Case Study: AW Plastic Surgery Converts with High-Quality Blog Posts

in Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Hawthorn Editorial

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W Plastic Surgery is a Portsmouth, New Hampshire–based surgery center that turned to Hawthorn Creative to help them improve their overall website visibility, user experience, and conversion rate. We were happy to partner with them, because high-quality, well-written, informative, and purposeful blog content is like going fishing with the best bait imaginable. Not only are you going to attract more fish to your line (yes, an analogy for visitors to your website), but they’re going to stick around, do some exploring, and try a few nibbles until you eventually hook ’em (read: convert).

Since the start of our partnership in 2020, our work with this boutique practice has included restructuring their website to make it more user-friendly (also improving their path to conversion), search marketing (including on-page SEO and ongoing SEO to bring more traffic in), and organic social media management. In this post, we’re going to look at their blog performance in particular – and how realigning their strategy vastly improved the number of “contact us now” clicks they saw.

Does Blog Content Still Matter in 2023?

In a word, yes! We’ve been tracking the metrics for AW Plastics for several years now and the trends are clear – having a great company website is good, but it’s not enough for a well-rounded marketing campaign. Think of it like this: Your beautiful landing page is the final destination, but your SEO-optimized blog posts are the path that gets visitors there. Not many people can pull a URL out of their head and go directly to a site, but if they google “Is plastic surgery right for me?” and reach your blog post, it’s the gateway to your site.

The more blog content you have and continually add, the more opportunity for your company to show up in search engine results that drive traffic to your website in organic search – and that, in turn, means more visibility. (Not to mention, Google recognizes the frequent posting of quality content and rewards it with higher search rankings.)

So How Do You Create Blog Content That Converts Traffic into Leads?

In the case of AW Plastic Surgery, they had a previous blog managed by another agency that was producing regular posts – and they were actually seeing a good amount of traffic. But when it came to conversion, the issue wasn’t solely tied to traffic; it was the bounce rates, time spent on page, pages per session, and average time per session. They were too low, a sign of low engagement that was a result of dry copy, lack of CTAs, or links to additional relevant blog posts.

After taking over the management of AW’s blog content (where an on-staff content writer with a background in journalism and years of writing for the web began cranking out new monthly blog posts for the brand), we were able to see a vast improvement in our new content over the content created by the previous agency in just four months. Here’s a look at the latest numbers:

Higher Overall Session Time – On average, a session duration of 2:51 versus the previous agency’s 0:29.
Users Exploring More Pages Per Session – On average, 1.69 pages per session versus the previous agency’s 1.13.

This means that, after entering the site via our blog posts, users are engaging and exploring more of our client’s site over longer periods of time more often than they were through the posts produced by the former agency. It also showed that, in that same span of time (July through November), our content was producing more conversions – which, in this case, was someone eventually filling out the “contact us” form after initially landing on the website from one of our blog posts.

So How Did We Do It?

To be honest, the previous agency had good subject potential and keyword research (which is why their posts saw a good amount of traffic), but it lacked the following four critical elements that make for good content that engages a user for a longer period of time and encourages them to spend more time exploring the overall site:

1. COPY THAT SETS UP AW AS THE AUTHORITY

While the past agency worked with AW to develop the blog’s content angles, they didn’t actually interview anyone at the practice before writing. They simply researched the subject and wrote it, sending the content to Dr. Anthony Wilson to review and edit prior to posting.

“I used to have to do a lot of rewriting,” says Dr. Wilson. “I don’t do that with Hawthorn. Their writers and editors are skilled, taking the time to personally communicate with either me or the appropriate member of my team to truly understand the treatment we’re talking about – from surgery to skincare – and the target audience. The result is carefully crafted, purposeful material that’s well worth the investment.”

For example, on-staff experts are always quoted directly in the content, like in this “Your Essential Fall Skincare Checklist” post that features insight from Tracy Thaden, a clinical aesthetician and medical assistant at the practice. Not only does this put a face to the very staff members that potential patients would be interacting with at AW, but it builds the entire practice as a trusted interpreter to digest and distill the latest trends for them – and that’s key to keeping them coming back.

2. WELL-WRITTEN, ENGAGING COPY

Since AW is a practice offering cosmetic surgeries as well as non-invasive treatments, to some degree, you can expect the copy to read a little “medical.” And while that’s certainly okay, it doesn’t mean you can’t add some flavor to the content, particularly to the headlines, excerpt, and intro.

See an example of one of our posts, “How to Get Rid of Jowls: 4 Treatments for 4 Stages of Sagging” versus an older post like “Why Are Women Electing Smaller Breast Implants?” We’re selecting these two posts because, from September (when our post first went live) to the end of October, both of these posts saw roughly the same number of sessions. However, our post saw an average bounce rate of 59%, with 2.48 pages per session, and session duration of 1:27, while the other saw an average bounce rate of 86%, 1.23 pages per session, and session duration of 0:16. Our post also earned AW three conversions in this time frame, while the other saw 0.

3. BLOG CTAs (CALL TO ACTION)

Within all of our posts, we design and include a “button” that uses snappy copy to instruct a user to take a certain desired action – i.e., read more about Dr. Anthony Wilson on the About page like in this post, or book a consult related to the topic like in this post. The previous content did not do this, and therefore missed out on a vital opportunity to encourage users to engage with other parts of the website.

4. IN-TEXT LINKS AND CONCLUDING “ADDITIONAL READING” SECTION

Similar to the concept above, if you want users to stay on your website and look around, you’ve got to give them the means to do so. Therefore, we always include text links to other sections on the website wherever it makes sense (for example, if we mention a skincare product or a service, we link to where you can find more info about it under the skincare store page or services pages). Lastly, at the end of each article, we always provide a list of “related reading,” essentially three additional articles on related topics to encourage visitors to keep reading.

Next Up: We Refresh Their Older Content

When it comes to the posts created by the previous agency, we’re not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater. After all, many of these posts had good angles and subject potential that were clearly drawing readers in through organic traffic. So in addition to continuing to generate new blog content, we are also revising and refreshing AW’s older pieces of blog content that have higher traffic and pageviews, but lower engagement. That way, we can ensure that readers are truly getting the informative read they want, while AW – a leading medical aesthetics practice on the New Hampshire Seacoast – continues to get the leads they deserve.

 

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Day Trippin’: 7 Ways to Help Your Hotel Become the Focal Point for a Fun Itinerary

in Content Marketing, Hotels & Resorts by Hawthorn Editorial

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ith airfare skyrocketing and stories about mishandled flights bombarding the headlines, many people are asking themselves, “Where can we go that’s driveable?” It’s the perfect opportunity to position your hotel as not only a place to rest their heads, but the basecamp for everything on your local area’s must-see list.

Suggested itineraries are something we see quite often from tourism departments, online travel sites, and other destination-based businesses, but it may not be something you think of as a resort amenity. However, offering up packed itinerary options filled with exciting adventures goes to the very heart of hospitality – showing your guests that you care about their entire experience, whether they’re on-property or out sightseeing. But how do you go about planning the perfect day for a wide range of visitors? We put together a step-by-step guide for creating craveable itineraries.

1. Create a map of local points of interest

Borrowing an idea from tourist-destination cities like Boston and St. Augustine, one great way to visualize all there is to offer in your area is to make a map. Whether you do this as an internal exercise or turn it into a public-facing piece, marking all the local attractions, restaurants, and must-see spots helps you get a good idea of how close various stops on your itinerary are. The map can simply include locator pins, or extra information like the mileage from your hotel to the destination or other information about the point of interest.

Hawthorn Creative put together a number of different itineraries for the Lakes Region Tourism Association of New Hampshire, including ideas for older couples, wellness seekers, foliage viewers, and more. Every itinerary was created based on visitor profiles to the region, and it’s something that translates perfectly to a specific hotel or resort.

2. Develop various guest profiles

Who are the guests that book stays at your property? Are they families, spring break revelers, honeymooning couples, business travelers, or a little bit of everything? Understanding your audience is important here, because you can put together itineraries for them that you know will appeal. And you don’t have to choose just one. You can create versions for adventure, fun for all ages, wellness and relaxation – let your guest profiles lead the way.

For example, The Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has created a Wanderlust guide that includes ideas for foodies, adventurers, weekend warriors, and more.

3. Mix and match for a variety of options

Once you know who your audiences are and what’s available around you, it’s time to put your itineraries together. Most commonly, visitors arrive for a weekend getaway at check-in time on Friday and leave at check-out on Sunday, so begin with a Friday-night activity and end with something for Sunday around noon.

In addition, you can create itineraries that are more loosely constructed – a general one-day itinerary, for example, could cover all of the area’s most popular highlights for travelers who are on a limited timeframe. For business travelers, highlight after-work activities and open-late restaurants. The better you know your guest profiles, the more fun you can have.

4. Make your hotel a focal point of the itinerary

While the point of this exercise is to give your guests a guide to getting out, it’s also important to bring them back to the hotel to enjoy your amenities! For example, a weekend itinerary could include “Saturday afternoon poolside” or kick off Friday night with “drinks and dinner at our award-winning on-site restaurant.”

That said, if your resort is all inclusive or packed with amenities, you could also offer an itinerary that takes place entirely on-property. This can be especially helpful for guests who are looking for a weekend escape from the grind.

5. Partner with other local businesses

Everyone loves added value and perks, and one of the best ways to offer those to your guests is to partner with businesses in the area. If you have a family-friendly property, for example, reach out to the local indoor golf or arcade and see if they’d be willing to offer discounts to hotel guests. If you don’t offer any late-night dining options, see if a local pizza place will do the same.

This differs from individual partnerships that you may have already established that include these businesses in your itineraries. Here’s an example:

For a family-friendly weekend itinerary:
Saturday afternoon: Get your golf on! It’s kids vs. grown-ups at this exciting arcade, where you can bowl, play laser tag, play retro pinball, and more. Mention that you’re staying at our resort for a free round of mini-golf.

6. Ask your guests for feedback

One thing we’ve learned in our years of marketing is that sometimes what we think is the perfect solution isn’t even close to what our audience is looking for. (You may think a pottery studio is a great family activity, for example, but discover that it’s not something your guests find engaging.)

The best way to avoid missteps and incorrect assumptions as you’re planning your itineraries is simple: ask your guests what they’ve been up to. This can be a simple question as they’re checking out – “What did you do while you were in town?” – or a more formal survey that you send via email once their stay is complete.

7. Treat your employees to some fun team-building

If you aren’t sure that you want to recommend a local restaurant or have never been to the brand-new rock-climbing facility, there’s no better way to check it out than inviting your staff members to an afternoon getaway.

 

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How to Create Social Media Content Pillars That Fuel Your Overall Strategy

in Event Venues, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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reating a social media strategy that reaches your target audiences effectively is only the beginning. While an overall campaign looks at your big goals, objectives, and KPIs, it includes a lot of moving parts that must all function together like cogs in a wheel.

One of the most important elements of a solid campaign is your content strategy: deciding what messages you want to deliver, how you want to deliver them, and to whom. This can be a complex process, especially if you have multiple messages and a diverse range of target markets.

An effective way to keep all your disparate messages organized and on track is to separate them into content marketing pillars, or buckets. Each pillar represents a key topic or theme that serves as a foundation and a way to remain focused as you build out your publishing calendar. Pillars will help you ensure that your content is consistent, focused, relevant, and valuable, and will serve as a safeguard for not missing anything important.

(It’s easy to go off the rails when you’re thinking creatively – we know about that firsthand! Content pillars act as your guiding stars to ensure that your message isn’t lost, or delivered in a way that won’t resonate.) Here are some ways to create content pillars that work:

1. Identify your target audiences

Yep, we say this a lot, but it bears repeating: your campaign will not be successful if you don’t have a clear picture of whom you want to hear your message. This includes a lot more than basic demographic information too. What are their pain points? What would they like to know about your venue? What are your most commonly asked questions?

Your research should also include their social media habits, like the platforms they spend the most time on and what types of content they engage in. If you don’t have access to a market research firm to help you determine these analytics, one way to do a little recon is to scroll the social channels of your main competitors. While it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, you’ll at least be able to see what they’re talking about. Take note of the type of posts that get the most engagement.

Work we love: The Sagamore Resort uses its Instagram page (designed and managed by Hawthorn Creative) to talk to its target audiences, including engaged couples, families, and those seeking a relaxing weekend away.

2. Be clear on your brand voice

What does your brand stand for? How does it speak? It can be easy to get swept up in the snark on Twitter or fall into the latest trends on TikTok, but if those things stray from what your brand represents, they can do more harm than good. Instead, focus on what makes your venue unique and how you communicate that. Can you change up your tone a little bit to match the style of LinkedIn vs. Facebook? Absolutely. But the core of every post should ladder back up to your brand voice and style.

Work we love: The Lake Placid Lodge understands that its picturesque backdrops are perfect for Instagram. The account (designed and managed by Hawthorn Creative) focuses on Insta-worthy content to create an irresistible vision for this lakeside retreat.

3. Brainstorm content ideas

Now for the fun part! With your guardrails in place, it’s time to start coming up with content ideas that align with your goals and objectives. Here are several suggestions for how to approach this stage.

  • Spend an hour or so brainstorming every idea imaginable. Take copious notes, don’t say no, and reach for the stars without restrictions. From there, take the ideas and filter them through team members whose job it is to make them work within your guardrails. (Can you afford Ryan Reynolds as a spokesperson? Maybe not. But you’ve always been interested in an influencer campaign.)
  • Start with the end. If you’re having trouble with creativity, determine your CTA … where do you want your viewers to end up? Once you have that answer, create a story and pathway to get them to that spot. (If you’d like a bride to ultimately book a tour of your venue, for example, craft a story that will entice her to click.)
  • Group your ideas by pillar. This can work whether you start with a general brainstorm session or write your pillars on the whiteboard at the beginning. If your messages revolve around “Affordability,” “Unique Adventure,” and “Room Enough for Everyone,” brainstorm ideas that tell those three stories.

A few important notes to remember: (1) Stop every once in a while to refresh your memory on the overall strategy goals so that your content ideas remain focused, (2) Don’t just consider what you want to say, but how you’ll say it – some ideas lend themselves naturally to video or photography (or vice versa) and others are best communicated with the written word. A quick “blog post” or “Instagram reel” next to your idea will ensure that you don’t forget anything along the way.

4. Create a comprehensive publishing calendar

This may be one of the most important steps you take in establishing your content pillars. We recommend a multi-platform scheduling tool, like Hootsuite, where you can see everything that’s due to be published on every platform by the day, week, or month. Start by marking the dates that are timely and can’t be missed – grand openings, big events, registration cutoff dates, and other deadline-driven events. Determine how far in advance you want to promote them, a good cadence for repeating important news, and which platforms are the best for getting the word out.

From there, start filling in the blanks. You may want to consider color-coding or otherwise designating each content pillar as you go so that the various topics are distributed evenly (or concentrated on one best platform, if that’s the case).

5. Refine, refine, refine

One of the best things about social media is that it’s constantly in flux. If you posted a TikTok video that definitely did not go viral, you have the chance to try something new almost immediately. Conversely, if you have one that did go viral, you know that you should be doing more of the same.

As your campaign progresses, it’s important to pay close attention to not only your back-end analytics, but your real-time post engagements. Which posts are being liked and shared? Which ones get the most comments? Hearing firsthand what your audience is thinking is worth its weight in gold. And remember that when it comes to content – it’s what they engage with (not what you think is cool) that matters. Listen to your audience and meet them where they are. When you give them the right content in the right context, you’ll have no doubt of its success.

 

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MedSpa Photography Should Inspire Authenticity

in Content Marketing, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Hawthorn Editorial

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f you’ve spent any time on social media lately, you’ve no doubt come across ads for makeup, gym equipment, or aesthetic services. And the trends are clear: Marketers are embracing complete authenticity – something that’s nearly the polar opposite of what you may have found online in the not-too-distant past.

Especially if you’ve been trained in the “Photoshop to perfection” school of marketing, how do you create photos that are inspiring and aspirational, but show real results? Here are a few ideas for how to find the balance that will give your customers a realistic, attainable look at what your procedures and services can do for them.

1. Create your visual story

Like all elements of marketing, your photography should start with understanding your audience and creating a plan. If your ultimate goal is to attract qualified leads to your business, that means speaking to them in a way that’s relatable – and a picture is worth a thousand words. If you’re a high-end, luxury, exclusive aesthetics practice with a celebrity clientele, for example, your visual story should reflect that. If you focus on a niche, your visual story should leave potential customers with no doubt about what you offer.

2. Showcase a wide range of before and after results

While some customers definitely see incredible results from aesthetics services, other results are more subtle. It’s important to show both in your before and after gallery. Why? Because potential customers want to know what the procedure will do for them. If they see someone in your photography who looks like them, they’ll be better able to relate.

Along those same lines, it goes without saying that the “after” photos should show improvement, but beware of making that photo so much better than the “before” picture that people think it’s fake. (See note below about lighting.)

3. Introduce your doctors and aestheticians

At the end of the day, your customers are interacting with the person who’s performing their procedure or treatment. Warm, inviting photographs of your staff can go a long way toward building trust. Be sure to capture them in their “natural habitat” around the office for a feeling of authenticity, and have them look exactly as they do when they see patients for that connection between online marketing and their real-world experience. Consider having them do video demonstrations of your various service options – especially if any equipment used may look scary or overwhelming at first glance. All of this combined will create a good synergy between authority and approachability.

4. Ask your customers to be your ambassadors

According to Insider Intelligence, 62% of consumers said that they were more likely to purchase if they could view customer-generated photos and videos, and as many as 21% said they’d like to see a product in action before they purchase. Translated for medspas, this means asking some of your best customers to post their results from their own personal page, in their own style.

5. Ditch the stock photos

If you’re on a limited budget, your first thought might be to turn to a stock photo site for inexpensive – or sometimes even free – photographs for your website. When the trend is toward embracing authenticity in your digital marketing, however, stock photos give a staged feeling that isn’t relatable to many of your customers.

Instead, we suggest hiring a local photographer to do a custom photo shoot that includes images of your office, customers, doctors and staff, and more. If your budget is tight, consider hiring a photographer in trade for aesthetic services of an equal amount. You could even get perfectly good photos and videos for social media using a high-quality smartphone.

 

MedSpa Photography Tips and Tricks

  • Get permission from all models. Whether you hire a professional photographer or DIY it, one thing is essential – make sure that everyone who appears in your photographs or videos has given you exclusive permission to use their image and likeness on camera. You can find standard media release forms online, and make sure everyone signs them before you begin. Privacy is a top concern for medspas, and a business could find itself in hot water if someone who wanted to have a procedure done under the radar is suddenly featured on your TikTok account.
  • Don’t use the same staff members in every photo. People come and go, so we recommend staging the same photograph using various groupings. That way if someone moves on from their position, it’s painless to replace the image.
  • Lighting matters. One of the things that can make viewers incredulous of before and after photos is vastly different lighting. One way to avoid this is to set up a studio area in your office, get the lighting right, and take all of your photos in that space for consistency. Ring lights are great for an inexpensive yet professional studio setup.
  • Be aware of copyright. While you probably won’t get in trouble for picking up sounds or songs and using them on your personal social media channels, it’s an entirely different story for a commercial business. It’s important to check the copyright status of any song you may want to include with your videos – most of them will be off-limits.

 

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Why We Love These 3 Social Media Campaigns

in Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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hen a hotel’s social media campaign is good, it makes you want to keep scrolling for more. You want more pictures, more videos, more information – more of everything that resort has to offer. For hotel owners, a loyal online audience is a worthy goal, especially in this area of sharing, reposting, and reviews. Why? Because fans of a particular location bring authenticity without even trying, and their words are as valuable as any paid campaign (without the initial investment).

With that in mind, here’s a look at some of our favorite hotel and resort campaigns that are making their way around social media right now, from large name brands to boutique locations you may never have heard of. Which one is your favorite?

RIU Hotels

What: An international chain of hotels and resorts with approximately 100 locations across 19 countries
Website: https://www.riu.com/en/home.jsp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Riuhoteles
Insta/TikTok: @riuhotels

Why We Love It:

RIU uses social media to show you that no matter where you go in the world, you can find sunny skies and relaxation. On Instagram, images are focused on sun-kissed beaches, clear waters, sparkling pools, and the ultimate in relaxation everywhere you go. The company highlights trends and holidays, including its recent Valentine’s Day–inspired “Love At First Sight” post, featuring scenes of happy couples discovering “the most romantic destinations in the world.”

We especially like their Insta Stories section called “Play With Us,” which invites followers to interact via polls, quizzes, and questions.

RIU’s Facebook page is the place to enter contests and giveaways (and they give away big!) and to learn about new properties and other promotions. They even have a large following on LinkedIn, where they focus on careers with the company and the benefits of working in the hospitality industry.

Over on TikTok, RIU takes advantage of the channel’s penchant for trends, including a towel-folding challenge and user-generated content that’s updated each month. One of our favorite videos is a happy, sentimental end-of-year post thanking travelers for venturing out again in 2022.

 

Kayus Busteni Boutique Hotel

What: A small, niche hotel in Romania with a serious sense of humor
Website: https://kayus.ro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KayusBusteni
Insta/TikTok: @kayusbusteni

Why We Love It:

The Kayus Busteni is a small, exclusive boutique hotel in Busteni, Romania, that understands the power of using social media to let its personality shine through. While their website is refined, modern in design, and focused on a luxury dining and lodging experience, their TikTok page is humorous, trendy, and has garnered millions of likes per video.

The hotel’s social campaigns are fronted by a handsome, fun-loving spokesman whom you’ll find doing everything from throwing around giant stacks of cash to dancing with a giant teddy bear while a guest musician plays the saxophone.

This might sound random, but taken as a whole the posts are engaging and intriguing. We can’t wait to see what he gets up to next.

The same host serves as the face of the hotel over on Instagram too; however, the images and videos there tend to feature more behind-the-scenes footage, like the (heart-stopping) views from inside the hotel’s rooms to what goes on in the kitchen while the chefs prepare world-class cuisine.

 

Marriott Bonvoy

What: The world-famous loyalty program for Marriott Hotels
Website: http://www.marriott.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marriottbonvoy
Insta/TikTok: @marriottbonvoy

Why We Love It:

Marriott Bonvoy has perfected the art of crafting an irresistible loyalty program. All across its social channels, as well as its website, you’ll find the perks that come with being a Bonvoy member.

On TikTok, Bonvoy is leading the way with influencer programs. The company has hired three famous TikTok creators to travel all over the world and document their experiences as part of Marriott and the Bonvoy program (how do we get that gig?). The influencers share content like traditional property walk-throughs, travel how-tos, and local adventures, but they also take time out to engage with the fun trends and challenges that make the app so popular.

Bonvoy’s Facebook account employs more traditional social media marketing, including ad-based posts with CTAs, destination features, and some seasonal information sprinkled in.

But the real gem of this campaign is its Instagram channel, which features a wealth of content that covers everything you could possibly want to know about the program. Its feed and reels offer a look behind the scenes of what it’s like to be a member and highlights perks like meeting celebrities, scoring concert tickets, and being invited to exclusive parties.

They also use creative storytelling to tout other, more practical perks like excellent customer service, and increase user engagement with timely quizzes like “What’s your travel love language?” with property recommendations based on your answers.

We’ll be honest – we’re sold. Sign us up, Bonvoy.

 

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8 Ways to Make Your Event Venue Stand Out

in Event Venues by Hawthorn Editorial

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s in-person gatherings come roaring back, the competition can feel overwhelming when it comes to venue options – especially when it seems like every time you open social media you get a new sponsored ad for an event space. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking What do they got that I ain’t got? here are some ways to help your venue stand out from the crowd and entice customers to say yes.

1. Develop a smart marketing strategy.

One of the hottest trends for 2023 is authenticity in marketing, which basically means that if you want to find success with customers, you should lean in to who you are. Whether your venue is nightclub luxe or backwoods rustic, it’s essential to understand who your target market is, what they want, and then show it off to them in full-color, Insta-worthy photos and videos that make them say, “Yes! This is the place!”

An example we love: When you view the website for Twenty Mile House, there’s no doubt that they offer a rustic-yet-chic location for the outdoor wedding of your dreams.

2. Offer a virtual tour.

We’ve gotten used to doing a lot of things from the comfort of our couches over the past few years. Why not add a virtual tour of your venue that allows potential customers to look around your property and see everything you have to offer before they head out for an in-person tour? This is a great way to attract out-of-state customers, who may be planning a destination wedding, while making their initial research easier.

An example we love: The way Grand Lodge of Maryland combines high-quality photographs with 3D, interactive tours of their space makes you feel like you’re actually there.

3. Have the high-tech hookup.

While many people are returning to IRL travel, there will always be some guests who can’t make an event, whether it’s due to illness, cost, or other factors. Having a stress-free and reliable way for guests to dial in remotely could offer potential customers tremendous peace of mind. Be sure your tech is best in class for on-site guests as well, including fast Wi-Fi for live streaming. (Don’t forget to ask for your hashtag to be included!)

An example we love: Simple VR’s virtual-reality experience allows event guests to interact with one another in a lifelike, immersive environment.

4. Invest in customer service.

From the very first contact to the final farewell, roll out the red carpet for your customers. Making people feel like royalty is a great way to earn their loyalty, and ideas include free valet parking for the hosts, a comfy meeting room stocked with drinks and snacks, an attentive ear to listen to all of their requests, and succinct and timely follow-up that answers all of their questions and never leaves them hanging. It’s ironic that planning fun events can cause so much stress for the organizers, so a little extra can go a long way.

An example we love: The reviews for Winters Barns, a winner of the Guides for Brides 2022 Customer Service Awards, say it all.

5. Show off your amenities.

Some of the most sought-after amenities party hosts are looking for in 2023 include a variety of room size options, well-appointed restrooms, experienced staff, and signage capabilities. If you’re a wedding venue, be sure that you have ample comfortable space for the wedding party to get ready. If your venue is within city limits, consider offering free parking to event guests.

An example we love: A series of video walkthroughs produced by The Matara Centre, a stunning wedding venue located in the English countryside, give couples an intimate look at their spaces for ceremonies, receptions, and everything in between.

6. Be flexible.

Yes, things are starting to get back to normal. But COVID is still around. The reliability of airline travel has been questionable lately, and we all know that sometimes life just happens. Offering a flexible contract that includes provisions for COVID-19 shows potential customers that you care, and that you’re not going to leave them to their own devices if the unforeseen happens.

An example we love: This two-part breakdown of the ins and outs of a wedding venue contract from The Venue Academy’s Lindsay Lucas.

7. Host an open house

What better way to show off your digs then to invite the public in for a look-see? Promote the event on social media, offer incentives (free drinks and food, giveaways, or free tours, for example) and swing open the doors for an evening of fun and get-to-know-you. As an added bonus, you could speak with previous clients to see if they’d be willing to be on-hand to share their stories and reviews.

An example we love: The Sixpence, an upscale event space in Indianapolis, Indiana, offers open houses throughout the year, as well as special events to bring in potential customers.

8. Use real-life examples as often as possible.

This follows on the previous idea of having actual customers share their testimonials. Whether you’re putting together a marketing strategy, brand video, or updating your Google page, highlight the stories of real-life people who’ve used your venue in the past – and have become raving fans. Endorsements from actual happy customers are worth their weight in gold, and are taken far more seriously.

An example we love: The Flora website includes a gallery dedicated to “love stories,” real weddings that have graced the venue in the past. A perfect way for potential customers to picture themselves there is to see others who made it happen.

 

RELATED READING

Ways to Help Your Venue Attract (and Convert) Gen Z

in Event Venues, Photography & Video, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

It may feel like Gen Z is still in diapers, but time flies and here’s the reality: the oldest members of this generation are turning 26 this year. They make up the much-coveted consumer demographic of 18-to-26-year-olds, and any business that doesn’t pay attention to their spending and purchasing habits is doing themselves a big disservice. (Well, that may not be entirely true; AARP, we’ll let you off the hook on this one).

Not only are they well into the age for renting venues for events and weddings, but Gen Z accounts for a quarter of the United States population. If they aren’t yet on your radar, you’re way behind the curve.

Here’s the first thing you need to know to attract Gen Z customers – they’re addicted to social media. (That’s not us being old fuddy-duddies, either. More than 60% openly admit to this being true.) If you want to find them, you have to be on social channels. They aren’t reading magazines or even clicking digital ads – they’re scrolling TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

This may be a huge mindset shift for venue owners, who’ve been told for ages that millennials are the only age group that matters. Don’t get us wrong – they still represent a huge chunk of the wedding pie – but Gen Z is coming, they know what they want, and it’s not what you’re used to. If you want them to become the future of your venue, it’s time to expand your marketing repertoire.

Here’s a look at some of the ways you can get Gen Z to say yes to your venue.

A Good Website Is No Longer Enough

According to a recent study, 61% of Gen Zers said they would pay more for better quality, 56% for a better experience, and 50% for convenience. They’re setting a high bar, and it’s up to you as an event venue operator to meet or exceed it.

Let’s apply those ideas to your website. For millennials, your website is everything. They’re all about stunning photography, a well-designed website, and authenticity in marketing. For Gen Z, however, it’s more like a nice-to-have. While 64% told Hootsuite that they would look up a website before visiting in person, a whopping 97% said social media is their top option for searching for options. Gen Z is completely at home with the idea of social commerce, or buying completely within their chosen social platform, and they trust the algorithms to bring them relevant suggestions. (This is why #tiktokmademebuyit is a very real thing.)

To attract Gen Z to your venue, it’s essential to get comfortable with social tech. Learn ways to set up social commerce, and be sure that every CTA on your website is also available on your Instagram account.

A TikTok account we love: The Barn 1906

 

This whimsical, chic wedding venue in Ontario, Canada, understands TikTok. They’re leading the way with audio CTAs like “Come and get married with us!” and trending sounds that entice viewers to take the next step. (Their Instagram account is on the money, too.)

Use Your Influence(rs)

Gen Z loves a good influencer. And by influencers, we don’t mean movie stars. The celebrities of the future are social media personalities: people who are TikTok famous, or popular YouTubers. Because there are so many niche creators out there, they can be a little difficult to track down. But once you find them, they can be extremely valuable in helping you promote your brand. This works because Gen Z wants to align with influencers that mimic their values – if that influencer supports an organization, those values are in parallel by extension.

An influencer campaign we love: The Bouqs co

 

In an effort to promote their wedding and retail services, this online flower delivery business hired a team of influencers who had recently gotten engaged to use their services and promote them along their journey. The influencers engaged with Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and blogs, producing 50 pieces of content that were then amplified with paid social campaigns.

Share Your Values

In poll after poll, Gen Z has made it clear: They want to do business with companies that share their values, like sustainability, organic food and drinks, and social-justice causes that align with their own beliefs. What does your business stand for? Let them know! Show them that you don’t just offer them the perfect gathering space, but that your overall vision is one of making the world a better place.

One word of caution, however: Your efforts need to be sincere. Gen Z can spot virtue-signaling from a mile away, and they aren’t interested. They want real, authentic communication that doesn’t try to create a world that only exists in a marketing plan. (If you, as a venue, do some discovery and realize that you don’t have any of the values that would attract a Gen Z customer, maybe it’s time to rethink your game.)

Setting the example: Ashford Acres Inn

 

This charming, historic inn, located near Lexington, Kentucky, was built in 1858 and today serves as a picturesque venue for weddings and other special events. As a member of the Inclusive Kentucky Weddings initiative, the inn’s owner says, “Ashford Acres Inn was built as a wedding present in 1858 and has hosted numerous weddings on-site through the century-and-a-half of its existence. We have continued that tradition on our property since opening in 2016 and have welcomed all couples who wish to exchange vows, as we believe love is always to be equally celebrated among all who are lucky enough to have found it.”

Make Sure Your Venue is Camera-Ready and Content-Worthy

Even when they’re offline, it’s possible to engage your Gen Z audience digitally. Create a space that looks beautiful not only IRL but in photographs as well. Be sure that you offer reliable, high-speed Wi-Fi for live streaming and plenty of photo opps – a red carpet with a step-and-repeat, a fun photo booth, or unique beverage displays are all Insta-worthy.

At the end of the day, Gen Z is looking for an experience, not just an event. They want to be able to connect with the things and people around them, whether that’s through an app or face-to-face. This isn’t to say that your venue needs to give off party, night-club luxe vibes (unless that’s your vibe!) – it just means that you’ll find success by leaning into who you are, owning it, and sharing it with the world on social media.

If you still aren’t convinced: #genzwedding

 

To see Gen Z in action when it comes to their thoughts on weddings, just take a browse through this hashtag on TikTok. For venue owners who have been catering to older couples for a while, it will likely be an eye-opening scroll. From the up-and-coming trends in bridal fashion to the way Gen Z approaches the most traditional aspects of a wedding (like seeing each other before the ceremony or kissing in front of the crowd), everything about the way we think we know weddings is changing.

Does all this sound great, but you’re not sure how to put it into action?

Our team of designers, writers, and strategists are at your digital disposal. Just drop us a line any time.

Related Reading

Medical Aesthetic Suppliers: Here’s What B2B Buyers Are Looking for in 2023

in Content Marketing, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Hawthorn Editorial

There’s a widely held belief that B2B buyers are less likely to engage digitally in their research process than the average B2C buyer, but new research says otherwise. According to DemandGen’s 2022 Content Preferences Survey, the pandemic changed everything for B2B buyers. Just like everyone who had to get creative to keep business moving over the past several years, they’ve come to rely heavily on online content to stay connected and research potential purchases.

Here’s what else the research report uncovered about B2B buyers:

  • 55% of buyers said they now rely more on content to research and make purchasing decisions than they did a year ago.
  • A growing majority of B2B buyers (62%) said they engage with three to seven pieces of content before connecting with a salesperson.
  • Just over two-thirds of the buyers polled (67%) said they had engaged with webinars over the past 12 months – a significant increase from last year’s 57%.
  • Research/survey reports also ranked high at 55%, compared to 52% in 2021.

What this means for you is that B2B buyers aren’t separating the way they buy as a buyer vs. a consumer. What is different, however, is the type of content they’re valuing to inform their decision-making process. So, as a medical aesthetic supplier, is the type of content you’re cranking out (or hopefully cranking out) actually synced with the latest research and buying patterns of the practices you’re targeting? Below we outline a few of the latest findings regarding this pattern – with the stats to back them up – and how you can lean into it within your business’s own content strategy.

Do Your Homework

This is not new advice in the B2C world, but, according to that DemandGen study, it’s a big one right now with B2B buyers. In fact, the report showed that what triggers a sales call from buyers is content that’s well researched. More than half (51%) said they were looking for content that uses data and research to support its claims, while 41% said they sought research-based content.

One stat that did surprise us this year was that almost half of those surveyed (49%) said that good information wasn’t enough for just them – they wanted content that tells a strong story for the entire buying committee, including 41% who said the content should be packed with shareable stats and quick-hitting insights.

How Medical Aesthetic Suppliers Can Put into Practice

  • You should take the time to understand your B2B audience as well as your B2C customers and provide them with information that’s relevant, timely, and linked to a sale. Find expert sources you trust and dig into the details – don’t rely on a quick Google search to put together content. Your prospective clients will appreciate your attention to detail, use of first-party sources, and research that’s up to date.

SOLUTION

Take Your Content Strategy into the Stratosphere

Content marketing is the engine powering all of your digital channels – without it, you’re going nowhere

Create Content That Compels Action

Present Content in Other Formats (Beyond the Blog Post)

Yes, you should be posting on your blog regularly, especially as your various blog posts are the main point of entry through search engines after your homepage. The DemandGen report revealed that B2B buyers have a variety of consumption habits, but research/survey reports topped the list at 43%, followed by case studies and webinars (both at 40%), B2B news/media publications (37%), and white papers and e-books tied at 34% each.

How Medical Aesthetic Suppliers Can Put into Practice

  • Simply put, you’ll stand out from the crowd if you’re able to give the people what they want. If the idea of creating this kind of content is daunting, there are marketing firms, like Hawthorn Creative, here to assist you. Not to mention, once this content is created, we can help broaden the reach of it, not just on your website but with online ads, email marketing, and social media.

Go Mobile

B2B buyers were clear: nearly 1 in 8, or 40%, said they prefer to read content that’s easy to read on a phone or tablet. A trend toward on-the-go is also showing up in expectations for the type of mobile content – 39% said they want shorter-form content, and 41% said the content should focus on quick-hit stats and shareable insights.

How Medical Aesthetic Suppliers Can Put into Practice

  • Whenever you’re designing a website, landing page, or uploading new content, think mobile first. Work with a web developer who understands responsive design and do a lot of testing on various devices to make sure that what you’re posting works on desktops, phones and tablets. If this feels daunting to you, Hawthorn Creative is home to a team of design experts who can help you make mobile content a no-brainer.

Understand B2B Pain Points

This is something we all crave – information that’s easily available, answers our questions, and eases our concerns. When B2B buyers were asked how they would like to see information organized on vendor websites, over half said by issue/pain point (52%) or topic (51%). The other answers that rounded out the list included by industry or vertical (46%), and by business role (42%). Conversely, organizing by size of organization (26%), buyer stage (20%), location, and content format (both 18%) were at the bottom of the list.

How Medical Aesthetic Suppliers Can Put into Practice

  • From our experience working with a variety of medical aesthetic practices and medspas, we know the two biggest challenges they – your prospective clients – face are: 1) fierce competition (there are dozens of like companies all around them), and 2) having to stay on top of evolving industry trends and new technologies. With that information in hand, you can craft your research content plan around how to battle these challenges. They’ll begin to see you not just as a brand that’s trying to sell them more of your product, but as a partner they can trust to help them rise above the competition.

CASE STUDY

AW Plastic Surgery

Translating this practice’s five-star, in-person care experience into their digital presence.

See the Journey

Make Trustworthiness a Top Priority

There’s a common thread that runs through all of these statistics and insights – trust. B2B buyers want their potential medspa partners to be well researched, experts in their fields, on top of the latest trends, and trustworthy. According to survey results, buyers are placing a higher emphasis on the source’s trustworthiness (41%) and seeking content from industry influencers (39%). In addition, you can increase your credibility by curbing sales messages (39%), using more data and research in your content (36%), making content easier to access (31%), and adding more insights from industry analysts and thought leaders (30%).

How Medical Aesthetic Suppliers Can Put into Practice

Does all the above sound great, but you’re not sure how to put it into action (nor have the time)?

Our team of designers, writers, and strategists are at your digital disposal. Just drop us a line any time.

RELATED READING

6 Ways to Generate Qualified Leads for Your MedSpa

in General Marketing Insights, Marketing Topics by Hawthorn Editorial

A

esthetics services are showing up on a lot more wish lists these days. More and more people are looking for ways to enhance their appearance, fight the signs of aging, improve their wellness, and feel better overall. The industry is highly competitive, however, and bringing qualified leads through your doors (vs. the medspa down the street) can feel like an insurmountable challenge.

At the same time, though, not all medspas offer the same services or focus on the same outcomes. Some cater to in-office procedures, others focus on weight loss, while still others want to give customers a relaxing aesthetic experience. Here are some ways to find the perfect customers for your medspa, get them through the door, and turn them into loyal customers.

1. Understand who your ideal customer is.

If your medspa is hyper-focused on one wellness area, or geared toward the luxury market, the first step in attracting qualified leads is to find out who they are and where they hang out (both online and offline). If your research shows that they’re huge Instagram users, be sure to post lots of before and after pictures on that platform. If it’s a younger crowd who will react to trends on TikTok, get your aestheticians and doctors to participate in challenges.

The key is to relate to them in ways they understand, in the places they already are. This doesn’t happen without careful consideration and some serious homework, but without access to fancy data analytics, one way to get started is simply to ask. Create a short survey for your current and repeat clients and ask them questions about their demographics, social media preferences, offline reading sources, and community interests. You may see patterns start to emerge quickly.

2. Offer a referral program.

Word of mouth is a tremendous endorsement. If you have a client who loves your medspa so much that they tell their friends and family to visit, it’s worth a solid reward. Incentives can include free treatments, gift shop specials, or discounts on more expensive services. The key here is to be generous – a referral doesn’t just bring in a new customer, it brings back a loyal one.

In fact, recent studies have shown that referred customers are more loyal and more valuable, which means that the money you spend on a referral program is quickly recouped (and then some) by the influx of new customers. To get started with a referral program, begin with the clients you know best: your current, repeat customers. Asking them to help spread the word in return for a reward will show them that you appreciate their loyalty.

3. Design a website that’s beautiful and informational.

A smart website design does two things: It gives potential customers a realistic idea of what they can expect when they first visit, and it answers many of the questions they may have. This includes the basics, like hours, service offerings, and staff bios, and some additional information you may not have previously considered.

A big one is pricing. The “contact us for pricing” days are rapidly coming to an end, with industries across the board opting instead to be transparent up front. While it may seem that this eliminates customers you’d be able to hook once they’re in the office, consumers are saying otherwise. In fact, it’s more likely to nudge them into seeking more information from you.

Another way to add value to your website is through video. Show procedure demonstrations, ask customers to give video reviews, offer a walk-through of your spa space – anything you can do to help a potential customer feel more at ease. If you offer a number of in-office procedures, you may even want to include a “what to expect” FAQ that includes (honest!) information, like how long it takes, what it will feel like, and recovery time.

4. Give free consultations.

We understand that consultations take time, and time is still money. However, we also know of potential customers who were very interested in a procedure – until they realized they would have to pay hundreds of dollars just to find out if it was right for them. While the medspa offered to apply the consultation fee toward the cost of the service, that wouldn’t matter if they decided the procedure wasn’t the right fit for them.

5. Perfect your outbound marketing.

Sometimes it’s amazing to think that despite all the changes the marketing world has seen over the past several decades, email remains a constant. The revenue from email marketing is expected to reach $11 billion worldwide this year, which means it’s worthy of a spot at the top of your tactical list.

Email is a great way to move customers through the purchase funnel, starting with a welcome sequence that introduces them to your spa, perhaps offers a discount for first-time visitors, and encourages them to come in. Following that, you can use email to highlight specials, promote open houses, and answer questions about your spa and the services you offer.

For top-of-funnel awareness, social media channels can be extremely valuable. For example, Dr. John Wilson of AW Plastic Surgery uses Instagram to highlight before-and-after photos, offer procedure information, and give kudos to the practice’s staff. Once followers are interested, the AW website (managed by Hawthorn Creative) offers further information and opportunities to book consultations.

6. Form local partnerships.

While digital marketing is a great way to reach qualified leads, we also understand that people don’t travel great distances to visit spas – they choose among the options close to them. Advertising in local women’s magazines or chamber of commerce publications, for example, or even partnering with similar local businesses can be mutually beneficial. A nail salon, for example, might be willing to display your brochures if you display theirs.

Networking can also be a good way to find qualified leads, even if it’s indirect. If you meet a local hairdresser whose clientele list looks similar to yours, an endorsement from them can send business your way. The key is to always return the favor and make sure that you share their business as well.

 

RELATED READING

Resort Marketing Videos That Spark Wanderlust and Drive Action (2023 Edition)

in Hotels & Resorts, Photography & Video by Hawthorn Editorial

We’ve all seen hotel and resort videos like this: they start with sweeping drone footage of the property and then move into some empty rooms and interiors. They might include shots of property features like the pool or spa. If you’re lucky, you might see a few people at the bar or eating dinner, but the primary focus isn’t on the guest experience, it’s on the amenities. No matter how expensive the shoot, no matter how beautiful the scenery, these videos all have one thing in common – they don’t inspire action. If your destination marketing video isn’t telling a story and sharing the experience of staying at your property, then it was a waste of money. Because, when it comes down to it, travelers aren’t buying a stay at your hotel – they’re buying an experience in your destination. Your video content needs to sell that experience.

Here are a few examples that set the bar, including one we created for Wentworth by the Sea.

SOLUTIONS

Eye-Catching Visuals is a Marketing Must

With photography and videography that captures your unique brand experience.

Elevate Your Imagery

When we set out to create a video for the stunning Wentworth by the Sea, an Opal Collection property in New Castle, New Hampshire, we knew we wanted to break the mold. We were determined to challenge the status quo and create a resort marketing video that not only highlighted this elegant New England resort and spa, but also showcased the experience guests could expect from their stay. Most marketing videos in the hospitality industry focus on what they want travelers to see or know about their property. Instead, we always ask ourselves and our clients: What do we want our prospective guests to feel? From there, we can tell the kind of story that will evoke those emotions and resonate deeply with our client’s target audience.

Buaha, a Banyan Tree Escape
Bali, Indonesia

Apart from a few glimpses of the property, this stunning video from Banyan Tree Group is all about the serenity you’ll experience here, from a yoga hammock on an open-air patio to a pool with a view that will take your breath away. Yes, there are images of this spectacular resort and some of its amenities throughout the video, but they’re integrated with images of the local culture, including landscapes, people, and opportunities. The resort-focused scenes are also presented against a backdrop of spa-inspired music and slow camera movements that bring you into the moment and answer not just the what but the why.

The Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada

This tantalizing marketing video from The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas never shows the resort, or one room, or one amenity. But it leaves no doubt about what it’s like to stay there. Aptly titled “Behind Closed Doors,” the scenes are alluring, a little bit naughty, and perfectly aligned with the resort’s brand, voice, and tone. We love this video because of its expert use of music, effects, editing, and imagery to convey emotion and experience, without ever speaking a word. (If you’d like to see a straightforward property video, they make plenty of those too. But this is the one that screams “Come out to Vegas, and let’s play!”).

Four Seasons Resorts
Worldwide

This video, which promotes the Four Seasons brand across all its properties, uses voiceover to create a rich experience that invites viewers to slow down and enjoy some time away from the rat race. It begins with images that speak to being busy and inundated with communication, then switches to iconic images like horses galloping through a field and kids on a beach to tell the story of disconnecting, along with phrases like “We are for people who crave more,” “We believe in enriching human stories,” and “We believe that the best journeys are not planned, but discovered.” The types of imagery shown – mostly luxury adventures, including an African safari – speak directly to the Four Seasons’s target audience as well.

Timberline Lodge
Mount Hood, Oregon

We do a lot of work with ski resorts, and one thing that’s always important to us is to capture the guest experience not just during ski season, but during the summer months too. This video, produced by Timberline Lodge (you may recognize it as the exterior of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining), does a brilliant job capturing life at the resort not only mountainside, but poolside as well. There’s an extra layer of nostalgia in this video – as one of the nation’s oldest resorts and a National Historic Landmark, the Timberline offers guests a chance to travel back in time and become part of history. Their philosophy, “a firm respect for its tradition yet a forward-leaning sense of innovation,” is perfectly conveyed through vintage photographs and videos combined with modern-day imagery and amenities.

RELATED READING

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Marketing Wedding Venues in 2023

in Event Venues, General Marketing Insights, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

According to The Knot, 2.6 million couples tied the knot last year. As we move into 2023, the numbers are predicted to remain the same, and the hot trends are all pointing to either all natural or all-out luxe. This means that couples are looking for either outdoor settings with gorgeous views, or a luxe vibe worthy of a Bit City club scene.

How can your venue be at the top of the list for couples who are planning nuptials this year? Here are six New Year’s resolutions that will help you take full advantage of engagement season.

1. Show Off Your Strengths Through Photography

If a potential couple wants to be married against a breathtaking backdrop, your pictures should leave them with no doubt that yours is the most stunning. If they’re looking for a nightclub-style party, your photos should invoke exclusivity, fashion, and fun. High-quality photos are the lifeblood of wedding venue marketing, so we put together a list of things that anyone – even those of us who aren’t professional photographers – can look for and request to ensure the perfect venue photo shoot.

From the blog: “If your wedding venue recently had a big renovation, your old photos are looking a little tired, or it’s just been a few years, it may be time to hire a photographer to do an original shoot of your venue. These shots will make your marketing team’s job easier, as they’ll better reflect your property and be specifically composed to portray it in the best light, as opposed to a real event, in which certain elements are out of your control.”

2. Make Sure Your Brochure Is Worthy of Your Venue

When you have the right kind of wedding brochure, it’s doing a bunch of vital jobs for you – even more than showing off those pretty pictures of your venue. And whether you’re the hippest Gen Z venue in the area or a secluded mountain getaway, your brochure should make a potential couple flip through and say “This is the place.” Here’s a look at how to get the most out of your brochure.

From the blog: “Wedding planning is inherently social. We talk to our friends and family and bounce ideas around regarding the guest list, color scheme, food and beverage, and perhaps most importantly, the venue choice. The wedding brochure can serve as a talking piece and a focus for the couple’s conversations with others – both those who may have attended the venue tour and those who didn’t. When the bride describes the spot where she’s thinking about saying “I do,” she’ll be able to physically hold the brochure in her hands, pass it to a friend or parents, and bring it alive more fully by pairing her description with your visuals.”

3. Invest in Social Media

With just a small ad spend (and a management fee, if you’d rather we do it) you can reach newly engaged couples in your area and drive them to your wedding page. The ROI can be towering, but the key to success is doing your research to find out where your audience is online and meet them there. Here’s how Bluemont Vineyard – a location that’s nailed the “outdoor setting with a stunning view” vibe – used social media with tremendous success:

From the blog: “In just the first month of Bluemont Vineyard’s social ad campaign, they saw 24,005 impressions, 4,210 people reached, 210 clicks, and a whopping 31 leads (brides and grooms who filled out the site inquiry form on their website) – all thanks to a $400 ad spend, plus our management fees. All told, the first month saw a whopping 33x return on investment.”

4. Understand Exactly – Down to the Dollar – How Valuable Site Visits Are

While your brochure and social media drive top-of-funnel awareness, a visit to your venue is what really brings a couple’s wedding vision to life. They’re almost always a prerequisite to booking, so it’s logical that you should try to drive as many qualified venue tours as possible. But did you know it’s possible to assign a dollar value to those visits, making it easier to determine your marketing spend?

From the blog: “After answering just four questions, there are a couple of simple calculations you can perform to figure out how to put a dollar value estimate on each step in your sales funnel. From there, you can dive deeper to figure out how different marketing tactics for your wedding venue are performing, based on how qualified those leads are. The result is a simpler, smarter, more informed marketing plan that you can tackle, regardless of how much time you have to devote to marketing.”

5. When in Doubt, Use This Scorecard

The marketing tactics on the scorecard linked here total 100 points – if you tally up the ones that you’ve got covered, how close do you get to a perfect score? This is a quick exercise to see whether you’re on the right track and where you should spend a little more time.

From the blog: “Are you confident that you’re doing enough with your wedding venue marketing? We thought through the whole process – from that moment just before the newly engaged couple finds you to the point after the vows have been said, the cake has been cut, and the wedding is over – and took a go at giving you a scorecard to vet your current marketing efforts.”

 

RELATED READING

Hawthorn Creative’s Digital Marketing Trend Predictions for 2023

in General Marketing Insights, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

As a marketing agency specializing in content marketing, brand strategy, website design, digital marketing, and more, we saw some pretty significant changes in 2022. As the pandemic waned, we found ourselves not quite getting back to normal, but instead trying to figure out what “normal” looks like now.

Being able to innovate and pivot at a moment’s notice is one of our superpowers, because we all know that even a good marketing plan is subject to change. (If we’re truly in touch with consumer behaviors and the latest trends, that change should be minimal)

With this in mind, we’ve put together our thoughts on what 2023 is likely to bring for the marketing world – which trends are new, which we’ll bid farewell to, and which ones are sticking around for a bit.

1. Virtual events work, but they need to be enticing.

Virtual events are still popular, but because they have growing competition from in-person events, they need to step up the way they entice participants. One trend that’s growing in the virtual arena is the pre-conference event, which serves as a way to hype what’s on tap – especially if there’s big news.

Another must for virtual events is to make sure you have the latest and greatest tech at your disposal for your speakers. For example, AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) are eventually going to become event program staples. In fact, one full-service production company, Simple Multimedia (they’ve worked with global brands like Google, Nat Geo, Nike, and more), creates VR Lounge Experiences and VR Interactive Booths for their clients, where they can virtually interact with others. They also produce AR content that digitally brings once-dull meeting packets or instructional documents to life through the lens of your phone.

2. Authenticity must be…authentic.

More and more brands are turning to influencers to help spread the word about their products, and the brands that are leading the way in this space are partnering with people who are both 100% relatable to the target audience and truly authentic in the way they interact with the products. TikTok influencers have perfected this to a level where it sometimes takes a minute before you realize you’re watching a sponsored post – it’s even inspired its own genre of content called “TikTok made me buy it.”

One recent example that has enthralled us is the Perbelle Cosmetics social campaign. Mostly on Facebook and TikTok, Perbelle is using real women of all ages to promote their product in one of the most authentic ways we’ve ever seen. The concept is simple – they have women sit fresh-faced in front of a camera, talk about their skin issues, then apply their CC Cream in real time. Their reactions to the cream and how it changes their skin is irresistible.

3. TikTok is a place to reach more than just Gen Z.

Older audiences are doing what they do best – flocking to a social media channel that was once reserved for the teen set. According to Hootsuite, TikTok has now surpassed Instagram in popularity among the Gen Z crowd. For wedding venues and medspas, this means that a much wider segment of your target audience is going to TikTok first for content and inspiration.

As for the best way to use the platform, there are a number of ways to crack the algorithm, including a strong hashtag strategy, creating shareable content, and – probably most important right now – hopping in on trends that mesh with your brand. (Did you have someone in a bridal gown doing the Wednesday dance?)

4. Social justice, diversity and inclusion matter.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen social justice efforts evolve from an effort to a movement. And since 82% of customers prefer to interact with companies whose values align with theirs, putting social justice higher on your list of importance is no longer optional. It all started during the pandemic, when brands that were silent or tone-deaf during life-altering, world-changing events were naturally judged by their audiences. They lost customers, investors, and revenue as a result.

To succeed in this space, it’s important for companies to bake more of these values into their overall brand presence, social media marketing messaging, and influencer marketing campaigns. The key, however, will be how they do so, so that it is viewed as genuine and not as “woke-washing.” It’s a delicate tightrope that brands will have to walk and one that will require thoughtful strategy and implementation.

5. Not all channels are created equal (and not all of them are right for your brand).

We’ve been talking about personalization for a long time, but it remains a big question: How do you personalize when you have a massive audience? One way is to treat every marketing channel like its own unique property, and don’t replicate exact content. Instead, understand what your audience has come to expect from each platform, and engage them in a way that’s familiar.

Here’s an example: A wedding venue could use Facebook to promote the business, announce giveaways, and share real wedding stories; Instagram to showcase the beauty of the location through eye-popping photography; email to build relationships with potential customers; and TikTok to hop on the latest trends. (A caveat: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. While it may be tempting to jump on the latest viral dances, it must align with your brand and your audience, or it could have a negative effect.)

 

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2023: Travelers Are Looking for Bigger, Better, and More

in Event Venues, Hotels & Resorts by Hawthorn Editorial

If you own a hotel, resort, or destination, there’s little doubt that travelers have gotten back out there. At the end of 2022, AAA said that around 112.7 million people traveled at least 50 miles from home. Those numbers are close to pre-pandemic levels. But while people are back out on the road, the ways they travel have evolved from a few years ago.

For one, the time we all spent in lockdown has made us appreciate the finer things more than ever. According to Booking.com, almost half of survey respondents said that they would likely spend more money on their next trip to make up for lost time. In addition, 43% said they were willing to go “all out” when it comes to spending – especially younger travelers.

As for how they spend that money, many of those travelers reported wanting to spend their 2023 vacations “off the grid,” or at least feeling that way. They’re also looking to get out of their comfort zones a little bit.

So whether you’re a DMO or a hotel in a small town, a tucked-away remote destination, an island, or a large city, this is the part of the report you should really be tuning into. Because if you’re not responding to these traveler priorities and preferences, you’re missing out on potential visits to your destination and bookings. Here are some ideas for giving travelers what they want in 2023.

Give Travelers a Feeling of Natural Beauty

Even if you’re in the middle of a bustling city, it’s possible to give your guests a “back to nature” experience. Try filling your inside spaces with outdoor items like plants and hammock chairs, updating your “Do Not Disturb” door hangers with messages like “No service please, we’re getting away from it all today,” or adding electric candles to the rooms for some added ambience.

If your location is already known for its out-of-the-way location, let the world know through smart social media promotion that invites visitors to turn off the world for a few days. And regardless of location or size, promoting your sustainability efforts creates a link to all things natural, unfiltered, and uncomplicated. A 2022 Virtuoso survey found that 74% of travelers were willing to spend more for sustainable travel if they knew how the money was being used for green initiatives.

Own What Makes You Unique

Travelers want to experience something entirely new, and that’s where you come in. It’s time to go big on the things that make you different from everyone else.

If your property is located near a number of adventurous activities, consider putting together sample itineraries for your guests – especially if they’re filled with fun, unique adventures that travelers may not have experienced before.

You can send itineraries via email, promote them on your social channels, integrate them into your website (Barnsley Resort in Adairsville, Georgia, does a great job of this), or build dedicated destination pages that are rife with insights about the status of local events, restaurants, tour operators, and hidden gems (take a look at what we did for the New Hampshire Lakes Region Tourism Association’s Trip Inspiration section as an example).

If you’re known for your cuisine, add some adventurous dishes to the menu that push flavor boundaries. If your decor is unlike any other, turn your Instagram and Pinterest pages into an eye-popping palette of colorful inspiration. If you have special programs for pets or families, let travelers who are bringing their kids (or their fur kids) know that they’ve found their perfect location.

Regardless of your product differentiators, however, a great way to make your property stand out is by being authentic in the way you communicate, from your first top-of-the-funnel contact to the way you bid farewell to your guests as they leave. A lot of properties may say they have excellent customer service and a five-star guest experience, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they deliver. Invest in creating a unique journey from start to finish, because the impression they have of a property when they head home is worth its weight in gold.

Highlight Your Alternative Accommodations

For the past few years, retreats like castles, ranches, cabins, chalets, and cottages have seen big growth when it comes to the types of accommodations travelers are searching for most, and it’s a trend that is expected to continue in 2023. Whether you’re a small hotel or B&B that can be booked in its entirety or a resort property that offers stand-alone lodging, the name of the game is, again, tailoring your hotel marketing strategy and messaging to establish yourself as a dream “off the beaten path” property.

For example, that might mean revisiting your website landing page to show splashy images or video that largely focuses on your collection of stand-alone accommodations, whether cabins, cottages, bungalows, villas, or casitas – much like how Sorrel River Ranch in Moab, Utah, and Alisal Guest Ranch & Resort in Solvang, California, do. Or, if you keep a blog, create posts showing why you’re the perfect place to unplug and promote them via your various email campaigns, social channels, and even your website. We especially like Garden of the Gods Resort & Club’s description as “the ultimate escape where recreation and relaxation reign supreme – and where the distractions of the outside world disappear, bringing the things that matter most clearly into focus.”

Be Ready to Plan Ahead

Over the past few years, an uncertain world has left travelers hesitant to book vacations very far in advance. In 2020, in fact, average bookings were below the 30-day mark. This shift to the spontaneous required hotels and DMOs to sync their marketing materials to reflect near-term events and deals, though trends show that planning is getting back to pre-pandemic cycles.

That same Virtuoso survey found that travel planning is back to an average of 58 days in advance for domestic travel, and 80 days for international travel. For marketers, this means a promotion cycle about two to three months in advance. However, that doesn’t mean some travelers aren’t still hesitant to plan in advance. Be prepared and be flexible for last-minute guests too.

Continue to Promote Health and Safety

As we enter 2023, the world is at various stages of leaving the pandemic behind. It’s important during this time of transition to continue to show concern, but safety measures are now seen as more of an option than a mandate. Advanced cleaning should still be a priority, and consider having a stash of masks on hand for guests who may want them.

It’s also a great time to continue to explore the world of touchless technology. There are technologies available now that allow lobby doors to slide open by holding a phone to a scanner, contactless check-in via a facial recognition software, keyless entry that requires just a press of a button on your phone, elevator sensor panels that know when a finger hovers over a button (without passengers having to actually touch it), and contactless concierges that provide digital travel information (no more paper brochures or maps at the front desk).

As an added bonus, minimal interactions with other humans can also help your travelers feel like they’re all alone, even if they’re in the middle of a big city.

 

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The Dos and Don’ts of Marketing Your Aesthetics Practice

in General Marketing Insights, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

If you’re marketing your medspa or aesthetics clinic, you’re working day in and day out with clientele who want to feel beautiful – whatever their definition of that is. They’re seeking a place of respite that’s within their budget and meets their needs, but for first-time customers in particular, researching an aesthetics practice can feel overwhelming. With the right marketing, however, you can tell your story to the right customers at the right time to bring them through the door.

We put together a list of ways to effectively market your medspa, along with a little advice on what not to do as you’re building your strategy.

 

Do understand your audience. The more you know who you’re speaking to – and who is seeking what you have to offer – the better you can hone your message and zero in on your promotional channels. One great way to get a clear picture of your ideal customer is to take a step back and get a clear picture of your business.

What story do you want to tell? What type of clientele are you trying to attract? A medspa that touts affordable treatments will have a very different story from one that caters to the rich and famous. One that’s focused on anti-aging will have a different story from one focused on weight loss. You can pay for specific sponsored campaigns on social or digital media that can target a niche audience

 

Don’t guess at who your audience might be. There are so many data analytics programs available that you’re sure to find one that works for you. If you just spend money on a sponsored ad campaign without doing your research, you may not see a strong return on your investment.

This advice applies to your post-campaign analytics, too – especially if you’ve invested in a platform. Keep a regular eye on your campaigns, and here’s the secret to success: Do more of what’s working, and less of what isn’t. If you’ve noticed that LinkedIn posts on Fridays don’t go anywhere, try posting on a different day. Everything is fluid in marketing, and it’s imperative to go with the flow as you see what’s working and what isn’t.

 

Do be active on social media. A combination of paid and organic posts is one of the best ways to reach your audience, and the variety of platforms means you can make slight adjustments to your brand voice to make the most of each one. Want to show amazing interior shots of your procedure suites? Instagram is the place. Facebook is perfect for before-and-after shots and promoting upcoming events. And if you want to show off a little personality, TikTok is your channel.

 

Don’t forget who you are. Social media engagement happens when you find your audience and speak to them in the style of each platform. If your brand personality fits perfectly with a TikTok challenge, then go ahead and jump on the trend. But don’t do it just for the sake of doing it. Ask yourself, Is this a good fit for my brand personality?

 

Do invest in your website. Create a destination for customers that provides not only information, but also a source of trustworthy expertise. It can be scary for first-time customers to come to a medspa – especially if they’re having a procedure – so the more reassurance your website can give them to show that they’re in good hands, the better.

One way to do that is to make everything easily available online. Pricing, booking, customer service, a patient portal, even online check-in – anything that can make the process easier for both you and your customers. Here are some ways to find the perfect web design agency for your needs.

 

Don’t forget about the aesthetic inside your business. The tone, voice, look, and feel that you establish for your brand should flow seamlessly between online and offline worlds, so that no matter where customers first heard about you, they know when they arrive that they’re in the right place.

 

Do be a good steward of your online reviews. Around 69% of patients report that they won’t consider a healthcare provider that has less than a four-star rating, which means your Google My Business profile is more important than ever. Maintaining your online reputation means regularly monitoring and responding to your reviews – the good ones with a thank-you and, even more importantly, the not-so-good ones with a reassurance that their comments have been heard.

 

Don’t ignore negative comments or be snippy in responses, even if a complaint wasn’t warranted. In the same vein, don’t ignore what your customers are saying. Reading your online reviews is a great way to take the pulse of your current customer base, and if you see something that’s repeated several times, look at it as a great way to not only fix an issue, but then let your customers know about it on social media. When it comes to creating loyal customers, “we hear you” goes a long way.

 

Do stay on top of the latest marketing trends. They are ever changing, and even a best-in-class marketing plan should never look exactly the same at the final report as it did when it launched. One of the best ways to stay on top of the industry is to find a few sources you trust and keep up with them regularly. LinkedIn is a great source of content by marketers for other marketers.

 

Don’t forget about the traditional offline tactics, like direct mailers and open houses. They still work! They can even be used in combination, such as promoting an open house through social media. Another tried-and-true tactic that still plays well is a loyalty program, with perks for repeat and new customers alike.

 

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A Lot of Couples Are Newly Engaged – Here’s How You Can Engage Them

in Event Venues, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

The holidays are prime time for couples to get engaged, which means an influx of new leads for wedding venues in the months that follow. If you’re a venue with a long list of potential new customers, how do you make sure that each one gets the attention it deserves?

First, it’s essential to understand the level of importance couples place on their wedding venue. On average, they’ll spend half of their entire budget on the perfect place to tie the knot, making it one of the most important decisions of the entire process – and the central focus for everything else, from the decor to the menu selection.

With that in mind, your job is to show prospective couples that not only are you their dream venue, but they’re your perfect customer. It’s a nurturing process that requires attention, timing, TLC, and getting to know each other. And if that sounds a little bit like dating, it is! Here are a few ways to turn interested potential customers into raving fans.

1. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

Whether you’ve been married yourself, attended the weddings of friends/family, or even dreamed of the perfect party weekend, one of the best ways to ensure that you’re giving potential customers the experience they’re craving is to think about it from their point of view.

First, imagine the ideal customer in your head, because you’ll want to examine these questions through that lens. (If you’re a pet-friendly, rustic outdoor location, for example, the qualified leads who seek you out aren’t going to be interested in the glitz and glam of a club-style party.)

Ask yourself questions like What are their top priorities right now? What are their worries? What do they want to see and feel when they tour a venue? The better prepared you are with the answers, the easier it will be to overcome objections and ease concerns.

2. Stay on top of trends.

This is an extension of the first point, because what couples are looking for today is quite different from what they might have sought pre-pandemic. When you’re aware of the latest wedding trends, you can use follow-up communication to let qualified leads know that you have what they’re looking for.

One trend that’s hot in 2023 is an emphasis on the party over the ceremony, which gives you the perfect opportunity to show off your dance floor. Couples are also turning away from anything seen as wasteful, so be sure to highlight your sustainability efforts. Finally, charcuterie is all the rage this year. Be sure to include the selection in your venue’s menu options.

3. Get your entire sales team on the same page.

It’s important that everyone is working from the same playbook so that potential leads aren’t accidentally contacted twice – or worse, not contacted at all. The use of a good customer relationship management (CRM) platform can help keep everyone on track and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

In the same vein, it’s equally important that your sales and marketing teams are working together. Those trends we talked about earlier? It’s your marketing team’s job to know those like the backs of their hands. They can help the sales team hone their follow-up communications to speak to what’s relevant and trending. And in return, the sales team has a better read of what customers are responding to. Reciprocity can streamline your entire funnel.

4. Use a lead-scoring system.

Not all leads are created equal. In fact, you can generate a score for each lead based on the quality of interactions a lead has already made with your website, social media posts, emails, or other marketing materials – the higher the score, the better. Ideally, you’ll expend most of your effort going after the leads who look like your ideal client.

Check out our blog post on how to calculate the value of a site visit inquiry, which includes the questions you need to ask yourself and how to run the numbers based on your answers. Going after more-qualified leads is likely to bring in a better ROI than casting a wide net.

5. Be excited…but not too excited.

Back to that dating analogy – even if things feel pretty favorable with a lead, it’s probably not a good idea to push too hard in the beginning. We’ve found that the best practice is to stay top-of-mind for 30 days after the initial inquiry, but avoid reaching out every day.

When you do send a follow-up email, be sure that it’s filled with new and valuable information each time. Remember those questions that you know your ideal customers have? Use these emails as an opportunity to answer them, and to paint a picture of what getting married at your venue will be like.

6. Make sure your website is inviting and valuable.

Planning a wedding has a lot of moving parts, and couples are often overwhelmed. The easier you can make the process for them, the more likely they are to want to work with you. If you don’t have one already, gather your team and come up with a thorough FAQ that answers all the questions you’ve heard, then make it readily available online.

In addition, provide value-add resources that show them all the reasons to choose your location over those of your competitors. Put today’s trends front and center to show that you’re in tune with what couples are looking for from a venue like yours, and avoid making these 10 mistakes.

7. Help them imagine the perfect wedding.

Turning shoppers into buyers (as the saying goes in retail) is about more than just providing information. For wedding venues, it’s about creating a feeling of “home.” It’s that feeling a couple shares when they walk into the space where they would tie the knot, look at each other, and say, “This is it.”

This is where high-quality, stunning photography that showcases your venue comes in. Whether you point them to your Insta account, Pinterest page, or share via your website, imagery plays a key role in the story you build for potential customers.

 

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Seven Ways to Create Authenticity in Your Hospitality Marketing Campaigns

in General Marketing Insights, Marketing Topics, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

If you’re in hospitality marketing, take note: Consumers are fully aware when they’re being fed some slick brand marketing piece that doesn’t always represent reality – and they aren’t impressed. What they want in 2023 and beyond is an authentic look at what your brand values, and whether they feel a connection. Recent research shows that 82% of consumers want a brand’s values to align with their own. And they’ll vote with their wallet if they don’t feel a match.

When travelers come across your brand on social media, they want you to tell them – for real and in plain language – why your destination is right for them. They want to interact with brands that truly align with their values…not just say they do.

And for travelers who are seeking truly immersive experiences when they’re on vacation, their lodging is an integral part of that. They want their time inside the walls of their hotel to be as magical as the time spent adventuring, so they’ll choose accommodations that complement their story.

Here are seven ways to create authenticity in your hospitality marketing campaigns to let travelers know that you are who you say you are.

1. Be true.

Tell the truth. Be up front about pricing and policies. Respond in earnest to comments on social media. Be willing to admit when you messed up – and be willing to admit when you’re so proud of something you could burst. Be good stewards of your surrounding community and the planet as a whole.

This is a concept that’s simple in theory, but can be difficult to execute when times are tough. However, sharing with a voice that’s honest and humble (even when it’s a humblebrag) goes a long way toward showing travelers that you walk the walk.

2. Promote what you’re proud of.

Have you recently invested in touchless technology? Create a demo video and show it off on social media. Do you think your breakfast is to die for? Interview guests as they’re eating and get their genuine reviews. The key here is to say, “Isn’t this so cool? We love it!” in a conversational (even giddy!) way that lets your audience know that you’re just as in love with travel as they are.

You can use this technique not only with the things your property is already known for, but those little-known perks that will surprise and delight.

3. Use real people in your marketing.

For years, the trend has been to hire beautiful models to represent hotel properties, but what guests want to see now are people who look like them, having fun at your property. It creates a sense of relevance and shows potential guests that they’ll truly feel comfortable at your destination.

Take a look around your property – what do your guests actually look like? How old are they? What do they wear? We’re not suggesting you part ways with high-quality imagery or mood-inducing videos – those are still essential for giving guests a feel for what their stay will entail. What we are saying is that within your content, choose voices and faces that truly represent your guests.

One great example is this video from Skylodge Adventure Suites that shows real guests enjoying their time at this unique, experiential destination.

4. Assure your guests that it’s safe to visit, and back it up.

While travelers are once again hitting the road in droves, that doesn’t mean they do it without some hesitation. According to a recent survey, more than 70% of travelers said they expect information on things like rebooking options, cancellation policies, and cleaning protocols to be readily available before they book.

Meltdowns in airline operations, skyrocketing prices for gas (and everything else), and the knowledge that the pandemic isn’t quite a distant memory are the likely reasons for wariness. One way to be authentic is to show them that you truly understand where they’re coming from. Use your marketing campaigns to be loud about your flexible policies, and be committed to reassuring guests that if the unforeseen happens, you have them covered.

5. Show off your personality on TikTok.

With all the trends, challenges, user-generated content, and influencer opportunities, brands are realizing that TikTok is no longer just for the Gen Z teen set. Travel-industry site Skift.com reports that hotels are flocking to the vastly popular social media app and seeing great success – particularly the small luxury properties.

While it should only be one slice of your hospitality marketing pie, it’s absolutely perfect for showing off who you are as a brand and letting guests know what they can expect from their visit. One example from the Skift article that especially stood out to us is this influencer video for Ladera Resort in St. Lucia.

6. Authenticity is internal, too.

The Great Resignation showed us that after generations of “traditional” work life, employees understand that they deserve better from their employers. Investing in your internal teams will reflect outwardly in the way they deal with customers on-site and the enthusiasm they share for the property. A well-loved workforce can become your biggest cheerleaders.

You might even consider turning them into the stars of your social media campaign to serve as an authentic voice from someone on the inside.

7. Make it personal.

A simple question on an online reservation form like “Are you traveling for a special occasion?” opens the door to make a guest feel welcomed and relevant at your property. If it’s a birthday, put a card inside the room or leave a cupcake with a sweet note. If it’s an anniversary, offer the couple a voucher for a meal. If it’s a girls’ weekend away, suggest an itinerary that showcases not only your property, but the surrounding area.

This is one way to succeed at personalization without having to read guests’ minds. Simply ask them why they’re coming, then make it special when they arrive.

 

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To Show Pricing or Not To Show Pricing? The Big Question for Event Venues

in Event Venues, General Marketing Insights, Websites by Ally Cardello

As proven marketing experts in the wedding and event venue industry, our clients come to us looking for advice and strategy on a wide-range of topics. One of the most common queries we receive is: “Should I show my pricing on my website?” While it seems like this question should have a simple yes or no answer, it’s more complicated than you’d think.

The reason this answer is complex is that prospective couples will react to rates differently as they move through the three phases of their buying journey before making a final venue selection. These stages are: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. In this post, we’ll explore the pros and cons of displaying your pricing at each stage of the customer journey so you can make an informed decision.

First, let’s pinpoint where the concern comes from. A common fear is that displaying a price range on your website could inadvertently close the door to under-budget prospects. The alternative is not displaying prices which can generate more inquiries and allow for the opportunity to upsell clients later on in the sales process. However, if your resources are stretched thin, do you want to dedicate time and effort to nurturing a prospect who can’t afford to host with you? If you’re still debating, keep reading.

Initial Survey of Venues

AKA the Awareness Stage

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: A thoughtfully designed, informative wedding and event venue website is key to attracting clients at the outset of their research. According to Pardot, 72% of all prospective buyers turn to Google as they commence their research for a purchase. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re looking for pricing specifically. In fact, it’s probably the furthest thing from their minds.

At this stage, potential clients are looking for basic information about your venue. They want to dig into the details about what services you provide (as well as those you don’t). They’re also looking at how successfully your venue and staff have executed events in the past via evocative imagery, testimonials, videos, and galleries of real weddings.

Right now, your clients are dreaming big and your job is to prove that your venue is their dream come true. It’s not that budget isn’t a priority for couples at this stage, it’s just not as top of mind as envisioning their perfect wedding. High quality design, photography and videography, and strategically optimized site content go a lot further than price points at this initial stage.

  • Displaying pricing at the Awareness stage works for: Smaller venues who can’t dedicate resources to nurturing leads that may not work out, venues seeking “off-season” clients and are consistently booked the rest of the year, banquet halls and restaurants as weddings are not their bread and butter.

A List of Prospects

AKA the Consideration Stage

Once couples begin to consider your venue as a potential setting for their wedding, cost becomes more of a priority. It’s during the Consideration phase that venues can begin presenting options regarding everything from catering to entertainment and guest lodging.

Full-service or all-inclusive venues tend to be more expensive because they offer their couples so much more than just a setting. However, seeing that pricing in the initial Awareness stage before you’ve had a chance to really demonstrate the value you offer can result in sticker shock among those couples who have just started their search. The goal is to make them fall in love with your venue at first sight and then discuss the details once you’ve already made their list. Gated content and e-brochures are the perfect tools at this Consideration stage. You can offer a pricing sheet or brochure for download on your site in exchange for some basic contact information. In this piece, it’s important to try to highlight what couples will get when they book a package with you versus other venues. They’re already comparing you to your competition, so make your venue the obvious choice!

  • Displaying pricing at the Consideration stage works for: Medium size venues, destination wedding venues, and venues with several upsell options to offer clients such as on-site lodging, spas, hosted attractions and activities, and more.

Choosing a Venue

AKA the Decision Stage

Once your prospective couples have reached this phase they should already know a good deal of information about your venue. You’ve likely even discussed pricing organically with them, even if it’s just via a brochure or pricing sheet. So, at this stage, you really just want to make everything crystal clear for them so they feel confident that they’re making the right decision in choosing you. Now is when you’ll want to present them with a customized and streamlined price list so they can determine the final cost of their wedding or event. Presenting too many options (and price ranges) can lead to decision paralysis and your emails and calls will start to go unanswered.

  • Displaying pricing at the decision stage works for: Large or very high-end venues with target clients to whom pricing is no object and is often an afterthought.

So, What Now?

At Hawthorn Creative, we understand why event venues struggle with the choice to communicate pricing parameters to customers. Competition is fierce and every couple is different. However, when you sign on to create a beautiful and powerful website with us, our team of designers, content creators, and strategists will guide you to ensure you’re giving your prospects the information they need every step of the way towards “I do!”

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The Elements of Good, Modern Website Design: Inside LaBelle Winery’s Website

in Event Venues, General Marketing Insights, Hotels & Resorts, Photography & Video, Websites, Wineries by Catherine Shane

LaBelle Winery may have started in the backyard barn on the owner’s residential property back in 2008. But, much like a fast-growing grapevine, the operation has remarkably outgrown those meager beginnings. Moving into their 11-acre Amherst, New Hampshire, headquarters in 2012, the boutique winery now boasts more than just award-winning red and white blends made from hearty grapes grown on-site, but an entire brand. We’re talking a farm-to-table bistro, culinary line and market, cooking classes, art gallery, and one of the most beautiful settings for weddings and events in the Granite State. The growth didn’t stop there either: In addition to acquiring their Portsmouth-based tasting room and store in 2017, they also opened a third location in Derry in 2021, home to another market, restaurant, winemaking facility, tasting barn, and a nine-hole, par-3 golf course.

So you could imagine the surprise when a visit to their winery website didn’t exude the same level of quality that exists in all their stunning facilities and operations. In fact, instead of growing with the brand as it evolved into this leading New England food and beverage experience, the website felt a bit like it was stuck – back in the days of 2008 when the brand was still working out of a barn. And not only did they have just one dated site, but three: one dedicated to the wine brand, one to the restaurant bistro, and one to the event and catering side of the operations. Here’s a look at how Hawthorn Creative, a full-service marketing agency specializing in website design, built a new site that brought all aspects of the brand under one umbrella while staying true to the principles of good website design.

>> DOWNLOAD OUR FREE E-BOOK: 6 Essential Questions to Vet a Website Design Agency <<

The Old Website Design

A before and after image of LaBelle's old website versus new

In short: The websites felt a little dated with not a lot of customization. A bright yellow header (the brand’s color) and footer took attention away from the content, which, in some places – like the “Our Story” page – was also excessively heavy, causing the reader to become unfocused and abandon the page. And while the sites did feature images, there was little use of hero images – big eye-catching images that, in good website design, are usually seen in the above-the-fold zone of the webpage to capture the user’s attention and compel them to want to click around. Rather, they were small and resembled thumbnails, with placement and size that felt like an afterthought.

The New Custom Website Design: Starting with the Navigation & User Journey

example-of-LaBelle-Winery's-navigation

Yes, multiple sites can be beneficial, especially for companies made up of multiple brands or offering different products to wildly different customer bases. But since LaBelle is one brand with the same target audience across their offerings, they really didn’t require all the different domains. And by bringing their entire brand under one umbrella site, it would surely help their SEO. The challenge was determining how we were going to incorporate all elements of the three sites into one that was also easy to navigate and intuitive to users.

That meant looking closely at how we were going to organize the navigation by pages. Here’s what we landed on:

  • “About”
  • “Experience LaBelle” – Outlining the different winery locations.
  • “Wedding & Events”
  • “Public Events” – The brand’s event calendar and upcoming cooking classes.
  • “The Winemaker’s Kitchen” – The brand’s culinary line.
  • “Shop” – The e-commerce portion of the site, where people could actually buy the wine and culinary products online.
  • “Contact”

We then used a mega menu – a type of expandable menu in which multiple choices are displayed when you hover over a certain label. This helped to accommodate a large number of options and for revealing lower-level site pages at a glance.

A Few Other Examples of How We Did It: The Elements of Good Website Design

Splashy Show-Stopping Visuals

high quality visuals

When it comes to websites, images serve as both eye candy and informational tools – helping to increase time on site by capturing the attention of the visitor and causing them to linger longer, as well as conveying messages without lengthy copy.

In the case of LaBelle Winery, they came with a library of roughly 20 strong images, which we planned to use large to draw people into the winery and brand experience, unlike their previous website’s “thumbnail-image” approach. And to better round out that collection and what we were working with, our agency also reached out to local photographers who had shot weddings and events at the venue to source additional images – not just for the wedding and events pages of the website, but just any general vineyard or property photography that we could use on other pages of the site. Showing diversity and inclusivity was also at the forefront of our image selection, something that is expected in this day and age.

Animation & Movement

animation and movement

Animating elements of a website offers designers and developers a powerful tool for increasing engagement. Sure, it generally looks cool, but it also makes your website feel more responsive and intuitive to your users. However, there is such a thing as too much movement or animation, resulting in confusion or distraction.

With so much content that was going to live on LaBelle’s website, we wanted to use animation not just because it’s en vogue, but as a way to guide users through the pages. Images and text appear to fade into the page, blocks slide in from offscreen, images move slightly when hovered over, buttons morph in response to clicks. The key is that it’s all done in a subtle and intentional way to help move the users along through the site. One of our favorite features is how when you load a new page, the logo set below the hero image bounces ever so slightly so that you feel compelled to scroll down and follow it.

Updated Color Palette that is WCAG Level-A Compliant

updated color palette

Never underestimate the power of color in website design. Color increases brand recognition, attracts attention to important website elements, and can even stir emotions within the users.

The issue with LaBelle Winery’s old site is that it didn’t really have a color palette: just their main LaBelle yellow and then a bold black. In fact, as we were designing the new site, we found that the particular yellow often failed to pass WCAG compliance when used as a hover feature. So, while we made sure to work in that Labelle yellow in various places, we also built out a palette of complementing colors in shades of taupe and grey that did pass contrast standards.

Integration of Other Parts of the Website through Card-Based Design

card-based design

Popularized by the image-sharing site, Pinterest, card-based web design has been steadily growing in popularity over the past few years. In LaBelle’s website, we use a series of image cards – an image plus basic information, such as a title, contained in a block, a.k.a. “card” – at the top and bottom of main landing pages to help guide users into the natural next step of the buyer journey.

For example, when you load the About page, the image cards slide in below the header, offering up links to other pages that a user might naturally take the next step to, such as “Our Wine Collection,” “Tasting & Tours,” “Weddings & Events,” “Becoming A Member” and “Products & Gifts.” So users are not just hearing the story of how the winery began, they are then being chauffeured to additional core pages on the website to streamline their journey to conversion.

Sidebars That Lock & Guide You

Sidebars-That-Lock-&-Guide-You

An additional component of website navigation, a website sidebar is a column placed to the right or left of a webpage’s primary content area that is commonly used to display supplementary information for users, like email signup forms, social media links, and navigation links to key pages.

In the case of LaBelle, we used sidebars as navigation menus to quickly guide the visitors to the other sub-pages within that page. Utilizing fixed-positioning, these sidebars lock into place – meaning they stay fixed on the screen as you scroll – so they are ever-present, helping to encourage clicks to other parts of the site rather than a user finishing their perusal of the content, then abandoning it.

RELATED READING

4 Destination Marketing Campaigns We Dig Right Now

in Brand Strategy, Content Marketing, Destination Marketing Organizations, Hotels & Resorts, Photography & Video, Real Estate Management Companies by Catherine Shane

Do you feel it? Like a toddler taking his or her first tentative steps, slowly but surely, traveler confidence is returning – and it’s ramping up as more and more people receive their COVID vaccinations. IATA’s latest traveler poll backs this notion, even noting that 68 percent of those surveyed say their quality of life has suffered from the lack of travel. They’re rearing to get back out there and make up for lost time.

So for DMOs (destination marking organization), tourism agencies, travel brands, and even hotels, after a year of pivoting, reimagining, and relaunching your campaigns, it’s time to start thinking about your content plans and messaging – yet again. Which is why we’ve compiled this list of the latest and greatest travel marketing campaigns that our destination marketers have recently taken note of, plus some key takeaways from each to inform and inspire your own upcoming strategies.

“The Saskatchewander”

By TourismSaskatchewan

TourismSaskatchewan's The Saskatchewander

While this annual campaign was actually first spearheaded back in 2011, it’s reinterpreted each year in a new and colorful way. Created by the travel authority for the Saskatchewan Canadian Province in collaboration with the region’s Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Parks, Culture, and Sport, the campaign awards one lucky content creator the title of “The Saskatchewander,” in which he or she is tasked with exploring the beautiful prairie province over the course of one full year. While the “job” includes a small salary and all expenses covered, in exchange, each Saskachewander is required to blog about their experience, promote the destination, and capture a wide variety of content (which actually fulfills certain content needs for all four of the partnering organizations). The campaign’s hub lives on a separate micro-site, with that year’s featured Saskachewander’s content living on the main homepage, followed by separate pages that catalog all previous content from previous ambassadors. The content is also pushed out by The Saskatchewander’s social accounts, which currently boast a collective amount of 130,000 followers across its primary channels of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

  • Key Takeaway: Working with a tight budget? The beauty of an ambassador campaign like this is it allows you to harness the power of high-quality user-generated content to help tell the story of your destination or hotel. The fact that it’s supported by multiple organizations makes it all the more achievable to do, as well.

“Can’t Skip Tomorrow”

By Visit Portugal


Launched in January of 2021 by Portugal’s tourism board, the series of 1-minute-30-second videos targets the country’s core visitor markets of the UK, France, Spain, Germany, and Spain to promote not just a return to the destination through breathtaking scenery, culture, and experiences in stunning videography, but responsible, sustainable tourism. Each video is narrated by the voice of a child, speaking in that country’s native tongue, while talking about Portugal’s natural wealth. The voice says it “comes from the future” and wants nature to be cared for, so that we can all continue to travel and discover new destinations.

  • Key Takeaway: The series serves as a rallying cry for unity, which is something particularly powerful right now, given how much the pandemic, among other things, has drastically separated the world. Rising together, working together, and coming together (safely, of course) is a powerful campaign theme that is ripe for destinations to play up.

“What If”

By Visit California

Visit California's What If campaign

Since 2013, Visit California has centered its inspirational travel messaging to California as a place where everyone can “Dream Big.” To reignite lust for travel and get people thinking about coming to the Golden State, this latest campaign poses a series of questions that center around “What If?” For example: What if money was no object and you could splurge your way across the state? Or what if you could travel back in time to explore California’s fascinating history? What if you could experience total isolation or nonstop adventure? Informative travel-related content aimed at answering these questions live within each pillar on the campaign’s dedicated “What If” page.

  • Key Takeaway: People are eagerly daydreaming about the next getaway, so the more you can feed into their aspirations and promote the power of possibility through your destination, the more likely you are to hook them.

“Helsinki Freedom”

By Helsinki Marketing

Helsinki Marketing's “Helsinki Freedom” campaign

Launched sometime in late 2020 by the marketing company that is owned by the City of Helsinki, this mini-documentary series is aimed at those considering making a permanent move to Finland’s capital by celebrating what life really is like here. Their unique approach to doing so? Enlisting a selection of five hand-picked creators – all transplants to the city actually – to explore the concept of what Helsinki freedom means to them. The episodes each tackle specific pillars about what makes the city unique, like the freedom to have access to nature, the freedom to have a high-quality education, and the freedom to love whoever you want. The result is a powerful and comprehensive form of storytelling that is 10 times more effective than a basic list of reasons about why you should live here.

  • Key Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to leverage your local ambassadors in your marketing. They are the ones who know your destination intimately and have the best stories to share that will motivate and inspire your audiences.

RELATED READING

7 Ways that Wedding Venues Should be Using Instagram Stories Highlights

in Event Venues, Social Media Marketing by Catherine Shane

Maintaining a cohesive Instagram grid, frequently posting, and responding to those who engage with your venue is essential to scoring a strong social media strategy. So give yourself a pat on the back if you’re doing that and doing it well. But then, it’s time to get back to work. Because maintaining your grid is only part one if you want to reach more couples on Instagram. Next, comes harnessing the power of Instagram’s Stories feature. If you’re not already regularly posting to your Stories, you’re missing out on two additional and critical touchpoints: A way to bypass Instagram’s algorithm by putting your content quite literally at the top of their feed when you post frequently and using those Stories to grow the content that you pin to your Highlights Reel – the latter which we are focusing on in this post.

Take Control of Your Wedding Venue’s Social Media Strategy: One-on-One Social Media Consultations

So why the need to maintain and create content for a Highlights Reel in the first place? After all, isn’t capturing and telling the story of your venue experience the whole point of maintaining your account’s photo grid in the first place? Yes, it certainly is, but think of your grid more like a hand-selected portfolio of your best content and photography, whereas your Highlights can cover more ground and share more insights into your property that might not naturally make it into your grid because, well, it would interrupt the flow or it simply doesn’t have visual pizazz.

So without further adieu, here are seven ideas for content that wedding venues should be featuring in their Instagram Stories Highlights that couples crave. Some you may be doing already (pat yourself on the back again), while some you may want to add to your arsenal asap.

Virtual Tours of Your Venues

Tour-the-property-virtually

This is perhaps one of the most obvious ways to use this feature, yet one so many wedding venues don’t do, which is quite a misstep especially given the recent pandemic, where couples want to be able to scope out your venue before even thinking about touring the grounds in-person.

You can create a Highlight category simply titled “Venue,” like historic Spanish revival Muckenthaler Mansion has done in their reel, then pin any Story content that has broadly shown off your venue here. Or, if you’re a property with multiple venues or spaces, you can go the route that Southern Cali’s Rancho Las Lomas has and create independent Highlights for each, allowing couples to get a great sense of each of the individual spaces, like how they’ve been used, decorated, and enhanced by other couples. Remember, the content here can be a combination of still photos and videos, and they don’t have to be perfect – the quality of the imagery in Highlights is always much more forgiving than what’s expected in your grid.

Real Weddings

Using-Your-Highlights-Reel-for-Real-Weddings

Couples – particularly those of the millennial generation – love to see examples of real weddings, especially as they’re researching a wedding venue. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a way to help them not just get a sense of the experience at your property, but how other couples used it as something to envision or aspire to.

While you can certainly work in real weddings into the posts on your grid, it’s almost easier for a user to locate them and flip through them all at once when they live in your Highlights. In fact, when revitalizing and re-launching the social media presence for one of our clients, The Vine, a vineyard wedding venue in Houston, Texas, this was the approach we took. Within the Highlight, each featured real wedding couple receives their own set of slides, first featuring their photo and name in branded typography (you can use a tool like Canva to do this), followed by various wedding detail shots from their big day.

BTS, Better Known as “Behind the Scenes”

People would rather do business with people, not faceless companies, and posting behind-the-scenes moments further enhances this feeling and can work wonders for converting followers to customers.

For venues, that might mean posting a behind-the-scenes look at your wedding planning team in action the day of and during a wedding. Or, if you do all food and beverage on-site, your chef discussing a main entrée as he/she plates it up for an event. Or even just showing a nook on property where you like to finish up your paperwork. It could also be just a magical moment captured impromptu on your property, like, say, the fact that your property’s rose garden suddenly bloomed overnight or there was a paddling of ducks passing through to a nearby pond. One venue to take BTS notes from: the North Carolina farm wedding venue of The Barn of Chapel Hill.

SOLUTION

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Reviews & Testimonials

It’s no secret that when considering a big purchase – such as booking a wedding venue – potential customers rely heavily on what other customers have to say in the form of testimonials. It’s a big part of why The Knot even exists – to rate vendors and venues based on the opinions and experiences of other customers.

So when you receive a glowing review – whether in the form of a personal email, text, or online review on such platforms as The Knot, Wedding Wire, Facebook, and beyond – a natural place to share it is in your Highlights. Simply screenshot it (careful to block out any personal info if the praise was sent via email or text) and share, much like Crossed Keys Estate’s “Reviews” Highlight does. In fact, this New Jersey-based 200-year-old estate venue shares everything from their latest reviews on The Knot and Google to personal ones sent from past clients via emails, texts, and even hand-written letters.

Sharing UGC (User-Generated Content)

Sharing-UGC-(User-Generated-Content)

The beauty of UGC is that it’s content you don’t have to create (saving you much-needed time), plus, much like a testimonial, it shows your venue from your customer’s perspective, which can be more validating and trustworthy to your audience.

While you can work UGC content across Highlights, you can also feature one individual Highlight dedicated solely to this kind of content. Again, we do just this for our client, The Vine, with their “@TheVine” Highlight that shares content that users have either tagged or featured an @ mention for the venue.

Inspiration & Ideas

You know weddings, and you know the latest trends. In fact, you see them all the time captured in the very weddings you host. Position yourself as resource couples need by creating a Highlight around wedding inspiration and ideas exclusively.

Philadelphia Terrain Events does this with their “In the Field” and “Winter” Highlights, where they show inspirational tablespaces, floral arrangements, ceremony seating, creative signage, food displays, and more under the respective themes of outdoor weddings and winter weddings. The more informative info you can offer, especially when it comes to planning their wedding, the more couples will engage with your content.

FAQs or Q&As

FAQs-or-Q&As

Get a lot of the same questions from couples? What better way to answer those questions preemptively than with a dedicated Highlight. Of course, it’s not to deter them from reaching out – engagement is key – but it can help save you and them some time.

Nestled in the hills south of Nashville, Tennessee, Allenbrooke Farm features a FAQs Highlight that lists information like available wedding dates for the remainder of the year, when they are officially booking out for the following year, and other random facts like that they offer flexible payment plans, property tours via Facetime, and that half of their bookings are for destination weddings. Other ideas might include fun facts about your property or general need-to-know information. Or, you could put your followers in the driver’s seat by using the questions sticker feature to allow them to submit questions for you to answer, which you then later pin to this Highlight.

RELATED READING

Our Favorite (Free) Tools to Have in Your Content Marketing Toolbelt

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

Y ou know the value of creating and distributing content for your business or brand. It’s what powers your SEO, social, and email strategies, bringing consumers to your website. But content marketing is not just reserved solely for top-of-funnel tactics, it’s what moves your consumers into the consideration phrase, bringing your brand to life in a way standard marketing simply can’t, finally leading to conversion by aligning the topics you talk about with perfectly matched CTAs. Heck, this very blog post is a form of content marketing.

So how do you develop a great content strategy that is going to achieve results? For one, you can partner with a content marketing agency, like Hawthorn Creative, to do all the heavy lifting in terms of strategy, development, implementation, and reporting, so you can better focus your energy on other important business needs. But if that doesn’t seem to be in the budget (and it actually might, don’t be shy about reaching out), then you need to strap on that tool belt and get to work. What’s that? Your toolbelt’s empty? Here are some of our favorite free tools to help you hammer down a beautiful content strategy.

For Content Creation & Writing

HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator or Portent’s Idea Generator

We can’t even begin to tell you how many clients come to us scratching their heads over what they should even write about (our team of content experts – adept at finding the most novel and intriguing angles with regard to any subject – practically have content ideas coming out of their ears). If doing it yourself, the smartest approach is to take stock of what are some of the most common questions, challenges, pain points that come directly from your audience and shape your content ideas around that.

However, if you simply need some inspiration or some help crafting catchy titles for your next blog post, these two topic generator tools can help. Just  type in a noun related to your topic (up to five nouns in Hubspot’s tool), and see what they spit out to find something that sticks. Just be aware: These tools don’t do any research around keywords or give you any information on top content in your market. Which leads us to our next tool.

Answer The Public

There are dozens of keyword research tools out there, everything from Moz Keyword Explorer, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, SEMRush’s Keyword Overview, to good’ old Google Search Console. While many of these applications start with free queries, they usually eventual require some sort of paid subscription to search more queries or get more insights into the volume and competition level of keywords.

However, such tools can be overwhelming if you’re not already relatively steeped in keyword research. For a very user-friendly and visual keyword tool compiler, Answer The Public, visualizes search questions and suggested autocomplete searches in a “search cloud” image that tackles the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why, plus “how,” “can,” “are,” “which,” and “will”) that people are currently searching around the topic. So like Portent, all you have to do is input a topic, brand, or product (we suggest one to two words for best results) and it will spit out instant, raw search insights.

Grammarly

While we have staff copyeditors who get their eyes on every bit of content we pump out, this might be a bit luxury for your company. Still, the value of good grammar can’t be understated when it comes to best presenting your business or brand.

Enter this digital writing assistant that acts as a personal copyeditor, from grammar and spelling to style and tone. In the desktop app, simply drop your document (upload or copy and paste) into the online editor and let the AI get to work analyzing each sentence and looking for ways to improve it, whether it’s correcting a verb tense, suggesting a stronger synonym, or offering a clearer sentence structure. There’s even a browser extension that allows you to check your writing in email, Google Docs, and within your website CMSs.

SOLUTION

Take Your Content Strategy into the Stratosphere

Content marketing is the engine powering all of your digital channels – without it, you’re going nowhere

Create Content That Compels

For Visual Content Development

Unsplash

We live in the age of Instagram, where stunning visuals aren’t just a treat, they’re an expectation. That’s why when brands boost their content with graphics, visuals, and images, they see higher engagement, more shares, and more actions taken. So what do you do if you don’t have a photographer or designer at your fingertips? At the very least, you should always be pairing your blog content with high-quality imagery. Unsplash is one of the best places to find free images, plus one of the largest (it is now used more than Getty, Shutterstock, and Adobe Stock combined) that is constantly growing. In fact, brands – like S’well, The New York Public Library, and Curology – are now even using it as their own visual marketing channel, proving that this is a visual content resource you’ll want to keep your eye on.

Adobe Spark and Canva

Both these tools are great for people who need to create visual content rapidly without a professional graphic designer, with thousands of pre-designed templates to choose from and a drag-and-drop editor that allows you to customize your creation. As for what you can create, with the exception of Adobe Spark also allowing you to create web page designs, both are used for anything from flyers to logos to cards; however, they are particularly popular when it comes to creating video and graphics for social posts. Our opinion is that Canva is a bit more user-friendly with an interface that is more intuitive.

ThingLink

One of the features that Canva and Adobe Spark lack is the ability to make your graphics interactive – after all, one of the ways to get consumers to engage more and longer with your content is to make it interactive. Skyrocketing in popularity during the pandemic among teachers as way to create audio-visual learning materials for remote learning, this software provides users with the ability to make interactive images, videos, and 360 content with links to share on social media (or you can upload your own images, add icons, and link back to your website or blog). It’s also easy to customize so you can match the look and feel of your brand.

SOLUTIONS

Eye-Catching Visuals is a Marketing Must

Turn browsing into booking with photography and videography that captures your unique brand experience.

Elevate Your Arsenal of Imagery

For Content Distribution

Really Good Emails

No, it’s not an email marketing software – just our content and email strategists’ favorite resource for curated email inspiration (not to mention, we love the brand’s killer tone – think informative, but cleverly funny). Essentially, they’ve taken thousands of real-life email examples and cataloged them across industries and types (everything from marketing newsletters to product launch emails to password resets to customer appreciation, and on). Not only can you access any email in the collection to see a visual design, they also provide insight into the frequency of email sends, the email service provider, the readability of the email (like whether or not images have alt text, etc.), plus, the actual code behind each design. So when it comes to pushing out your content via email, this is a resource that shows what’s on trend in terms of email strategy, why it works, and how you can do it for yourself.

Linktree or InstaBio

Gone are the days of having to constantly change your Instagram bio link if you’re looking to share more than once piece of content (and after all, so many businesses would rather reserve that one linkable feature for their website url). However, thanks to new bio link tools, like Linktree or Instabio, brands can now easily create a landing page – kind of like a micro page – containing all your pertinent links (so think homepage URL, latest featured blog content, various pages from your website) to encourage clicks to other places. Then, the link to that mini-page is what you then put in your single Instagram link. The only con is that the landing page in these tools is often not super customizable to your brand style guidelines, unless you’re willing to pay for a subscription.

For Overarching Strategy

For additional content marketing insights, we’ve created a handful of our own downloadable guides, covering a range of subjects from how to make your social media account stand out (types of posts, ideal frequency, other ways to use Instagram or Facebook features) to managing a blog as your content hub and distribution point strategies. While we’ve catered the following guides to a few of our core client types (hotels and event venues), there’s still translatable lessons to be learned no matter your industry.

A FEW OF OUR DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT GUIDES

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