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

Photo Credit: © Carrie Pellerin Photography

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.

10 Effective Email Subject Line Tips to Get Your Messages Noticed

in Content Marketing, Destination Marketing Organizations, Email Marketing, Event Venues, General Marketing Insights, Hotels & Resorts, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Real Estate Management Companies, Wineries by Catherine Shane

Spam filters and quick deletions are the bane of the email marketer’s existence, but you often don’t need to drill down into every moving part of your emails to make a fix. The key to a successful email marketing campaign is an effective, punchy subject line that has the power to capture your client’s attention and earn their opens and clicks. Here are 10 of the most effective subject line tips to overcome email skepticism and your client’s hesitation to open your correspondence.

Legible Subjects

No one likes having their subject lines cut off in the middle. An email with a subject line that cannot be read has a first-class ticket to being ignored or – worse – deleted. Using incomplete sentences like “Here are a Few Simple Ways to Catch…” leaves users uninterested and slightly confused. What are they supposed to be catching? Fish? A cold?

Ensure that your subject lines are fewer than 40 characters so that your customers are able to read and understand them. “4 Simple Ways to Catch Clients” is a much better headline for your email.

Be Direct

Don’t waste their time. Your clients are busy people. The last thing they want to do is spend time reading a subject line that makes no sense or is irrelevant. Be concise. Give your clients information that is pertinent to their needs. Example: “Direct Marketing Strategies.”

Ask a Question

Ask a question that perks the attention of your clientele. Asking a question like “Want a New Marketing Approach?” in your subject line drives user curiosity and increases the probability that your email will be opened.

Give Them a Sample

Draw your target market in with a taste of the email’s content. If a user knows what they can expect to see inside, they are more likely to open your email. Example: “Unique Weddings: Make Your Fantasy Come True.”

SOLUTIONS

Continue the Conversation

Stay top of mind and keep them engaged

Make Emails That Matter

Give a Command

“Join Our Open House On Wednesday 9/22” is bold and upfront. It grabs your client’s attention by tell them what they should They then open your email to understand why they should do what your email tells them.

Quantify

People like numbers. More specifically, people like numbers that are in their favor. Telling your clients that the information enclosed in your email could benefit them lures them to read your email. “Increase Your Sales By 60%” promises your customers that the information can help them and their business.

Remind Them Who You Are

Your clients gave you a personal way to reach out to them. They trust you and that trust is going to get them to open your emails. Casually remind them who you are in your subject head. “Bee Ice Cream Has New Flavors” subtly injects the company or brand name into the first line that their customers see. By doing this, Bee Ice Cream is essentially saying, “Hey, you know us. You like our ice cream. Here is a way to learn more about us.”

Make Announcements

There is something special about being the first to know about new information. By making announcements the first thing your clients see, your customers will feel like VIPs. Example: “New Gowns and Wedding Designs!”

The List Hook

“6 Steps to Marketing Success” is a short, attention-grabbing subject line that promises an easy-to-follow formula for marketing success in a select number of steps. Such title hooks are much too tempting to pass up. List articles or emails are usually short but informative so readers know that they will not be reading an article that is endlessly time-consuming and irrelevant.

Show Them How You Can Help

State your worth to your clients. Let them know that you are not simply trying to sell a product they do not need. Instead, remind your clients that your purpose is to help them get what they want. Example: “Let Us Help You With the Perfect Wedding.”

Subject lines play the most important role in your email marketing strategy. They can make or break the chance of your email getting noticed, opened, or tossed into the bin. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating how important it is to catch the attention of your clients. Does your marketing team use these strategies to draw attention to your emails?