your audience cares about. If you’re marketing a destination or hotel, everyone loves insight into that destination from a well-positioned local, such as an outfitter or artist who has lived in town for years. Here’s an example of one we produced with an ice climbing guide in Lake Placid. Or for wedding venues, your expert could be a top local vendor such as a florist or event planner who can shed light on trends for the season.

Craft the questions around the person you’re interviewing – make it easy for them to give you interesting, engaging answers – and set them up to entertain and inform your audience. Send them a list of questions via email – we’d recommend 15 to 20, depending on how vested this expert is in getting this exposure on your blog – and follow up by phone to flesh some out if necessary. Not every answer you get will be a homerun. That’s ok – use the best ones and you’ll get a tight, readable post.

Guest Blog Posts

The same people who would make great experts to speak with for Q&As may be the source of the simplest type of post you can write…because you don’t have to write it, they do! The more popular they are, the harder they’ll be to get (and the more popular you are, the easier they’ll be to get). They get exposure for their business or operation in front of your audience (and a link from your blog to their website, which helps their SEO), while you get free content and added promotion if the author pushes it out on their social channels. Win-win.

Those “wins” do come with some front-end work, though. You need to make sure they can write effectively and you also need to make sure they fully understand what you’re looking for – the last thing you want is for you to have to spend hours editing their post, or even worse, trying to politely work with the writer to revise what they’ve produced over and over again until that contact becomes frustrated. But get over these hurdles and you hopefully have a relationship that can be tapped repeatedly for posts for mutual benefit.

Recurring Features

Recurring features are posts that follow a specific format that you produce consistently. For example, every few months you could run a story about the seasonal dishes your chef came up with, such as this chef-profile series we’re producing for one of our clients. The beauty of this format is that it’s a fixture on your content calendar – it’s one less story you have to think of every week (or month or quarter) – and you, as the content marketer, simply follow the format. A side benefit is that these past posts are great examples of what the finished product will look like to send sources you need input from for ensuing posts within the series.

Compiled and Curated Posts

You don’t always need to write a fully fleshed-out original post. Sometimes, the value you can provide to your audience is compiling input from other content already out there. For those in hotel and destination marketing, it could be lists of the top recommended sites to see under a theme such as top museums or family day-trips. If others in your region like CVBs or other DMOs have done content like this – and even the likes of TripAdvisor in bigger markets – you can start with your own list, then include these others’ top picks. Aggregating all that info in your one post – as long as you credit the other sources – will make your post that much more valuable.

Another approach is maybe there’s an excellent story written by a media outlet, and you have some input that extends beyond a simple social media post sharing that content. Add your take on the story, and then link to the original source. It may take visitors off your site if they click the link (make sure that clicking the link opens a new tab, rather than opening in the same window) but you’re bringing your audience value, and in the long run, they’ll begin to see you as a source for expert opinion.

Posts Mined from Your Audience’s Most Frequently Asked Questions

No, we’re not suggesting you regurgitate your FAQs. Instead, we’re recommending you think about the most burning questions you get repeatedly from your audience. We bet you can rattle off the answers to those pretty quickly. And those are the kinds of blog posts that almost write themselves if you can flesh out one or a few under a theme.

For hotel digital marketing, it might be the questions your concierge fields frequently; for those in destination marketing, ask the person who answers the main phone number. In addition to quick writing time, another benefit to these types of posts is that you can now use this link to send to people who have this question – helpful and a way to hopefully get them to convert by directing them back to your website. Another side benefit is that they’re evergreen – an answer to a question you get all the time today will probably be informative and relevant to readers next year, too.

Project Profile: Noble Nomad Destination Blog Website

in Websites by Catherine Shane

How do you get more life out of your content? For longtime Hawthorn Creative client Noble House Hotels & Resorts, the answer was a blog website and social media marketing strategy. After seven years of producing an in-room custom magazine to cross-promote and market their hotels, we helped Noble House launch Noble Nomad, the next step in their content marketing strategy that reinforces their brand and connects readers digitally to their next luxury escape or out-there adventure – preferably at a Noble property and in a Noble destination.We drew from our past work for Noble House Hotels & Resorts to create Noble Nomad, a blog website that brings Noble’s brand, destinations, and hotels to life.

The Client

With 15 properties across the country – from the ridiculously relaxing Little Palm Island Resort & Spa in the Florida Keys to The Edgewater, the only waterfront hotel in Seattle – Noble House has cultivated an adventurous brand that inspires people to enjoy their travels to the fullest and a content marketing strategy to match. Whether your terrain of choice is snow, sand, or dirt, there’s a paradise for everyone across Noble House’s properties.

A hotel management company that also has an ownership stake in some of its hotels, Noble House prides itself on cultivating the right kind of atmosphere in each of its properties, reflecting the area’s culture and aesthetic. The focus on design (and love of quality photography) made Hawthorn a natural partner for the custom magazine first, and this destination blog website and social media maintenance second.

In short: Noble House trusts that Hawthorn understands hotels, understands content marketing for hotels both in print and digital, and understands the caliber of visuals that will speak to their audience in particular.

The Project

With so many issues of their custom magazine produced and backlogged, there was a desire to have the content do more “work” for Noble House on the digital content marketing side. Enter Noble Nomad, a leaner online operation built by Hawthorn, designed to push brand awareness, engage readers, and make them aware of all of the destinations served by Noble House hotels. Of course, some of the content from the magazine was no longer relevant but given that we’re producing annual magazines, the topics we select for our hotel clients often have evergreen or long shelf lives that allow for some easy updating (and editor dissecting for best digital consumption).

Our role doesn’t end with content creation though – these days, any good content marketing strategy and agency needs to be defining the distribution of that content as well. So a primary part of this project includes Hawthorn’s social media marketing and maintenance work for all of Noble’s primary social platforms, namely Facebook and Instagram, with a smaller focus on Twitter. Prior, Noble House didn’t have an active, ongoing social media presence. Since we’ve taken over, some posts drive directly to Noble Nomad, some are broader to reinforce the brand voice, and some drive to Noble’s enterprise website. Through ongoing social media maintenance, email campaigns clicking to Noble Nomad, and prominent CTAs to the blog that are placed on all Noble House’s hotel websites, we drive readers, and in turn, guests, to Noble House properties.

Our Take

The stories we produce for Noble Nomad at least loosely relate to Noble properties or touch on their brand values more broadly, but there’s quite a bit of freedom creatively. Noble House’s priority is to captivate the imaginations of readers and potential visitors, which makes it fun for us as storytellers. Cultural trends help drive topic ideas. We wrote a story on the best speakeasies around the country (Seven of the Best Modern-Day Speakeasies), and the numbers were huge – both in terms of total visitors and time spent on page. Other posts that have received very strong traction have less to do with a Noble destination and more to do with reinforcing their adventurous brand voice, such as one on bucket list moments found in their destinations and profiles on a handful of entrepreneurs who have made traveling the world their jobs, which first appeared in the custom magazine.

Last Thought

Content is content, and the strongest content marketing strategies put it to work in as many ways that make sense. One of the key benefits of giving a digital home to print stories, though, is receiving feedback and data. Seeing the stories that resonate with the audience – not just in terms of unique views, but also things like time spent on page, social shares, and email opens – gives us a better sense of what types of stories to craft in the future and how to distribute them to the right audience.

3 UX Design Trends for Hotel Websites

in Websites by Ally Cardello

There are two types of UX trends: those that become popular because they provide some sort of artistic flourish, and those that are aesthetically sound but also accomplish a specific business goal. Here are three UX design trends on our radar that hotels looking for a new website or design overhaul should consider exploring.

Cinemagraphs: Not a Photo, Not Quite a Video

Cinemagraphs (still photographs in which a minor and repeated movement occurs) are still novel enough to capture the attention of browsing visitors. As a blend between video and a still photo, there’s a depth that isn’t present in other image formats, and they’re able to bring an environment alive in a new way. Websites that use video as a background image risk making their visitors dizzy and distracted. The minimal movement of cinemagraphs, on the other hand, stir the desired ambiance without bothering the viewer.

Examples

  • Olympus Villas uses a cinemagraph to show the pool water moving to draw you in.
  • Meet the Greek Restaurant uses minimal motion video to captivate the viewer and give you a glimpse of an authentic Greek moment.

New Approaches to Your “Book Now” CTA

Every hotel marketing team understands the vital power and importance of the “Book Now” button, to give visitors that easy purchase decision – but the placement and execution of the button matters. The CTA must be above the fold. If users must scroll to get there, there’s a good chance that it’s simply not getting seen. Likewise, some of the most effective CTAs today are ones that respond with a mouseover – no need to load a new page. When it comes to hotel marketing, the less friction, the better the conversion rate.

Examples

  • The Goodwin Hotel features a bright “Book Now” button that instantly opens a booking widget when you mouseover.
  • Babington House has their booking CTA in two places: the icon in the upper left corner and a widget underneath the hero image.
  • Bosehof may do it best: They have a CTA button stickied to the bottom middle of the screen, so as users scroll, it stays with them, ready for action.

Let Them Scroll

Scrolling, when done right, gives visitors just enough content to satiate their curiosity but not so much that they feel overloaded. In the age of social feeds and the continued shift to mobile, scrolling is the natural state of browsing and allows hospitality websites the space to highlight different facets of their business, like restaurants, reward programs, guest testimonials, season packages, and more. Like video, scrolling is best used in moderation, though. Never-ending scrolling can be just as ineffective as having too little. Ideally, visitors will be able to consume your homepage in 15 seconds or less.

Examples

  • Villiers London has a highly visual, readable website that draws you in and drives you to their content.
  • Five Seas Hotel’s website uses a tile-style arrangement of images, another website trend we’ve had our eye on, to introduce visitors to the area, then the suites, and finally, a CTA to sign up for the newsletter.

10 Ways to Boost Social Media Marketing ROI for Wedding Venues

in Event Venues, Social Media Marketing by Corey Scarano

You share on Facebook, load photos to Instagram, and continue to Pin to a variety of Boards on Pinterest. You’re nailing your social media marketing to appeal to couples, right? The answer is a solid “maybe.” Social media is primarily an awareness tool for you – it’s up to you and how your social media strategy uses that awareness to translate it into conversion. Wedding and special events venues live in a visual world, but if your social media strategy is limited to simply posting pretty pictures, you’re missing out on one of the most valuable marketing opportunities to convert brides today.

1. Consider launching wedding-specific social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram

For many venues, like hotels, country clubs, and museums, we know your wedding-centric posts are just a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the posts your marketing teams are pushing out. Your ability to drive engagement and leads for weddings seems like a hope and prayer amid all the posts not geared toward brides. The potential solution: Would your marketing team allow you to launch wedding-centric social media accounts that stand alone as a part of their digital marketing strategy? Of course, you’d need to have a plan for who would have the time to post, but it can be a way to reap all of the rewards mentioned below.

2. Where do your posts take brides?

This is the big one, the one we’ll hit you over the head with time and time again: You don’t want to just post good content; you want it to lead back to the sections of your website that you care about most! It’s the premise behind all good content marketing (social media included), and it takes some strategy and foresight. For example, it means you want photo galleries to be constantly updated on your site so you can post and Pin from your site rather than uploading images within Pinterest or Facebook. If you get photos from a recent event and find yourself uploading them natively within those platforms, that’s the indicator that you’re not helping brides on the path to conversion.

3. Get them to fill out a form

Even better than directing brides to the special events and wedding pages of your site via social posts is directing them to a landing page that includes a form for them to schedule a call or site visit. Obviously, you can’t expect them to do that from simply one social post, so you need to be strategic about what you’re offering on that page they land on within your website or drive them to your Contact Us page in one click. Again, your photo galleries page might be a good option with a headline like “Like what you see? Schedule a site visit.” If you have constraints because special events is just a few pages within your bigger site managed by IT or marketing, could you build a custom landing page or wedding/special events microsite that still adheres to your enterprise site’s style guidelines?

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4. Tag brides and grooms in Facebook and Instagram

If the above two sections feel daunting, here’s one that’s super simple and a head-smacker if you haven’t been doing it: Whenever you post photos of recent wedding couples who celebrated at your venue, make sure you tag them in Facebook and Instagram. It’s so simple and impactful, since tagging them means their followers/friends will be more likely to see that post (and your venue). Also ask to use the custom hashtags they had for their wedding (ex: #BenNKelse4Ever). It’s the equivalent of digital word of mouth, so make it a part of your best practices within your social media brand guidelines. To make all this simple and OK with your clients, ask for couples’ social media handles (and permission to tag them and use the hashtag) as a part of your planning process with them.

5. Write keyword-rich Pins on Pinterest

Pinterest is now the second-most powerful search engine in the world, behind only Google. So, you want to make sure your Pins are optimized for the terms brides will be searching. For example, instead of a caption like “Amazing wedding at Rosemont Resort,” a better option would be “Amazing blue-and-silver-themed winter wedding at Rosemont Resort.” And, of course, you’d have these photos on your website so you’re pinning from your site, not uploading the images within Pinterest, right?!

6. Reinforce ties with your top photographers and videographers

Since so much of your social media strategy for weddings hinges on top-caliber visuals, you need a continuous flow of new photos and videos of events at your venue from top professionals. You have those relationships so we won’t tell you how exactly to do so, but in the age of social media marketing, it’s more important than ever. Just make it simple. For example, build a system that becomes familiar with them (such as Google Drive or Dropbox folders), and send friendly follow-ups. The easier you can make it for them to send you assets, the better both of your social media presences will be.

7. Build social media relationships with top wedding vendors

In a industry where patting each other on the back goes a long way, social media may be the simplest way for you to increase followers and reinforce your relationships with all types of vendors. You can do this by posting about their work, and most significantly, always tagging them when appropriate (a two-second task). Here’s an example: If you comment on a photographer’s Facebook post and a bride sees it, they will be driven to your Facebook page where they can click on your website, thus broadening awareness of your venue and potentially converting a lead into a customer. Or if you mention a florist in a Pin about last weekend’s wedding, the florist might be more inclined to use a photo of your venue in their next round of posts. If you want to get strategic, invest just a couple of hours building a list of those vendors who are most active on their social media accounts, website content, and blogs. These are the ones you should focus on building social relationships with to maximize your reach and potential leads. 

8. Look for newly engaged couples using hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to see what the world is talking about. They are also a useful tool to help you find the people who are talking about what you’re selling. Choose hashtags beyond the broadest, most generic (ex: #bridetobe, #weddingvenue, #weddingplanning) for ones that matter more to your venue and brides, such as seasonal or geocentric options (ex: #charlestonweddings, #fallweddings), then do a search on Instagram to find newly engaged couples using these hashtags. Click on the user’s profile and get noticed by liking or commenting on their wedding-related images. Now that user might be inclined to check out your profile, click your website link, and potentially become a customer. Need help finding the right hashtags? Our blog post on content and keyword tools can help steer you in the right direction.

9. Encourage reviews whenever and wherever possible

We saw a pretty impressive stat from Adweek recently: 77 percent of millennials look to online reviews to make a purchase. That doesn’t just go for their next phone or pair of shoes either. As a component of every single client wrap-up, you should be encouraging every couple who has a wedding at your venue to submit a review. Make it easy by including links to where they can post their reviews. Facebook is certainly one of them with reviews featured prominently. Encourage and incentivize brides to leave a review, and promote those that really make your venue shine (thanking brides – and tagging them! – for these reviews is one easy, natural method). Make sure you don’t put any pressure on them to leave a positive review – you want authenticity. Frame it as another way to tell their story from their big day.

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10. Consider paid advertising as a part of your social media strategy

Unfortunately, all social media platforms are taking aggressive steps to monetize in every way possible. (Exhibit A from 2016: Facebook’s algorithm and layout change.) Which means to cut through the competition, you may need to invest in paid reach, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Your most important content that will drive conversion – such as the posts that click to that custom landing page you just built or new video you embedded on your website – are the ones that are worth that added investment. For Instagram, Carousel Ads may be most useful, allowing you to showcase several photos – and giving you that much-coveted link back to your site that your everyday Insta-posting doesn’t allow. On Snapchat, custom geofilters require a small investment and could have a big payoff, and we explain exactly how to get started here.

A Guide to Keywords, Part 2: When You’re Writing

in Content Marketing by Ally Cardello

In the first installment in our two-part guide, we covered the tools, tips, and steps to take to build the right keywords to be in line with your content marketing strategy before you begin writing. Truly, that was the heavy lifting. Here, we outline how to put that all into practice during the actual writing process.

Whereas Part 1 may have only been valuable for those who don’t know the keywords they should be using, this second installment is a good guide for anyone and everyone who needs to write posts or pages to make sure those keywords bring back results.

Where to Put Your Keywords

Your keywords – both your primary or “focus” keyword, as well as secondary and related keywords – should be found in a post or page’s most prominent locations. Here are the places where your keywords should appear, in order of importance:

  • The title or headline
  • The meta/DEK/excerpt description
  • The first paragraph of the introduction or body copy
  • In at least one H tag (also known as subheds)
  • Sprinkled naturally throughout the body copy

Don’t Focus Too Much on the Exact String of Your Keywords

Thanks to the rise of “semantic search” and Google Rankbrain, search engines no longer need keywords to appear in an exact sequence to recognize them. Those updates are a huge help in the content strategy realm as it allows for more natural, conversational posts.

Rather than trying to fit the exact phrase “best Portsmouth outdoor wedding venue for pictures” into your content, think of it like a word cloud; you can now naturally weave those terms and some synonyms that might bring searchers to that content throughout your post as they make sense. Here’s a good deeper dive into semantic search, albeit from late 2015.

Remembering Your Site-Wide Keywords

This is a tip we referenced in Part 1 of this keywords guide, as well: Tape a list of the top terms for which your website should be known next to your workstation. It’ll help always keep your site’s keywords top of mind and avoid breaking up your writing flow for each piece of content you write.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Keywords?

Absolutely. You want to use your keywords naturally and not overuse them. To combat the keyword stuffing of the past, Google now actually flags posts and sites as spam if they have a keyword density higher than five-and-a-half percent. Only write the kind of high-quality content you know your identified target audience is searching for, then create content that will be valuable to them.

Above All, Be Authentic

As we all know, back in the infancy of search engine optimization and digital content marketing, content producers and strategists could game the system by stuffing sites full of targeted keywords so their pages appeared near the top of Google, Yahoo, and others.

Search engines have gotten smarter since then and so have consumers. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. And your keywords should do the same by being reflective of the content or page you’re producing.

Be sure to check out A Guide to Keywords, Part 1: Finding the Right Keywords.

A Guide to Keywords, Part 1: Finding the Right Keywords

in Content Marketing, Search Marketing, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

Whether you’re writing pages for your hotel website or building content for a destination marketing blog, developing the right keywords is an essential part of the process to make sure you get the most SEO juice you can out of your work. Disregard them and you may be found, but you may also be silently yelling into the giant black hole of the Internet. No one wants to get hoarse doing that.

We can’t stress that enough: Instead of trying to stuff keywords into a post or page after the fact, define them ahead of time to inform the direction you’ll take. Not only will it ensure you’re targeting the most SEO-friendly terms, but it’ll also keep your post from sounding clunky and robotic because you forced “Florida Gulf beach resort” into four polished paragraphs. In this first installment in our two-part guide, we give you all the tools, tips, and steps to take to build the right keywords before you start writing.

Tools for Generating Keywords

Google Keyword Planner

Built into Google AdWords, this keyword tool is free and excels at researching keywords being used in paid advertisements. The drawback is that the data for “competition” is based off paid Google Adwords, not organic search.

SEMRush

While many use it to research competitors’ websites and how they stack up, its Keyword Analytics tools provide some of the most detailed and customizable keyword products and reports for content marketers. Plans start at $100 a month.

Moz Keyword Explorer

Similar to SEMRush, although because it uses different algorithms, it can sometimes bring back more results if you’re struggling to get data for low-traffic keywords in SEMRush. You have a maximum daily limit for free searches; beyond that, $99 a month for a Moz Pro plan.

Pinterest

Believe it or not, this social network is a great tool for finding keywords related to your primary terms. Here’s a post that details how to harness the Pinning platform for keyword research.

Additional Sources to Creatively Define Keywords and Content Ideas

If you’re stumped on coming up with content ideas that use keywords you found through the above sites, check out this post detailing some of Hawthorn’s favorite tips and tricks.

Understanding Keywords Data and Terms

Searches/Search Volume/Traffic

The average number of times users searched for your keyword in a given month, often calculated using the past 12 months of data. Some platforms, like Google Keyword Planner, don’t show any results if the numbers are below a certain threshold.

Keyword Difficulty/Competition

An estimate of how hard it would be to organically rank on the first search result page for any given term, often quantified as a percentage (1 to 100 percent) or term, like Low/Medium/Hard. Avoid using keywords above 80 percent or listed as “Hard.” You’ll find it tough to rank for those terms, especially if you aren’t supporting your content marketing strategy with ads.

Results

The number of URLs displayed in organic search results for any given keyword.

Keyword Density

A percentage that represents how often a given keyword is used compared to other words and phrases in a post or on a page. Google can red flag your content if the keyword density is over five-and-a-half percent, as it’s an indicator of inauthentic “keyword stuffing.”

Steps to Building the Best Keywords for Your Content Marketing

Define the Role Search Will Play with This Content

It’s easy to get wrapped up in keywords and be beholden to those terms. Before you begin, make sure you step back to evaluate how this page or post will fit into your content marketing strategy. If you’re aiming for it to be found in Google, then get after it! Keywords are the key to search engine optimization.

But if this content is being created to fill a different, specific need – for example, to speak to a particular audience in an email campaign or to promote a social media contest – then you may not need to put as much weight and attention on keywords.

Review Site-Wide Keywords Versus Content-Specific Keywords

If your goal is simply to get your overarching site found, then your job is simpler: Build content ideas and the writing of those posts around your website’s keywords. If you’re not sure which keywords your site should be found for, then you really should consider an SEO audit and package.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for the particular page or post you’re writing to not only reinforce the overall site’s keywords (it always should) but also be found on its own in search, that’s when you need to go further.

Pro efficiency tip: Tape a list of the top terms for which your site should be known next to your workstation. It’ll help always keep your site’s keywords top of mind and avoid breaking up your writing flow for each piece of content you write.

Find the Right Longtail Keywords

Oftentimes, the best way to get found is by being as specific about your business or topic as possible. Crafting your content around longtail keywords, a string of multiple words put together to create a phrase, will help on that front. For example, at first glance “New York City boutique hotel” looks like a longtail keyword, but it’s still pretty general. So much so that punching it into Google yields 5.6-million results, and enough ads to bury your content.

On the other hand, using “Meatpacking District micro-hotel” as your primary keyword casts a smaller, more focused net that will help individuals interested in the hot micro hotel trend find one of the few such properties in the city. Also work the terms “boutique hotel” and “New York” into the post or page and Google will give traveling tiny-house lovers exactly what they’re

Be sure to check out A Guide to Keywords, Part 2: When You’re Writing.

How to Make the Most of Your Corporate Event and Wedding Venue Brochure

in Print Marketing by Kristen Noonan

Your Hawthorn Creative wedding or event brochure is ready – the ink is dry on the paper and the pixels are set in the digital version. Now what? After all the work that goes into a brochure – from the design to the copywriting to the approval to the printing – by the time it arrives in your hands, you’ve made a substantial investment into this one piece of print marketing. So, how do you make sure you’re getting the absolute best ROI for all that time and money? We’re spelling out what we recommend to our clients so that every corporate event and wedding brochure we produce is a powerful sales tool that helps land bookings.

Printed Brochures

First, create a protocol for handing the brochures out. At what point in the sales process does a client get a hard copy? Where are they stored? How do you track how many have been given out? Because printing is an upfront investment, make sure you’ve got a game plan, and that everyone is on the same page.

Share them with your entire staff

Your sales team is a powerful source, but you also want your receptionist, your catering manager, and your event designer to be as comfortable as your sales reps in handing out your new brochures.

Place them in prominent locations around the property

Think beyond the card rack. Is there a table where you could create a vignette with flowers, your brochures, and tabletop accessories? Draw people in with aesthetic touches so that they crave more information.

Mail hard copies to top wedding/event planning partners

Your partners are your best advocates, so if they have a client they think might be interested in your venue, you want to make sure that your brochure makes the stunning impression you’re not there to make in person.

Bring the brochures to wedding and trade shows

It’s common sense, but it’s easy to overlook that stack of wedding brochures when staff is packing up for a major marketing activation event.

E-brochure

Since you’ve paid for the design of a brochure, of course you’ll want to leverage it across all mediums. While being able to send a link to an e-brochure is a lifesaver in this increasingly digital world, it also allows anyone browsing your site to see that gorgeous brochure, even if they haven’t set up a tour of your venue. But we’ve found that an e-brochure is a huge resource that clients don’t always use well.

Blast it out on social media

Visual content performs far better than any other sort on social media, so make good use of the eye-catching design you invested in. With your brochure, you’ll get an image file of the cover, a perfect visual to post across platforms, or even make the background image your profile. We recommend Instagram and Pinterest most because they’re highly visual and are where event planners and brides live. Through careful use of hashtags and tagging vendors, solid traction can be gained on Instagram, while good keyword usage will ensure your Pin shows up when users search.

Post it prominently on your website

You want to make sure anyone who comes across your website in their search for a venue (if they find you, you’ve done your SEO right – well done!) has ready access to your e-brochure. They can bookmark it or print a copy of their own to go in that all-important wedding planning binder.

Put it in your email signature

You’re in dialog every day via email with various people connected to or interested in your venue via email. Offer them every opportunity to see just how spectacular it is by adding a hyperlink to your new e-brochure.

Include it on the “Contact Us” form

When a prospective client is interested enough to give you their personal information, that’s a lead that’s ready for your brochure. Consider adding the same cover image and link to the full e-brochure in the “thank you” page that appears once they’ve submitted their contact info. It makes sure they have something beautiful to look at while they wait for your (speedy) reply.

Give email campaigns a try

Email newsletters are currently experiencing a renaissance after spending a few years as the old-fashioned aunt who still wears scrunchies. If you’d like to jump in the email newsletter game but worry you don’t have anything to send out, your e-brochure makes a great first round volley.

Send it out to your wedding planning partners/event planners via email

For the partners you know prefer digital or communicate primarily with clients who don’t live locally and thus might not have a face to face meeting where your partner could hand off your brochure.

5 Things Wedding Venues Need to Stay Ahead of Competitors

in Email Marketing, Event Venues, Print Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

While everyone else takes a bit of a deep breath with the end of the holidays, top wedding venues know there’s no such time for a break. With so many couples getting engaged over the holidays and through Valentine’s Day, this is the window of opportunity you must grab to make sure brides book with you. Have you touched base with recent brides to promote their big days? Have you crossed all the “T”s and dotted all the “I”s to make sure your venue is showing up in all the places recently engaged couples look for wedding information? We’ve rounded up a list of quick and easy suggestions to help you get your venue in front of as many newly engaged couples as possible.

Butter Up Your Former Brides for Word of Mouth

Millennials, even more so than other generations, rely on word of mouth as a primary factor in decision making. Give former brides incentive to share photos of their weddings and tag you and talk you up with a quick user-generated content contest. For example: “Share the most gorgeous shot of your wedding at (your venue) and tag us – the photo with the most likes wins an anniversary champagne basket!”

Hot Off the Presses – Your Wedding Brochure

Print collateral really does make a stunning impression – no matter how digital the world may be. Make sure your brochures and printed marketing collateral are fresh and on trend with the colors, design, and styling set to go big in 2017 – position your venue as a design trendsetter, and demonstrate to your potential couples that you know the wedding trends they’ll want to incorporate into their wedding.

Spit Shine Your Social Media Strategy

We’re not saying you need to have an active presence on every social platform, but making sure your chosen social feeds are shaped up and looking good ensures that if a bride stumbles upon you (thanks to savvy hashtag usage, naturally), she will be impressed. Take a moment to establish an outline of your social media guidelines, including your standards for photography, useful hashtags, brand voice, and posting schedule, all for each platform. Then stick to it to be sure you have fresh, engaging social content being published regularly. Leverage the relationships you’ve nurtured with photographers to see if they’ll share their photos with you – professional photos are your best bet for high levels of engagement.

Content – More Than Blog Posts

Newly engaged brides are probably searching for wedding venues at their desks right now – it’s time to make sure you show up. Engaging, valuable content that answers frequently searched wedding topics is one of the best ways – especially if you’ve done the work to increase your SEO and have mapped out your venue’s target keywords. But blog posts aren’t the only way to produce engaging content. If your website doesn’t have a blog, making use of unique landing pages as a home for the kind of content your brides and grooms are searching for is a win-win solution. So, go ahead and draft that article on “Why a Library Wedding is Perfect for Book Lovers,” and get it up on your site for the reading delight of your prospective clients.

Make It Easy for Prospective Clients to Navigate Your Site

This one is a bigger item to tick off on your to-do list, but making sure your website is as user-friendly as possible might require more than a few tweaks. Between the trend moving toward card design (sometimes called tile design) and the absolute requirement that your site is responsive and mobile-friendly, it may be time for a website redesign. Considering 90 percent of brides report using smartphones for web browsing, you do not want to miss out on bookings due to a dated website.

6 Essential Design Tips for Amazing Identity Collateral

in Brand Strategy by Hawthorn Editorial

Brand collateral needs to do much more than just be pretty or just communicate your services or products. This is an art, folks. So here we paint you a picture of 6 vital tips every piece of identity collateral should follow.

According to Seth Godin, one of the most relentlessly innovative experts on branding, the modern definition of a brand is “a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” How do you visually represent such non-tangible ideals? Through visual identity design.

In other words: All of the nitty-gritty elements our designers consider and use every day. Patterns, shapes, typefaces, fonts, layout, color – they all play a part. And more importantly, they all need to be moving your brand in the same direction…or they’re moving you in the wrong direction. Here are our six design tips to ensure you’re on the superhighway to visual brand dominance.

Brand Voice First, then Graphic Design

Have you seen the Hipster Business Name Generator? In essence, although it’s a lighthearted poke at hipster trendiness, in a way, it’s everything gone wrong with branding and design these days. The correct time line is to develop brand strategy, positioning, and voice, then develop a name and visual design. Too often, startups assume that it’s as simple as coming up with a cool name and a pretty logo, but that’s a far cry from smart branding. Establish brand voice, then move on to design. It’s a process that needs to happen in that order exactly, not the other way around.

Equal Parts Form and Function

Design needs to be pretty and get your point across. Form is color, pattern, font, typeface, etcetera. Function is making sure the design follows the rules of hierarchy so that it makes sense to someone at a glance. When function is done well, it’s brilliantly effective. Some of the most beloved brand logos have hidden meanings that make their design all the more genius, but no more complicated.

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

We know – graphic design is like an ice cream sundae buffet with no adult in sight. It all looks good, you think you can sprinkle a little of this, a little of that, and end up with a taste of everything. But resist; you will end up with the brand equivalent of a sugar high and then a bellyache. The worst part is that it’s your customers who will feel that bellyache – far from the path to conversion you had in mind. Instead of amplifying the message, design that’s overcomplicated dilutes it or renders it total ineffective.

Pro tip: If you’re launching a re-brand, get your stakeholders involved on the front end if necessary but do your damnedest to limit the cooks in the kitchen once design work begins to avoid a slow project death by committee.

Keep Usage in Mind

A brand’s visual identity needs to be flexible enough to work in both print and digital, in different sizes, and in relation to different hotel marketing elements. It has to work on everything from your “Do Not Disturb” signs to your website and email campaigns. This is something easy to lose sight of in the middle of an identity design project, so we suggest you repeatedly ask yourself a simple (or similar) question: Would your graphic design work just as well on a billboard as it does on your business card? If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

Don’t Forget about Durability

Guess what? Trends come and go! You knew that, but it’s easy to get excited about a trend and want to incorporate it into your design when it’s hot, not thinking about the not-too-distant future, when that trend will only scream “I’m five years old!” One we’d like to hold up as a great example that many are still clinging to: ornate chalkboard typefaces. Nothing says 2012 like a chalkboard typeface.

Brand Identity Is Not Limited to Graphic Design

A brand’s visual identity now encompasses a whole host of additional elements. Think: video marketing, photo selection, how you name items on your hotel’s restaurant menu, even the music played while guests are on hold with your reservationists. A great recent example: When Marriott rebranded in 2015, in addition to introducing a new logo that was more streamlined and flattened, it also updated its brand standards for photography. Gone were the glossy photos, full of perfectly coiffed models and soft lighting. In their place, a new era of images that were messier and more imperfect.

If this all sounds way too overwhelming, well, you know where to turn. But in the meantime, enjoy the road to identity design righteousness. Your customers will thank you!

The Four Stages of Experiential Marketing for Hotels

in Email Marketing, Hotels & Resorts, Social Media Marketing by Kristen Noonan

Hotel marketing isn’t just about talking about amenities anymore. It’s about building a lasting connection between your brand and your guest through experiential marketing – the kind of content marketing that draws guests into your destination through experiences and adventures that go beyond your hotel rooms and lobby. Once that connection is established, guests become loyal return visitors and effective brand ambassadors doing your hotel’s word of mouth marketing for you. For example, a guest who books a life-changing outdoor excursion based on the curated destination guide you linked to in a pre-arrival email is likely to become your brand’s best and most effective advocate.

While we could go on and on (and on and on) about the scores of different experiential marketing campaigns we might recommend; for the sake of keeping the word count of this blog post down, we’re going to give one or two examples in each phase of your travel buyer’s journey.

Research and Booking

As they dream about that vacation from the stress of everyday life, 65 percent of travelers research online before deciding on a destination. What kind of content helps travel buyers at this phase of the journey? The kind that helps them determine where they want to go. Do they want beaches? Mountains? Lakeside luxury? For hotels, it’s critical in this phase to market the experiences and adventures available in the given destination to target audiences.

What kind of experiential marketing works to capture a travel buyer’s attention? Think of the way your guest would search for “things to do in XYZ” – and build content around those queries.

  • Blog posts and video destination marketing are all valuable tools that enable guests to get a bird’s-eye view of what they might experience. Play up that aerial adventure or the centuries-old sailing vessel available to charter – the kind of experience that makes a trip at your hotel more than just a run-of-the-mill vacation.
  • Social media campaigns are an increasingly powerful tool to capture the attention of potential guests. Forty-eight percent of Instagram users will utilize the platform to make destination choices, so this is your chance to shine with high-resolution images, video snippets, or maybe even an influencer campaign that shows just how much fun a guest can have in your area and on your property.

Pre-Arrival

Once the hotel and flights are booked, your guest is in the anticipation phase. And what are they doing at this point? They’re asking themselves what’s nearby, what they should do during their stay, what kind of experiences are available to them. But only 27 percent of hotels are providing this sort of destination-specific content to guests during this phase.

The power of providing thoughtful, valuable content at this stage is threefold: (1.) You’re feeding their giddy excitement about their upcoming trip; (2.) You can pique their interest with interesting details about on-property amenities, like your spa, to increase ancillary revenue on services and outfitters booked ahead of time; (3.) You’re ensuring they have a better vacation while doing less work, creating a loyal brand advocate in the process.

Though we have many suggestions, one idea we love right now is a different kind of pre-arrival email:

  • We know that you’re already sending a pre-arrival email to confirm their stay and nail down the details, but what about one that specifically builds excitement about your destination and informs their stay? By creating digital destination guides that paint a comprehensive and compelling picture of your area, you can not only tap into their giddy pre-vacation energy, but that content can also be repurposed and repackaged for your blog site and beyond. A quick pre-arrival email that leads guests to that content can boost their loyalty and save them the trouble of having to research elsewhere.

During the Stay

So, your guest booked their room, you sent them the pre-trip goodies, and now they’ve arrived, so you’re off the hook, right? Not so fast. Sixty-seven percent of guests use smartphones to search for activities while on vacation. We know that the average traveler is busier than ever, so your pre-travel emails may have gone unopened due to a lack of time. Now’s the time to swoop in to the rescue.

There are few better opportunities to serve up a helping of experiential marketing that will build a more comprehensive travel experience for the guest and build a connection between them and your brand.

During their stay, here are two ideas:

  • Whether it’s via the log-in page for your Wi-Fi that entices clicks to Pinterest boards you’ve curated (super easy to do, by the way), an email, or a custom printed map full of notes on your recommendations, use the on-property opportunity to offer your take on local gems and highlights. They won’t thank you enough.
  • Fire a “turn-down” email with a suggested itinerary for the weekend. Include recommendations on events but also more “evergreen” recommendations of what to do in that season – which also means less ongoing customization of the email on your end.
  • A custom magazine not only gives them the “go, see, do” essentials, but also really shines a light on what makes both your property great (ancillary revenue opportunities again!) and the regional culture in a way that no other medium can match. Check out these two examples we’ve done recently for Hotel Healdsburg and management company Noble House Hotels & Resorts.

Post-Departure

Upon returning home, 76 percent of travelers will post photos to social. (Which is great, because 52 percent of travelers report being inspired by a friend’s or family member’s travel photos.) Your guests will return to those photos to relive the experience, but there are a few things your hotel can do to cue up that nostalgia more often:

  • Send a post-stay email to cement loyalty. This is also a great opportunity to encourage guests to share photos via social, especially if your hotel has a branded hashtag or is running a social contest.
  • Give them a clear reason, above and beyond your exceptional hotel, to come back. Tee up content that reminds guests about their vacation experience, and keep them up to date on new features/events/attractions within your destination and not just promotions. This could be automated drip campaigns or a custom-built email campaign.

If you’re ready to hop aboard the experiential marketing bandwagon but need a hand identifying the content that’s going to drive bookings and brand loyalty, our team of content specialists is ready to dive into your destination. Not only can we expertly tell the story of your destination, but our experience with distribution strategy also means your content will land in front of the right people.

Print vs. Digital: Why Brides Still Want the Brochure

in Print Marketing by Corey Scarano

We hear repeatedly that print is dead. As it turns out, print trumps digital marketing in several ways. Spoiler: You’ll book more brides with brochures.

In the “print vs. digital” debate, printed materials can sometimes be labeled as a relic of yesteryear, which has DOMs racing to hop aboard the digital bandwagon. It’s undeniable that digital marketing has a few major advantages – namely, instantaneous access, powerful personalization and targeting, and the ability to embed audio and video. And let’s not forget the joy that is the ability to demonstrate ROI via analytics: Digital is a powerful new tool in destination marketing, one that has already opened new channels of communication and engagement with prospective clients.

But as it turns out, the way we marketed in the “olden” days may still be neck and neck with modern marketing. Based on the science that’s emerging, it looks like a strategy that includes printed elements alongside digital marketing may be a DOM’s best bet. Let’s dig in to why, when it comes to marketing to brides, you might just clinch that wedding because of your printed brochure or magazine.

Standing Apart From the Crowd With Print Marketing

In today’s digital clutter and the constant chatter of social media, printed collateral is fresh, surprising, and above all, memorable. Marketers are always searching for ways to stand out, so rather than focusing entirely on the message of the ad, let’s be sure we’re taking the medium into consideration, too. Print lends itself to the type of communication with a customer that needs to be retained for further contemplation. A bride might remember yours was the venue they pinned to their Pinterest board…or they may not. That pin gets lumped in with the 20 others your bride pinned that morning, and your venue may slip through the cracks. A beautiful, well-designed brochure, however, makes the kind of immediate impression that converts a bride from “considering” to “booked” on the spot.

The Neuroscience of Printed Materials

Why, exactly, is print marketing memorable, though? In a study performed by Canadian neuromarketing firm, TrueImpact, it was found that printed marketing requires 21 percent less cognitive effort to process than digital media, which means it’s significantly easier to both understand and remember print marketing. When people were asked to cite the brand mentioned in an advertisement they’d just seen, recall was a whopping 70 percent higher for those who were exposed to a print ad. In addition, there’s a growing body of research that suggests our brains process information differently from printed formats. A study in Norway concluded that “students who read texts in print scored significantly better on reading comprehension tests than students who read the texts digitally.” Not that you’re going to test your bride on reading comprehension, but the research clearly demonstrates that printed marketing is more memorable, which makes it significantly more effective in your efforts to make an impression on that soon-to-be-married couple.

Why Print Marketing Offers Multi-sensory Branding

In any advertising, there’s always an emotional appeal, and marketing to brides is no different. A 2009 study by Bangor University and branding agency Millward Brown concluded that, in processing printed materials, the brain produces responses more connected to emotions, which means the messages contained in the physical materials were more strongly internalized. By exploiting a customer’s senses, and therefore tapping into the brain’s emotional processing, print marketing can create an impact with which digital marketing just can’t compete. What’s more, Sir Richard Branson, the genius behind Virgin Atlantic, has spoken about the potential of “multi-sensory branding,” which appeals to all five senses. By tapping into the rich sensory experience of touch (and even scent!) that’s possible with printed marketing, you not only connect more securely with your brides on a human level, but you are building your brand identity in a way that a Facebook ad never will.

The Bottom Line on the Print vs. Digital Debate

While digital marketing has understandably turned the hospitality marketing industry on its head, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The science is in and unequivocally, print is still a winning bet, especially when used in conjunction with the ease of digital marketing. Your brides may want to scroll through your venue’s Instagram feed, poke around your Facebook page, but to grab her attention and rise above the crowd, be sure to hand her a crisp, stylish brochure, in all its sensual, physical, permanent glory.

Project Profile: Noble House Magazine

in Hotels & Resorts, Print Marketing by Catherine Shane

As one of the top hotel management companies in North America, Noble House manages 18 four-star, luxury resorts in the US, each one situated in a unique location that lets their guests truly get out and embrace the destinations. Take, for example, Little Palm Island Resort & Spa, constantly ranked among the top hotels in the world, found on its own island halfway down the Florida Keys and accessible only by boat or seaplane. We launched a vibrant, brand-wide custom magazine packed with content that affords inspirational deep dives into Noble House destinations. 

The Project

Noble House has been working closely with Hawthorn Creative on their brand-wide custom magazine since 2008. For a hotel brand driven by design and a sense of exploration, the pages are filled with beautiful, deep dives into their destinations and the pursuit of travel. For those who work on the project here at Hawthorn, it’s always a fun one that lets us get more creative, pursue our own passions, and show off our top design work. Like several of our clients, the magazine was a launching point for more work with us, such as the Little Palm Island cookbook and a digital content website currently in production.

The Results

The content in the magazine has been drawing the attention of guests and effectively cross-promoting properties for years, and as a result, Noble House has seen larger distribution, larger magazines, and increased advertising revenue year-over-year.

To see the digital version of Noble House’s magazine.

Project Profile: The Guggenheim Museum Brochure

in Print Marketing by Kristen Noonan

You know The Guggenheim as an art museum, but its marketing team would like you to know they’re one of Manhattan’s top event spaces for galas, as well. They came to Hawthorn to build that reputation.

The Client

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, or The Guggenheim, is a famed New York institution home to art, sculptures, architectural renderings, and five event spaces. Thousands flock to the museum to see the art, but the event spaces are reserved for galas and corporate events.

The Project

With a limited budget to promote their event spaces and the need for a polished presentation for discerning clients, The Guggenheim approached Hawthorn for a clean, on-brand brochure. Hawthorn’s design team set out to develop a design that complemented the museum and worked within its existing, comprehensive style guide. The result was a brochure that lets the tremendous exhibits and event spaces at The Guggenheim speak for themselves, and the entire presentation works as well in a digital format as it did in print.

The Results

The brochure is prominently displayed at The Guggenheim, on the museum’s events page, and part of event-focused email campaigns.

You can check out Guggenheim’s brochure here.

5 Tips for Photographing Interior Spaces

in Event Venues, Photography & Video by Kristen Noonan

If you want to give customers an inside look at the events that define your wedding and event businesses or how your services work in those spaces, you have to learn how to photograph interior spaces expertly. This guide from Hawthorn ensures you (or the photographers you hire) can capture your venue and event spaces effectively every time.

Architectural Lines

Photo Credit: © Ann Kathrinkoch

Have your photographer line up their shots straight-on with the room’s natural angles, per Hawthorn Creative Photo Editor Kristin Burgess, as dramatic or skewed angles can make a photo seem busy and detract from the people and objects in the room you want to highlight.

Staging

You know the space and what you want to shine so stylize the room before the shoot by removing any unsightly cables, stacks of papers, and wilted flowers and replacing them with objects that add splashes of color, depth, and a sense of what your business is about. If you need help seeing them, use your hands as a viewfinder and give the room a quick scan for anything that doesn’t look good enough to photograph.

Natural Light

Photo Credit: © Beaux Arts Photographie

Artificial light diminishes the quality of a photograph, creating unnatural shadows and adding a yellow tinge to shots you probably do not want in your interior spaces. Pro tip: Shoot on cloudy days for more even lighting throughout your space, and watch where light is landing before you take your shots.

Wide Angle

You’ll want a handful of tight shots on objects of interest, but in general, you’ll want to shoot (or ask your photographer to shoot) with a 16mm to 24mm lens to capture a complete space and showcase the entire room.

Height

Photo Credit: © Rodeo & Co. Photography

It’s counterintuitive, but shooting from full standing height can make furniture and objects low to the ground seem distorted, as though you are looking down on them. Many pro photographers shoot at “light switch height” to make the image feel more intimate.

3 Great Examples of Valentine’s Day Content for Hotels

in Content Marketing by Ally Cardello

Valentine’s Day isn’t just an opportunity for hotels to build creative packages. Here are three recent content campaigns that used the holiday to spark online and social engagement.

Fill-in-the-Blank Romance

Tiffany’s “drop a hint” campaign saw great traction back in 2012 with its fill-in-the-blank, customizable e-cards. Hotels can use a similar idea without the complex site build-out by soliciting social followers to simply caption a well-designed fill-in-the-blank post (or share in a new post with a hashtag), rooted to what travelers enjoy most about the destination. For example: “I LOVE __________ about Kennebunkport.” Or “LOVE in Kennebunkport means ________ to me.” It’s a simple way to share great local picks and root your property to your destination, and awarding a prize like a one-night stay can drum up engagement.

Pinned Love

To generate some buzz for Opal Collection’s debut on Pinterest and cross-promote its collection of resorts up and down the East Coast, Hawthorn Creative developed the #OPALlovestorycontest. We tasked Opal’s audience with building a “tribute” Pinterest Board to their significant others, full of images that spoke to their relationship (like where they first met) and what they enjoy together (lazy Sunday mornings, hiking, etc.). Each entry was required to include one Pin of an Opal resort as the place they’d like to go with their significant other. The lucky winner, Ginny Dembek, got to do just that, and we then promoted and pushed out the contest and her story across all of Opal’s digital channels.

Video Shorts across Platforms

Valentine’s Day is a great way to get your audience engaged on social channels that support video and have your brand directly benefit.

It proved particularly fruitful for The Cavendish hotel in London when they launched a Vine video contest shortly after Vine’s debut. People were asked to submit their Vine video with the #ValentineVine hashtag on Twitter with the hotel promoting the contest on both Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps most impactful for The Cavendish was the novelty of Vine and the additional PR push the campaign then received. See the winning submission and one example of how this promotion caught fire here. Your goals will certainly be more modest, but tasking people to get creative with their smartphones and video under a theme – such as Valentine’s Day and “love” – is particularly timely. Like any good user-generated content, your results will multiply by how you share the best entries.

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