Must-Have Event Venue Marketing for Each Stage of the Wedding Buyer’s Journey

in Content Marketing, Event Venues by Kristen Noonan

Note: This blog post is a follow-up to our video that walks you through the wedding buyer’s journey. In case you missed it, check it out here: Watch Video

The typical event venue hosts numerous annual corporate events, parties, and other functions for happy repeat customers year after year. But anywhere from 50 to 80% of their annual business comes from weddings. If this sounds familiar, you know the cold, hard fact: More than half your business needs to be replenished each year. This is a pretty significant marketing challenge, we know.

But on the plus side, venues that plan the right mix of marketing to attract and engage couples will not only drive interest and bookings but also free up their time to focus more on the creative and rewarding aspects of delivering amazing experiences for their guests. The secret is in avoiding the common pitfalls and aligning your marketing to the typical wedding buyer’s behaviors, preferences, and expectations during all four stages of their wedding journey. We’ll walk you through the hurdles and how-tos of formulating a wedding marketing strategy that gets your venue humming – and your guests happy.

Stage I: Awareness

Within days or hours (okay, minutes) of getting engaged, couples take to their phones and laptops. In the earliest stage of dreaming about and planning their wedding, couples are searching almost exclusively on wedding websites, blogs, and social platforms to find inspiration and information. Your first goal is to get your venue on their radar so they include you in the initial set of venues they’re considering.

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Make no mistake, even while couples are still riding the wave of excitement from getting engaged, they’re rolling up their sleeves and planning, too. According to WeddingWire’s most recent Newlywed Report, nearly half of couples start planning their wedding within a month of engagement – with researching venues at the top of their priority list. A combination of cross-platform paid and organic marketing (search marketing, advertising, paid social) is the first step in getting you noticed.

Search Marketing

Here’s where your attention to SEO starts to pay off. Investing in content and keyword strategies and optimizing your website can make or break your chances of being found when couples are searching for venues on Google. Since most large wedding and event sites dominate all of the major keywords in Google search, you should focus your SEO efforts on longer-tail keywords that further define your unique venue. For example, you’re not likely to rank high for a keyword phrase such as “weddings near Boston” (unless you pay for that ranking), but optimize your site for keyword phrases like “organic rustic farm weddings near Boston,” and you’re much more likely to rise to the top.

Incorporating paid search in your game plan is another way to stay in the same arena as the big guys when it comes to rising to the top of search rankings. While the wedding powerhouses in your region will likely dominate the SEO space as noted above, effective pay-per-click campaigns like Google Ads provide the quickest way to jump to the top of the page listings and grab your fair share of attention. Don’t make the “set it and forget it” mistake here. Be sure to research and fine-tune the keywords you’re trying to rank for and experiment and test out different creative, wording, offers, and CTAs to optimize your paid ads – and ultimately increase your conversion rates and ROI.

Digital Advertising

Chances are, we don’t need to convince you of the importance and value of paid advertising across the digital realm, especially with platforms like WeddingWire and The Knot topping the list of where couples turn to first. When 50 to 80% of your business depends on attracting new customers, advertising is a crucial part of your strategy. (Our one-and-only cautionary note: avoid the common mistake of focusing too much on advertising to the detriment of the later stages in the wedding buyer journey – more on that later.)

Take the time to understand the differences between each digital platform and custom-craft your profiles and listings with images and content that suit each one. Enticing couples to click through to your website is the name of the game. If you’re not already investing in social media ads targeting the newly engaged or investing in premium placement on venue-listing platforms, it’s time to consider it – especially with the dwindling likelihood that your organic posts will show up in the feeds of your target audience. Instagram and Facebook allow very granular targeting and are usually worthwhile investments for wedding venues. We have an entire e-book covering social media marketing for wedding venues (you can get your hands on a free copy here).

Stage II: Interest

At this point, couples have searched and browsed at length and their wedding is starting to take shape. They’ve maybe even drafted an initial list of venues they like. Now it’s time to roll up their sleeves, get more details, and decide which venues they’ll eliminate and which ones they’ll tour. They’ll dig deeper into social media, wedding websites, and your website to further vet their options and narrow in on their shortlist. They’re comparing venues on multiple levels, and if they can’t imagine themselves at yours, they’re crossing you off and moving onto the next.

Reputation Management

Here’s where reviews on social media, wedding websites, Google, Yelp, etc. make a huge impact. A whopping 77% of millennials look to online reviews to make a purchase, including big-ticket items like weddings. If you don’t already encourage couples who’ve had weddings at your venue to write a review on The Knot, Wedding Wire, Facebook, and Google Reviews, make sure to start now. Reviews are second only to price on the list of factors that most affect couples’ wedding planning decisions. They’re the digital equivalent of word of mouth that gives your venue credibility.

Organic Social Posts & Content

While you’re at it, enlist your brides and grooms to share their real-life wedding stories on social media and get their permission to post, tag, and share their stories as well (the fact that more than 50% of couples today create a custom wedding hashtag is a good sign you’ll get what you ask for). And by all means, when possible, profile your venue’s real weddings through blog posts, videos, and any outside media opportunities. Whenever and however you can get it, this type of real-wedding content extends your marketing reach, helps display the diverse mix of wedding styles your venue can accommodate, and adds color and flavor to your content that money can’t buy.

Website

This stage is also where all the time, effort, and resources you’ve put into building a fabulous website really pay off. All of the most important tactics in this stage point back to your website. In many cases, your website is the sole factor in whether you make the cut and get to greet the couple for a tour. Do this part well and you can expect to see a solid 10% or more of your website visits convert to site tours.

Keep in mind that four out of five couples shopping for their wedding are millennials, so digital research is second nature and phone calls are typically treated on an “only when necessary” basis (kidding, not kidding). Your potential customers want and expect to find the information and details they need to determine whether your venue will make the cut. So make sure your website not only serves up gorgeous images and inspiration but also covers important details like pricing, specs, options, packages, vendors, and all the other information these self-serve sleuths expect to find.

Last but not least, be sure to employ retargeting ad campaigns at this stage in the game to reengage with those who’ve visited your website and shown some interest level (e.g. have checked out certain key pages) but have not yet converted. Couples will be taking many pathways and visiting so many websites as they research that it’s all too easy for them to lose track of all the ones they want to revisit. Serving up ads through the Google Display Network is an effective way to remind them of your venue and get them back to your website to book a tour.

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Stage III: Site Tour

They’re here. Awesome. All your hard work and investment to make it through the preliminary stages have brought the couple to your door. Don’t blow it. The biggest mistake we see venues make is focusing too much on marketing tactics for the first stages and dropping the ball when they’re this close to the finish line.

Keep your eyes on the prize: Your job is to dazzle the couple – during and after their tour – and get them to sign. Avoid group tours with multiple couples during this stage. Millennials who’ve grown up in the “me generation” see this as a huge turn-off. That said, couples touring your venue inevitably have many other tours lined up (typically 3 to 5 venues make it to their shortlist), so you’ve got to take steps to ensure they remember all that they saw, felt, and loved about your venue after they’ve left.

Take-Away Material

In addition to making sure your venue is gleaming and your team presents a polished presentation, the single most critical action to round out your tour is to hand your prospects a beautiful brochure to take back home. Couples will turn to your brochure in the days following to help remember the feelings they experienced and dream about what their wedding would be like at your venue. And they’ll use it as a “show and tell” piece to describe your venue to family and friends. Don’t forget, they’re millennials, so just like you’ve done with your website, make sure your brochure and supporting materials such as menus, proposals, and other types of collateral make it easy for them to find all the details they need to make their final choice to host their wedding with you.

Stage IV: Booking & Wedding Day

Time to celebrate. Your combined marketing efforts across the wedding buyer’s journey have gotten you to the signed contract. With the average couple spending more than $29K on their wedding reception last year, your ROI should be well worth it.

We’d be remiss not to remind you to think about your marketing cycle as you toast the happy couple (hey, we’re marketers, after all). Don’t be shy about reaching out within a month or two after each wedding to enlist the couple to help spread the word about your venue through their social feeds and through their honest, detailed (and no doubt favorable) reviews. An email or phone call from a representative from your venue who worked closely with the couple would be the best way to reach out with this request. And lastly, make a note in your calendar to congratulate every couple on their one-year anniversary. Post a photo of their wedding on your Instagram page and tag the happy couple as well. Your efforts will mean a lot to the couple that you remembered, and you’ll spread a little more marketing love along the way.

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The Importance of the Med Spa Patient Experience: Q&A with Dr. Blackledge

in Brand Strategy, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Ally Cardello

When brands create emotional connections, they earn lifelong customers. The medical aesthetics industry is all about human connection, building relationships, and a personal touch. Dr. Adair Blackledge not only focuses on a holistic consultative sales methodology as covered in our previous post, A Successful Medical Aesthetics Consultative Sales Approach: Q&A with Dr. Blackledge, he also considers the patient experience a key part of his success. Putting patients’ goals, budgets, and needs above all else may seem like a recipe for high overhead and low margins. But, Dr. Blackledge has proven that doing just that is crucial, especially when trying to appeal to the millennial market.

When hiring for your practice’s team, what do you look for in candidates?

I don’t look for previous beauty or aesthetic experience. In fact, I’ve hired staff members who were kindergarten teachers and restaurant servers. That’s because the number-one thing I want in an individual is a focus on education and providing a fantastic experience. I can teach cosmetics and beauty, but I can’t teach a service-driven heart. Dedication to providing a white-glove experience is something you’re born with.

Since dedication to white-glove service is key, how does the typical client experience unfold in your practice?

The first thing they do is meet our skincare concierge in the skincare room. In addition to an advanced VISIA-skin-analysis computer imaging machine, this room has a display wall with every product that we carry. After we use the facial imaging software to show possible problem areas, the patient meets with the aesthetician to discuss their goals and the economics of skincare. Then, they have their treatments done before they go back to the skincare concierge who tailors their treatment plan based on the results they’re looking to achieve.

What common practice pitfalls do you think damage the patient experience?

When practices don’t discuss long-term budget with a patient. If you move forward with a treatment before you’ve talked about how much they can afford to spend on future procedures and skincare, it drives patients off. I don’t understand why medical aesthetics practices are afraid to discuss budget – it’s the only industry I’ve found where this happens. You go in to buy a car and the first thing they ask you is, “what are you looking to spend?” They don’t just start showing you around the lot without a price point in mind.

How does not being upfront about budget impact repeat business?

If you don’t talk to patients about their budget, then they leave feeling uncomfortable and thinking that they’re going to spend too much if they come back. Instead, you should ask at the beginning “How much can you budget for skincare?” or “How much are you comfortable spending?” Then, you can create a treatment plan that fits within that budget. I would rather my team work with patients to figure out how to get the best results within their budget than for patients to leave thinking they can’t afford skincare. Everybody can afford skincare, it’s just that some people can afford more skincare.

What other elements do you incorporate into the patient experience aside from white-glove service and goal-oriented skincare?

At the end of the appointment, after they’ve had their procedure, they meet with the skincare concierge again to develop an ongoing treatment plan together. Here, they get to sample as many products as they’d like (patients love to touch, feel, and smell). Then, they purchase the products they’ll need and schedule a return visit.

Aside from products and samples, do patients leave with other materials?

We don’t like to use brochures from external sources because a lot of them are wordy and scientific – not to mention, off-brand. When you hand those out, half of them end up in the parking lot. Rather, everything we hand off to patients is something we’ve created in the office. Our patients leave every appointment with a card that tells them what they’re supposed to do, a list of the products that they purchased, and what those products are designed for.

What other strategies do you have in place to support the customer experience and ensure repeat business?

The biggest thing for us is follow-up phone calls. Three days after every patient leaves, they receive a personal phone call asking about their experience, how they’re doing with their new product regime, and if they have their next appointment scheduled. We’ve found that 90% of patients have a question that they run into at home, or that they’re too nervous to ask in the office, so this makes them feel more comfortable. A simple phone call really makes all the difference in the world when it comes to building these relationships.

In terms of driving new business, what new demographics are developing more interest in skincare?

Men are really starting to get comfortable with skincare. When I saw Dove’s campaigns geared towards men using athletes like Brett Favre, that told me that this was an audience we should start marketing to. The second new market is millennials. Millennials are particularly interested in the products and services we offer.

How do you tailor your experience to the millennial market?

You have to treat millennials totally differently. They Google everything, so by the time they make it to you, they feel like they already know the answers. When you deal with millennials, you have to be educated because they’re going to question and research everything that you say.

The second thing is that millennials are very experience-driven because that’s the one thing that they can’t Google. Older generations love results, but millennials are looking for you to provide them with an amazing experience. You can’t research walking into an office and having it smell amazing, or the feeling of having someone put a hot towel on your face.

How do you reach millennial clients through marketing? What’s important to consider when speaking to them?

Being very active on social media is key. You also have to make sure that what you’re writing is very short and to the point and that you come across as an expert. They respect details and being informed, as it builds trust.

In addition to social media, do you do any print or traditional advertising?

No. We did up until about five years ago, but we found that it really wasn’t effective anymore. We now gear things more towards digital. We’re in the process of building a new website and blog and are planning on posting new blog content about once a week.

What advice would you give practices on their social media marketing strategy?

I think that practices can be on social media too much and post too often. Physicians also have a bad habit of being too scientific on this platform, as well. People don’t care if you can spout off big words or that you know every ingredient in a product. If you do these things, it’ll be boring and people will stop paying attention to you.

This blog post is Part 4 of our 4-part series, The Influence of On-site Tactics on Medical Aesthetic Practice Sales. Be sure to check out the other posts, including the first half of our interview with Dr. Blackledge on the formula for a successful consultative sales approach:

The Biggest Mistake Venues Make In Marketing their Wedding Business

in Event Venues, Hospitality Huddle Videos by Kristen Noonan

Watch Video

More than two million couples get engaged each year in the United States. So why aren’t you converting more of them to customers? In this 5-minute video, Hawthorn Creative’s CEO, Jessica Kaiser, looks at the journey couples take from getting engaged to selecting a wedding venue and uncovers the biggest mistake that event venues make in capturing their business.

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Note: Be sure to check out the follow-up blog post to this video that takes a deeper dive to break down the four phases of your customer’s journey and provide the tactics that will capture their attention (and their business) every step of the way:

Must-Have Event Venue Marketing for Each Stage of the Wedding Buyer’s Journey

Read About the Journey

Medical Aesthetics Consultative Sales: Q&A with Dr. Blackledge

in Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Print Marketing by Ally Cardello

Doctor Adair Blackledge isn’t your average facial plastic surgeon. With a background in fine art and a practice dedicated solely to the face, he sees each patient as a masterpiece just waiting to be perfected. Dr. Blackledge focuses on his client’s natural beauty, therefore, it’s no surprise that his practice’s sales approach is also an organic part of each client’s experience. Here, he shares what makes his office unique, how he sets his team up for success, and why incentivizing sales might be the wrong approach.

Can you provide a brief background of yourself and your business?

I’m a facial plastic surgeon and I’ve been working in the industry for 17 years. I have 13 aestheticians on staff and, on average, we see 100 patients a day. I’m also a key opinion leader for Obagi, SkinCeuticals, SkinMedica, and Revision Skincare lines. But, aside from skincare, my practice specializes in facelifts, neck lifts, and facial rejuvenation surgery.

Why the special focus on the face?

For one, I’m a perfectionist, so trying to do the whole body would drive me crazy. My background is in art so I look at the skin as a canvas: If my facelifts look really good, but the patients’ skin doesn’t, then I’m not maximizing my patients’ potential. That’s why I’m so big on making sure that our patients aren’t just doing injectables or surgery, but that they’re also taking great care of their skin. Not all of our patients are candidates for surgery or injectables, but 100% of them need great skincare.

So that means your practice is also selling skincare products? Do you incentivize your sales?

Yes, we sell products, but no, I don’t incentivize sales of those products. I firmly believe that if you have talented aestheticians that are really good at treatments and are passionate about what they do, then they’re going to sell products without being incentivized. Rather, I implement consultative sales strategies – equipping them with the right kind of tools and training, so they have the appropriate knowledge to inform and build trust with the patient.

But wouldn’t an incentive push your employees to sell more?

I think, no matter how good you are, when you take that approach, it can come across as sales-y. I personally don’t like the feeling of being pushed to buy something. I think it kills customer loyalty because, when patients sense that they’re being sold to, they realize that you’re not loyal to them, you’re loyal to the dollar.

People are always surprised to learn that we don’t incentivize sales, but, every year, we sell over one million dollars in products in the first four to five months alone. Clearly, this approach works.

You mentioned how your aestheticians are passionate. What other traits or skills do you look for when hiring employees?

For me, it’s not a must that candidates have previous beauty or aesthetic experience. They simply have to be service-oriented; they must have a genuine desire to help people. In fact, the majority of my employees did not work in the cosmetic industry before they started working in my practice. And that’s okay because as long as they have that natural desire to serve patients, they will also be eager to learn all the different ways that they can do that. And that’s where I come in to train and teach them.

Have you ever found any challenges with this hiring approach?

The only thing that might ever be an issue is an employee feeling uncomfortable with educating patients. But, if they don’t feel comfortable doing that, then I haven’t done my job correctly in hiring and training them.

Why is making sure employees are adequately equipped to educate patients so important?

Patients who are educated are going to be loyal to your practice. They realize that you’re going above and beyond because you believe that much in how the treatments and products can positively impact their life. It’s that whole idea of passion and the desire to serve again.

How do you train your team to ensure they have the appropriate knowledge?

First, every aesthetician needs to spend at least one year working in reception. They need to have answered a year’s worth of questions on products and services before they move into a treatment role. Then, they also need to be able to do every job in the building. They all train by shadowing other team members. All of my aestheticians can scrub in and assist me with surgery. That way, when they’re talking to a patient about a facelift, they can actually go into detail about what that experience is like as opposed to just talking about what they’ve seen and heard outside the practice.

What’s your number-one piece of advice for practices looking to implement this kind of holistic sales strategy?

You have to invest in it. The biggest mistake I see with other practices is that they want to sell a lot of products, but they don’t want to hire people to do that. You have to have people to educate patients – that’s the most important thing. You can’t cut corners to avoid overhead; you just won’t sell products that way.

This blog post is Part 3 of our 4-part series, The Influence of On-site Tactics on Medical Aesthetic Practice Sales. Be sure to check out the other posts, including the second half of our interview with Dr. Blackledge on the importance of the med spa patient experience:

How to Create a Cohesive On-site Medical Aesthetics Marketing Message

in Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Print Marketing by Ally Cardello

Making a strong impression in your office can go a long way toward earning repeat business from your existing clients. In Part 1 of our 4-part series on the influence of on-site tactics on medical aesthetic practice sales, How to Prepare Your Medical Aesthetics Staff for Consultative Selling, we led you through how to turn your team into a well-oiled sales machine. Now that your staff is geared up to provide your clients with an educational and inspiring experience, you need to make sure that you have the suite of collateral to match.

Your office is likely already filled with print pieces to engage your customers, but are they the right pieces? Do they feel luxurious? Do they set you apart with aspirational visuals and inspirational language? Do they spark emotion? If not, it’s time to revisit the tried and true and make it new.

When brands create emotional connections, they earn lifelong customers. This is the foundation upon which compelling and effective brands are built. But an impactful brand experience is not just about a pretty logo and soft colors. It’s about cultivating a set of values, experiences, and stories that a consumer can consistently count on and connect with. Medical aesthetic businesses already operate and thrive on human, in-person connections. This makes a strategic print presence key.

The first step is to rethink the focus of your materials. Yes, your customers need to be able to make educated decisions regarding their health and beauty, and you need to make sure that you’re informing them of the risks of certain procedures and the science behind why these solutions really work. But, that shouldn’t be the driving force behind these materials. Instead of starting with “what do I want my clients to know?” ask yourself “what do I want my clients to feel?” The answer to that question is where you will find the inspiration for crafting collateral that will resonate with your customers long after they’ve stepped outside your doors.

Here’s a look at some of the themes – and respective elements to employ – to inspire your in-office collateral.

Glamourous & Luxurious

Design Elements to Achieve the Look

Classic serif fonts, soft neutrals, shining metallics, strategic use of black and white

Brands to Look to for Inspiration

Vogue, Estée Lauder, Chanel

Happy & Lighthearted

Design Elements to Achieve the Look

Pops of color, beachy tones, smiling faces, whimsical typography, light/white backgrounds

Brands to Look to for Inspiration

Tiffany & Co, Lily Pulitzer, Vega Vitality

Comfortable & Informed

Design Elements to Achieve the Look

Pull quotes of facts and figures as opposed to walls of text, warm/comforting images, calming colors, soothing neutrals, storytelling

Brands to Look to for Inspiration

Olay, Dove, Fabletics

From logo and letterhead to service menus, on-site promotional materials, and more, we’ll make sure your collateral presentation is consistent with your brand message and catches the eye of your customer at every possible touchpoint.

This blog post is Part 2 of our 4-part series, The Influence of On-site Tactics on Medical Aesthetic Practice Sales. Be sure to check out the other posts:

Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 2 – Email

in Email Marketing, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Catherine Shane

We’ve already established in the first part of this series, Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 1 – Content, that, as an expert in the medical aesthetics field, your clients look to you to be a trusted interpreter to digest and distill the latest trends for them. And the most valuable tool for answering customers’ biggest questions and helping shape their future aesthetic treatment plans? Your custom blog content.

But that’s only half of the digital content marketing strategy puzzle. While well-researched, keyword-rich blog posts help deliver your information to prospective clients organically, to make your content truly go to work for you, you need to develop an attractive, on-brand vehicle that chauffeurs this information straight to your target audience. Yes, social media is one means of distribution – and a valuable vehicle, at that – but think of email as the Rolls-Royce. That’s because consumers prefer brands to communicate with them via email than any other medium, making it the number-one strategy to maximize ROI in content marketing plans.

So just as long as you have some sort of email delivering your content, you’re golden, right? Wrong. Your email design and content has to be as dialed in as your blog topics themselves. Otherwise, you run the risk of all that valuable content, which you’ve spent so much time on, falling on deaf ears.

Starting from Scratch vs. Working from a Basic Template

When it comes to building an email template, you have the choice to work off a template provided by an email marketing software (EMS) or to work with a developer to design and code one from scratch that can then be installed in the EMS of your choice (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Campaigner are all examples of EMS).

At Hawthorn, we’re of the mindset that designing an email template from scratch is best. While working with a designer and coder on an original template likely costs more, the end product is always more original, attractive and on-brand, and better designed with your goals in mind – and that’s worth it, because this is a template that you will be using again and again. However, when you work off of a basic template, there’s only so much personal stylization you can do – you might not have control of how certain fonts or colors will render, the size of the margins or padding, and more. Not to mention, it can be daunting if you have little email experience.

Creating the Design & Layout

Whichever you opt for (working from a basic template or starting from scratch), there are a few golden rules that you should follow to maximize client engagement.

Look at Other Campaigns for Inspiration

Especially if you’re starting your template design from scratch, it can be helpful for your designer to see examples of layout treatments you like (or don’t like). Check out ReallyGoodEmails.com, which boasts a curated collection of email and designs divided by categories.

Stick to Your Brand Guidelines

You’ll create brand confusion if your email doesn’t fit the vibe of your other brand collateral (see our other post, How to Create a Cohesive Medical Aesthetics Marketing Message). Make sure your company’s logo is worked into the design at the top of the email, and that you’re using on-brand colors and fonts. This will reflect that you’re the credibility behind your email message.

Order Content Blocks by Importance

Remember, the primary goal of this email marketing campaign is to drive clients to your blog content. While links to promotions or other services can be incorporated, it should come secondary to the blog content, so that readers feel that the campaign is giving genuine advice and not an attempt at an overt sell. Make the first section block dedicated to the blog post and largest in terms of presence (with an image and copy), followed by smaller sections.

Make Entire Content Blocks Clickable

To ensure clients aren’t missing out on opportunities to link to your content, make sure not just the call-to-action (CTA) is clickable, but the image and body copy are, too.

Make Sure It’s Responsive

An email template test may look great in your desktop’s inbox, but make sure to evaluate it on mobile, too, as font sizes or the padding and margins may render differently. This is definitely where having a designer/coder comes in handy to troubleshoot.

Keep it Short, Crisp & Clear

Most email readers spend less than 15 to 20 seconds scanning an email campaign. Incorporate headers and/or bullets as it helps clients quickly scan through your email message and click further depending on what interests them.

Include a Footer with Your Business Details

Often an afterthought, footers offer up important info about your brand – like your contact details, physical address, links to your social platforms, and subscription management – and they get plenty of action. And while providing an easy way to unsubscribe seems counterintuitive, it’s required by international consumer privacy laws, prevents spam complaints, and it helps build transparency and trust with your clients by giving them a simple way to opt-out if they choose to.

Writing the Email Content

No matter how fancy your email looks, if it’s devoid of well-written content, it won’t convert. Here are some tips to drive their actions.

Craft Short, But Enticing Teaser Copy

For the blog post section, in particular, you don’t want some dense paragraph that regurgitates the post altogether. Rather, aim for two to three sentences max that grab attention by arousing curiosity, raising a question, creating mystery, or promising a benefit.

Example: Are you one who associates Botox solely with anti-aging benefits? There are actually multiple uses for this magic serum that go beyond its traditional wrinkle-reduction uses – some of which might really surprise you.

Write Catchy Subject Lines

The above same principles apply to email subject lines, but they’re even more important – after all, subject lines are the first impression and what make you stand out in a client’s crowded inbox. Check out our post, 10 Effective Email Subject Line Tips to Get Your Messages Noticed, for some tried-and-true steps to boost your emails’ engagement.

Example: Did You Know Botox Does More than Treat Wrinkles?

Test for the Best Subject Line Approaches

The simplest A/B split test is to draft multiple subject lines, narrow it down to the best two, then send the same email – one with subject line A, the other with subject line B – to a small portion of your email list. Whichever subject line has a better open rate is the one you should send to the masses. The more tests you run over time, the more you learn what kind of subject lines your clients respond to most.

Examples:

A: 5 Surprising Uses for Botox Beyond Treating Wrinkles

B: Did You Know Botox Does More than Treat Wrinkles?

Craft Punchy & Compelling CTAs

CTAs should be short, crisp, and clear, and clearly tell users what you want them to do (i.e. the standard “Read More.”). But when you employ colorful or compelling language, it doesn’t just tell them what to do but motivates them to act. Always use imperatives, leverage power words, and incorporate FOMO to dress up the standard approaches.

Example: Crush Chronic Headaches & More

Finding a Perfect Frequency, Revisiting the Template & Implementing other Targeted Campaigns

While it depends on if and how often you are sending any other emails to your client list (i.e. transactional emails, special promotions, etc.), we suggest, at the very least, sending this marketing campaign once a month (this tends to be the norm for even the smallest businesses). If you’re managing to churn out more blog posts (say two to four a month versus the one, the bear minimum that we suggest), you could bump up your campaign frequency to twice a month – just be sure to evenly distribute the email sends (maybe send the 1st and 15th of each month), so that you don’t overwhelm your client list. Or, after a year or so, you could revisit the design of the template to feature more sections dedicated to blog posts to give your clients a wider set of topic options to encourage clicks.

Additionally, as you amass more content over time, you can implement additional campaigns that target specific types of clients with curated content. For example, for patients who have already had Botox treatments for facial wrinkles, an email with content about additional or alike procedures can help inform future treatments (i.e. “5 Medical Uses for Botox Beyond Treating Wrinkles,” “The Newest Injectables on the Market & What They’re Best for Targeting” and “3 Non-Invasive Treatments to Give Your Jawline That Extra Lift”). That way, you’re not just casting a large net with your monthly sends, but giving clients more dialed-in campaigns that truly aim to inform them.

Email Reporting & List Maintenance 

Regular analysis of your emails’ performances are key to informing and reshaping your future strategy. Whatever EMS you’re working in, there will be a section dedicated to “Reports,” where you can evaluate the opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes of each of your email sends. The most important stats to pay attention to are the open and click rates as they can tell you what subject lines (open rates) and content (click rates) did better over other sends to inform your future topics and approach.

Similarly, it’s important to do periodic updating and cleaning of your email contact list. For example, as you learn more about your clients, you should be updating it to store relevant data to target actions such as name, city, state, gender, service history, or blog posts/services of interest. But you should also pay attention to subscribers who are not opening the emails at all or who have not come in for a service in a while (say one year). Their lack of interaction will bring your email performance down, so it’s a good idea to remove them altogether, but it does not mean you have to delete them entirely. In fact, down the road, you should create a campaign targeted especially to these subscribers – something like a check-in as you haven’t heard from you in a while. It’s a great way to personalize an email to re-engage them.

This blog post is Part 2 of our 2-part series, Content & Email Strategy for Medical Aesthetics Companies. Be sure to check out the first post covering content marketing.

Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 1 – Content

in Content Marketing, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Catherine Shane

Buzzy new body contouring procedures and innovative injectables – new trends and technologies in the medical aesthetics industry seem to be cropping up every day. And as acceptance of cosmetic surgery among all demographics continues to increase – largely thanks to more effective non-invasive treatments and social media influencers making it mainstream – these trends will only keep coming.

As an expert in the medical aesthetics field – whether you’re a plastic surgeon or a med-spa or offering some combination of similar services – your clients look to you to be a trusted interpreter to digest and distill the latest trends for them. Give them this information, and it’s precisely what makes them loyal to your practice and trust you with whatever their future aesthetic treatment plan may hold. So where to start? By building up your blog presence, followed by an email strategy to get that content out (we tackle the email portion in Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 2). But first, here’s our roadmap for a content marketing plan and strategy that builds client trust, while fueling knowledge that empowers their future purchasing decisions.

Evaluate the Type of Content That Will Appeal to Your Clients

Before you dive in and start building your collection of content ideas, you’ll want to gauge what types of blog posts will perform best. Here are four places you can turn to get a sense of what matters most to your audience.

Common Client Questions

What types of frequent questions do you get from clientele when they are there for an on-site consultation? Is there confusion about what certain therapies/treatments do versus others? Say, liposuction versus body contouring – what are the differences and what treatment serves certain kinds of clients better? Your content is a way to answer customers’ biggest questions to help inform them and get them in the door.

Website Analytics

Use Google Analytics to dig into which pages on your website are getting the most visitors and highest-engagement levels. Are they spending more time on a particular page for certain services – say microneedling, drainless tummy tucks, 3-D imaging tech for best breast augmentation results, or other? Where the most time is spent is where you should brainstorm topics around.

Your Own Email Campaign Reports

Are you sending out any campaigns currently – transactional, news-related, list of services, other? What links within past email campaigns had the most clicks? This can also inform the kind of content topics people are responding to most.

Competitors or Like Brands

What kind of content, if any, are your competitors or other health and beauty brands pushing out on their own blog sites? Even if you don’t think it’s good content, it can still help you identify the kinds of topics or blog formats not to do.

Determine Post Frequency & Create an Edit Calendar

In general, the more posts you publish, the better the chances you’ll have of capturing more traffic (note: Google’s web crawler likes seeing regular posts and new content and will reward websites that do so with better search-page ranking). Ideally, for smaller companies, that’s posting once a week (three to four times a month). But be realistic: If you have no in-house marketer, you likely won’t have time for that frequency (however, our Hawthorn content team does and can help brainstorm, craft, and load content for you). So aim for at least one blog post a month to start, then stick to that frequency. 

To help you stay on top of writing and posting regularly, we suggest using a content calendar to plan out your topics and their publish dates – perhaps to coincide with a certain time of year (i.e., a post about “Top Tips For the Best-Looking Skin in the Heat & Humidity of Summer” should naturally go live during the summer months) or special promotions you might be running at those times. Something as simple as a Google or Excel sheet will work to corral this content plan.

Establish the Content Hub

Yes, this means your blog, the central spot where all content lives, and all clicks lead back to. Ideally, it lives on your website (for SEO impact). But if your site doesn’t have blog functionality, you can turn to building a blog in a subdomain (ex: blog.yourmedicalastheticcompany.com) and using a basic blog template as the starting point – Squarespace and WordPress both offer blog templates, many of which we have used for our clients.

If you currently have a blog, but it could use a little reformatting, refreshing, and redesigning to better showcase your content, you’ll want to work with a web developer to tweak the CMS template you’re currently working in (again, Hawthorn has our own web developers for help with this).

Write & Present the Content in a Way That Best Serves Your Clients

It’s not as simple as write, load, publish, and done. Here are a few ways to ensure your customers will actually read the content you have invested all this time and effort to get in front of them.

Easy-to-Digest Posts

We live in the age of convenience, where people want to get their info fast – otherwise, they won’t invest the time. Therefore, your content shouldn’t be too long (aim for 500 to 700 words per post) and avoid large, long-winded chunks of text. This means breaking up the format of your posts with numbered or bulleted lists, Q&As, or, much like this very post your reading now, divided by different subtitle headings and sections. This helps readers easily take in and jump to different sections. You can also employ design details (depending on your CMS template), like separating blocks of copy with images, videos, or pull-quotes.

Avoid Too Much Selling

If you’re writing a post about liposuction versus body contouring, it’s only natural to link to a page on your website that details the service, downtime, or cost range. But be careful not to oversell, as your clients might start to feel that you’re not providing genuine advice (and remember, the name of the game is earning their trust). Link to different service pages no more than once within the copy or place a clickable call-to-action at the bottom of relevant posts.

Inspirational Visuals

The medical aesthetics industry is known for its sterile-looking “before and after” pictures. And while those are valuable in other pages of your website, your blog shouldn’t be one of them. Rather, opt for images that convey natural, healthy, and effortless-looking beauty and well-being – what your clients’ beauty aesthetics aspire to be. Think people enjoying life and looking good doing it. For example, while a clothing brand, Free People’s wellness blog sets a standard for the kind of images that work well.

Keywords

While this is the last item in this list, researching unique keywords to write into your blog posts is still an important one. While they won’t help more of your clients open the eventual email you will send that links to this content, they will help new clients find your content organically (meaning via search engines). After all, the more eyes you can get on this content, the better for the blog post, and the better for the SEO of your website. Use a keyword search software, like SEMrush, Moz’s Keyword Explorer, Soovle, and others, to evaluate effective keywords and other long-tail phrases prior to writing.

Now, Get That Content Out

Once you’ve begun posting content regularly, you should see some results in terms of your website’s SEO and attracting new clients organically via keyword search terms. But that’s just half of the heavy lifting: Email is the number-one strategy to get this content out to your clients. Learn how in Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 2 – Email.

How to Prepare Your Medical Aesthetics Staff for Consultative Selling

in General Marketing Insights, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers by Ally Cardello

We’ve all been hit with some sort of sales pitch for an add-on feature when we weren’t expecting it. Say, at the car dealership, when you’re already putting a big chunk of money down, and the associate keeps pushing the purchase of the extended warranty as “a must.” Or at the cellular store, where you’re looking to upgrade your phone by just a level or two, but they want to pair you with the latest and greatest model with bells and whistles that you won’t even use.  It’s downright uncomfortable, right?

The same can be said for practices in the medical aesthetics industry, when patients – whether they’re at your office for a consultation or a treatment – are approached with other complementary services they should consider. After all, they likely already feel a bit vulnerable because the mere act of being at your practice means putting their personal health and beauty under the microscope.

What a patient doesn’t want is to come face to face with an impersonal sell, but rather an industry expert who is going to act on behalf of them – a practice that will take their specific health and beauty goals to create a custom aesthetic treatment plan for them that allows them to get the most out of life. So how does your practice build this kind of presence and move away from the series of disengaged sells? By equipping your employees with the right kind of tools, knowledge, and brand reinforcement so they can confidently build trust with the patient, and, more importantly, keep them coming back.

Step 1: Get to Know Your Team

Capitalize on your team’s strengths. Not everyone may be blessed with the gift of gab, but there are many different skill sets you can use to your advantage. Start by having your staff take an Enneagram, Myers Briggs, or similar skill-assessment test, and report back to you on their results. You may find that those you never would have considered for a sales-driven role have a strong drive to win. You’ll also learn ways that you can support each member of your staff and the type of management techniques they’ll respond to.

Step 2: Have Your Team Get to Know Your Products and Services

Let your staff experience your products and services for themselves at low/no cost. In the end, your team won’t just be selling the latest laser treatment: They’ll be selling their experience and results with your customers. To build extra enthusiasm, treat these sessions as fun team-building exercises with your entire in-office staff (signature cocktail, anyone?). This builds excitement, trust, and bonding among employees. Plus, it makes the training feel less mandatory and more enjoyable!

Step 3: Set Your Team Up for Success

Scripts will read as just that, and a premeditated conversation that feels like a sales pitch is sure to fall flat. So it’s critical that your team sounds knowledgeable and authentic to build trust with your clients. Our three keys:

  • Put clear guidelines in place and provide tips on how to pivot a conversation from a consultation to a sale.
  • Create a list of questions to ask and discuss the many ways to get to the “yes.”
  • Conduct training sessions with each team member and role-play conversations so they can feel comfortable and confident when dealing with real clients.

Step 4: Reinforce The Brand Experience

There are two things your customers will carry with them when they leave: the memory of their experience and your print materials. If the two aren’t aligned, they’re less likely to return. We go into detail on how to best build your in-office collateral toolkit in Part 2 of this series: How to Create a Cohesive On-site Medical Aesthetics Marketing Message.

Step 5: Stay Top-of-Mind with Digital Marketing

Your team has given your clients an amazing experience – the glowing results prove it. They’ve armed your customers with the knowledge and materials needed to take the next step. So, how do you ensure your team’s efforts have paid off and clients keep coming back for more? You position yourself as a resource for health and beauty information, ultimately establishing your practice as their trusted interpreter to digest and distill the latest trends for them. As shown in our other post, Content & Email Strategy for Med Spas: Part 1 – Content, the way to do that is by building up your blog presence and distributing that content to answer customers’ biggest questions and guide future buying decisions and long-term aesthetic treatment plans. 

Step 6: Hard Work May Be Its Own Reward…

But a little extra can go a long way. While a commission structure may not be feasible for your small business, there are other ways to support and reward your staff for taking a more active role in sales. Incentives don’t have to be expensive. The staff member with the most sales could get first pick of any product samples that come in, or a free treatment (who doesn’t love a facial or massage?). Even gift cards for coffee, restaurants, or makeup can make your team feel appreciated. Employees who feel valued are much more likely to go the extra mile to ensure a company’s success.

This blog post is Part 1 of our 4-part series, The Influence of On-site Tactics on Medical Aesthetic Practice Sales. Be sure to check out the other posts:

The 2 Massive Gaps in Most Hotel Marketing Plans

in Email Marketing, Hotels & Resorts, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

The best hotel marketing strategies feed all three phases of the traveler marketing lifecycle. Here, we share how we’re executing on that framework for one client.

Is your hotel marketing strategy a start-and-stop series of tactics, or a cohesive plan in which each component feeds into the others? Hopefully the latter – but if you’re like many hotel marketers, you add channels one by one (“email seems good,” “let’s do social now,” “we need an SEM strategy!”) and could be losing out because you’re focusing nearly exclusively on acquisition-based tactics rather than taking a holistic approach and considering the entire traveler marketing lifecycle in your plan.

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Let’s back up for a minute. The traveler marketing lifecycle consists of three stages, each tied to different phases of the Travel Consumer Journey: Engagement (the Dreaming and Planning phases) → Acquisition (Booking) → Retention (Experiencing and Sharing). Many hotels and resorts make the mistake of focusing only on the Acquisition phase, underestimating the value of building a relationship with the traveler in the Engagement phase or keeping the conversation rolling in the Retention phase. The hard truth is that as the OTAs continue to invest heavily across all stages of the traveler journey and their corresponding marketing phases, independent hotels must make sure their marketing strategy is solid across the board to claim their fair share of business.

It’s understandable that Acquisition gets so much attention from marketers, as this is the phase where you’re trying to close the deal and where your efforts (and ROI) are most measurable. Tactics include website optimization, retargeting, display advertising, paid search, metasearch, affiliate marketing, and email marketing. If you’re heavily into paid acquisition, you may find yourself at the mercy of the platforms (including OTAs!) when ad prices fluctuate and you have to reckon with shrinking margins. If you have strong Engagement and Retention strategies, the paid spends you do invest in will be more effective, as you’ll have a stronger sense of who your target audience is and segments of warm targets that you can market to, thanks to email collection, social follows, and website visits.

As a hotel marketing agency, we never lose sight of the entire traveler marketing lifecycle. We help you see and clarify your strategy through that lens and understand how the right marketing tactics can capture guest attention at every phase.

Here, we walk you through the tactics that shine in those other two, most-neglected phases – Engagement and Retention – and share how we work with one client, Opal Collection, to drive traveler attention throughout the entire traveler marketing lifecycle.

Customer Engagement

The Engagement phase includes tactics that aim to connect with travelers perhaps even before they’ve started thinking about their trip. Social media (including the increasingly relevant but evolving influencer marketing), PR, and content marketing are a few of the major pieces here and can help the traveler dream and start to imagine the shape that their trip could take. Content marketing, in particular, is the bedrock of a strong marketing strategy, as it feeds so many other channels, across all phases, by appealing to travelers on an emotional level. All the work you put in the Engagement phase will make your job in the Acquisition and Retention phases that much easier. This is where you lay the groundwork.

How We Do It for Opal

We publish Opal Unpacked – an editorial website full of stories relevant to Opal Collection properties and destinations – which draws about 30,000 unique visitors per month and drives first-touch interest for travelers just beginning to consider their trip. (Think topics like “A Photographer’s Guide to Seeing the Best of Bar Harbor,” “Exploring Jupiter on Two Wheels,” and “5 Nature Preserves & Parks in Jensen Beach to Suit Your Style.” The overarching Opal Collection social media presence is also a focus, and we’ve boosted the Instagram followership by 275% in under two years with consistent posting, smart hashtag use, and varied imagery.

Customer Retention

You may think that the Retention phase happens only after a guest’s stay, but that’s only part of the picture. Before and during the stay, you should educate guests about all there is to do on-property and in the destination so that they maximize enjoyment and are more likely to return for more. Email marketing (including drip campaigns, event-triggered campaigns, and loyalty campaigns) is the major driver in the Retention phase, but not the only one – engaging with social followers and responding to reviews are important parts of the puzzle, too. Ultimately, the goal of the Retention phase is to keep guest acquisition costs down. According to Phocuswright, acquiring a new guest is 8 to 10 times more expensive than retaining an existing guest, so investing in Retention marketing tactics favorably impacts your bottom line.

How We Do It for Opal

Our hotel email marketing campaigns for Opal drive an average of $340,000 in booked revenue on every send. Remember Opal Unpacked, the editorial site driving the content marketing strategy for Opal that we discussed during the Engagement phase? That comes into play here, as it’s those stories that feed the emails and help guests understand what there is to do in and around a given property. In our most recent email, for example, we shared three stories (one about wellness in Lake Placid, one about SW Flagler Avenue in Stuart, Florida, and one about last-minute adventures in various Opal destinations) and highlighted one property in particular for recipients to take a look at.

Want to learn more about the work we’ve done for Opal? Check out our case study discussing the projects – including an in-room magazine, email marketing, a destination website, social, branding and collateral, and more – that have helped them achieve eye-popping results.

The 6 Best Winery Websites of 2020

in Websites, Wineries by Catherine Iannucci

When browsing a great website, visitors might not realize what is drawing their eye, or think about the intricate planning that went into making them feel at ease on the site. But as content creators, we put quite a bit of thought into those things. From user experience (UX) design to scannable content, we know each component that makes up a great website. Here, we tip our hats to six wineries who are hitting the right notes with their websites and break down the qualities that got people clicking.

Garden Creek

Two words: limited scrolling! Setting the stage for an intuitive experience, this site’s homepage serves as a simple, efficient navigation tool – and a beautiful one at that. You can’t scroll on the homepage, but you can easily see the site page options and quickly get where you want to go. Also, great copy, told entirely in the voice of the winemakers, is a serious game-changer on this site. Given the monotony and unoriginality that sometimes plagues web copy, Garden Creek offers a fresh take that appeals to wine lovers. Although it is up to the discretion of the vineyard whether to make e-commerce an element of their site, we do highly recommend adding an e-commerce element – one area where the Garden Creek site falls a bit short.

Andanté Vineyard

Compelling winery website design can work for many reasons, such as top-notch imagery, seamless layout, and a great color scheme. Andanté’s website has all these qualities, plus a special design feature that often gets overlooked: expressive fonts. While fonts might seem like a throwaway element, this site proves that perfectly applied fonts can accent the layout and draw the viewer’s eye to specific areas of the site. As an example, within the banner image of the homepage, your eye is drawn directly to the “join us for a tasting” call-to-action (CTA), which stands out because it is the only cursive text in sight. Full disclosure: We had the pleasure of working with Andanté to craft their website from scratch this past year. So, while we’re a bit biased, we feel the site deserves a mention here.

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Gallica

E-commerce is becoming an increasingly important consideration for wineries as they look to their websites to help generate more direct-to-consumer sales. From wine clubs to individual bottle sales, it is a big undertaking. Gallica not only maintains a beautifully designed and written website but is also a powerhouse in the e-commerce department. Purchasing individual bottles and wine gift boxes is as simple as buying a T-shirt online. Checkout is just a few simple steps and their shipping policies are easy to find, keeping the whole process very user-friendly. Gallica’s site also prominently features their mailing list signup which, while not specifically for e-commerce, is an effective tool to let subscribers know when new wines are released and available for sale on the site.

Mumm Napa

While quite aesthetically pleasing, the Mumm Napa site boasts much more than a pretty facade. Their calls-to-action are strong and plentiful – their homepage alone has 11 CTA buttons prompting further site exploration, online purchasing, and winery visit sign-ups. Regardless of whether your winery prioritizes e-commerce sales or on-site visits, encouraging visitors to interact with your site is critical. While high quantity is not always something to aspire to, this site tactfully integrates the calls-to-action so that visitors do not feel bombarded.

Flâneur Wines

With a flair for the cinematic, the header section of the Flâneur Wines homepage hits visitors with an engaging video overlaid with their logo that highlights the vineyard, grape harvesting, and venue. It is a truly impactful introduction to the site that holds the visitor’s attention for several seconds until its completion (and not watching it through seems near impossible once the idyllic scenes of Oregon wine country start rolling). Beyond the home page, the whole site is teeming with appealing imagery, from detailed sketched graphics, to gorgeous photos, to dynamic live-action video.

Ayres Vineyard & Winery

We couldn’t let you go without showing you Ayres Vineyard & Winery’s website – one more site we designed. It’s a good example of another core principle of website design (if we do say so ourselves!): scan-ability. Making your winery website easy to scan helps the user experience go smoothly. Any site that makes it difficult to browse or find what you are looking for is going to have a serious bounce rate problem on its hands. By breaking up text blocks with quotes and utilizing bulleted lists, for example, the Ayres site does a wonderful job of keeping copy short, sweet, and scannable.

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How to Set Up Your Social Media Manager to Succeed

in Social Media Marketing by Corey Scarano

Most hospitality and lifestyle marketing plans don’t budget for a dedicated social media role – it’s still seen by many as something that can be done on the side, as just one of a professional’s many duties. Oftentimes, the clients that we speak with have one or more people handling social media in the margins of their days or weeks. Furthermore, we hear that it tends to fall to the bottom of the priority list, and posts are sporadic. Was the social media marketing role thrust upon someone on your team? If you help create your company’s hospitality marketing strategy, it’s important for you to understand what these part-time social media managers need to succeed. Here’s how to ensure their success.

1. Social Media Marketing Takes Time

It sounds basic, but if you expect someone on your team to handle social media, make sure they have the time to manage it effectively. Posting on behalf of a business is not the same thing as posting to a personal account. While social media fits effortlessly into our personal lives and we simply share when we feel compelled, it’s different in a business capacity, with posting require much more forethought. If you’re adding social media to an employee’s already long list of duties, respect that it’ll take time each week, and consider tweaking their other responsibilities accordingly.

2. High-Quality Imagery that Speaks to Your Brand, Your Venue, or Destination

Images – both photos and video – are the lifeblood of social media. If you’re not arming your social media person with imagery (or empowering them to get it themselves) then they’ll have a very difficult time engaging your followers. There are plenty of good, free stock photo options, but you should prioritize original photos. You don’t even need a professional photographer (though that would be nice!) – modern iPhone cameras have the necessary specs – just make sure you follow basic photography principles, such as these tips for photographing interior spaces, to capture high-quality images.

3. Space to Explore

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat don’t work the same way that they did six months ago. Telling your social media person that you want “three posts per week” boxes them in and limits their creativity in using and taking advantage of other features. For example – the stories format evolves on a month-to-month basis. New features (like Quiz) mean new ways to engage with your audience. Your social media person should be the expert. Encourage them to try new things on these channels – otherwise, run the risk of falling behind more creative competitors.

4. Brand Guidelines

While that “Space to Explore” is crucial, there should be parameters in place. In fact, your social media person will welcome them. Develop (or work with us on!) social media brand guidelines that outline preferred post types, conversational tone, cadence, and more. Over time, your social media manager can help revise and improve the guidelines based on their learnings – but in the meantime, having that structure in place will help them understand your expectations.

5. Clear Understanding of Goals – Social Media Manager Expectations

Speaking of expectations, you should be clear with your social media person about your goals. Are you trying to build your business’s following? Drive bookings? Spark conversations? We realize that while “all of the above” is likely your answer, zeroing in on one or two areas can help your social media marketers spend their time in a more efficient way and more easily determine whether they’re progressing in the right direction.

6. Regular Reporting

Building on the previous point, there should be regular progress check-ins that can be as technical (or not) as you’d like. Your social media strategy shouldn’t just be a bottle floating in the ocean, but a boat cruising in a specific direction. To continue (and conclude!) the nautical metaphor, keep an eye on the compass, and regularly (monthly is plenty) meet with your social media manager about progress, problems, opportunities, key metrics, etc.

7. Scheduling Tools

Some social media managers don’t use them but others swear by them – social media scheduling tools are designed to alleviate the need to post in real-time, and instead, allow you to batch your social media work when it’s convenient for you by scheduling posts and stories to publish in the future. The risk of scheduling is that something could happen locally (or in the world) that would make your posting about your business seem tone-deaf. For this reason, we recommend not scheduling more than a few days into the future and being ready to turn off the auto-posting if necessary.

8. A Paid Social Ad Spend

Organic reach is steadily declining on social media. Only about 6% of your Facebook page’s followers will see any given post you make because paid posts increasingly get more airtime. Instagram is better but getting noisier every day. It’s hard to be mad at Facebook about this – while you may have built your audience, it is a free platform. If you’re already investing time in posting regularly, equip your social media person with paid social ads to help amplify their message. Start small, and work your way up, depending on the ROI you’re seeing. Starting can be as easy as boosting an existing post (so, rather than reaching only 6% of your followers, for example, you could reach many more – as well as others who aren’t yet followers!) Your social media person could also design a sophisticated campaign that targets your audience with surgical accuracy. (Or, we could do that part for you!) Regardless, consider paid ads a required component of any social media strategy at this point.

5 Innovative Ways That These Digital-First Brands Are Investing in Print

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

We all know and enjoy the advantages of digital marketing. Quick editing. Detailed targeting. Instantaneous deployment. Fast feedback. So why are some of the brightest companies in tech investing in print publications? It’s not just the travel and hospitality industries creating their own custom magazines anymore – and we’re not just saying that because we’ve been in the custom magazine publishing world for years. Here’s how companies like Airbnb, Bumble, and Facebook are finding new ways to engage their audience via a medium that may surprise you: print.

Bumble – Bumble Mag

Bumble, the dating app that encourages women to make the first move, recently partnered with Hearst to launch Bumble Mag, a lifestyle magazine for women. The sections of the magazine correspond to the sections of the app, including dating, friends, and careers. Bumble’s ambitions have outgrown the confines of an app, and the magazine serves as a channel that makes it easier to build a real-world connection with their customers. One of the most interesting parts of Bumble Mag: how it’s distributed. They have 3,000 brand ambassadors that will roll them out, but users can also request delivery of one in-app. How’s that for integration?

Airbnb – Airbnb Magazine

We’ve touched on the brilliance of Airbnb’s content strategy before, and a pillar of that is the Hearst-produced Airbnb Magazine, which provides a window into an eclectic mix of destinations all over the world. Distributed via direct mail to top hosts and guests (think of it as their equivalent to in-room magazines) as well as in newsstands, bookstores and airports – and now, online – Airbnb Magazine aims to be in the right place at the right time. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told the Wall Street Journal that print intrigued him because “It isn’t ephemeral, as opposed to content on a feed that expires.” His team uses data to help steer the editorial direction of the magazine, a strategy that any hospitality business with a content marketing presence could emulate.

Casper Sleep – Wooly Magazine

Mattress company Casper took a more premium approach when they partnered with McSweeney’s to produce Wooly (the name aims to evoke feelings of comfort, as in wool socks) and kicked things off with a 96-page print debut, charging a hefty $12 per copy. The magazine is filled with essays and stories about “comfort, wellness, and modern life,” and, appropriately for a mattress company, has irreverent sections like “sloth.” While there is a web presence too, the bulky print version put the publication on the map, and gave it a more durable, we’re-here-to-stay feel that some of the other content producers in the industry don’t have.

Away – Here Magazine

If you’re not familiar with Away by name, you’ve probably at least seen their luggage in the airport or on Instagram. Print is in the company’s DNA: to help fund early operations when they were pre-product, Away co-founder Jen Rubio had the idea for “The Places We Return To,” a hardcover book filled with 40 interviews with creatives – artists, writers, photographers – on topics like food and fashion. The book was a hit, and quickly sold out, which perhaps helped lay the foundation for Here Magazine. Aimed to inspire wanderlust in their young audience, the magazine features cultural reporting, travel journals, photo essays, interviews, and city guides.

Facebook – Grow

Last summer, Facebook launched Grow, a quarterly print magazine, as part of their marketing efforts with business leaders in the United Kingdom. There are Grow articles available online, but print has been framed as an exclusive channel and “available to those on a special mailing list,” according to CNN. Grow spotlights businesses and business people, with the subtext being that Facebook wants Grow readers to continue investing in Facebook ads.

How Savvy Restaurants Will Repurpose Instagram in the Future

in Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Kristen Noonan

Instagram might seem like a simple app – post pretty pictures, get likes – but that straightforward, traditional usage might offer diminishing returns to small businesses like restaurants, especially as organic reach on the platform continues to decline. Fortunately for marketers and others charged with managing the social media presence of any small business, several tools and spaces hidden in Instagram’s easy-to-understand interface offer plenty of flexibility and room for creativity.

As a hospitality marketing agency, we’re always seeking new ways to reach audiences by looking where others haven’t. Inspired by a tweet, we had an idea for how a restaurant could repurpose their Instagram account into a sort of “Ultimate Menu” – one that takes over your entire feed, is easy to update in real time, is interactive and easy to explore (and share!) for customers, and provides plenty of context for each dish, making it very useful. Here’s how it would work:

Your Feed Would Be Comprised Entirely of Dishes

Each dish would take up one “line” of your Instagram feed, occupying three photos. The photo on the left would show the name of the dish, and the center and right photos would be one big image of the dish. Customers would stumble upon (or purposefully navigate to) your account and be able to scroll through your offerings in a highly visual way instantly, and quickly understand exactly what you have to offer.

Individual Photos Would Provide Plenty of Context

Diners could ask questions about specific dishes in the comment section of individual photos. You, as the restaurant, or other customers could answer them. If a dish looked appetizing to someone browsing your feed, they could tap one of the photos and instantly understand much more about it, based on community feedback. Also: your captions would be significant. It’s there that you would creatively describe the dish, maybe include a quote from your chef, mention any dietary restrictions that it does or doesn’t satisfy, and share a unique hashtag (#amazingburgeratyourrestaurant) that links it together with the other two photos in your feed that represent that dish.

Dishes Would Be Shareable and Up-to-Date

If a customer ate at your restaurant, thought you had the best burger in town, and had a friend who loves burgers, they could easily tag that person (“you have to try this!”) in the comments. If you pull a dish off the menu, you could simply archive the three photos of the dish, or bring them back months later, if the dish is seasonal or part of a rotating menu. If you have something new to add to the menu, simply post a new line (those three photos) to your feed. That alone – the excitement of a new dish, made apparent by its presence in your feed – may nudge customers to come in or give it a look. The purity and straightforward nature of your feed would make your new posts more interesting to followers.

Hashtags in Your Bio Would Make it *Really* Easy to Browse

You could use hashtags to spotlight dishes that satisfy dietary requirements and link those hashtags in your bio. Maybe you have #veganatrestaurantname, #glutenfreeatrestaurantname, #paleoatrestaurant name, etc. You could remove hashtags from (or add them to) individual photos whenever you want, based on what you want to feature at that moment. Hashtags would enable people to quickly tap to see what they could eat based on their dietary preferences. The hashtag system would also work for specific parts of the meal – #saladsatrestaurantname, #appetizersatrestaurantname, #brunchatrestaurantname, etc. (By the way – while we’re on the subject of your bio – if you have OpenTable, consider making that the link in your bio. With the Ultimate Menu, people wouldn’t need to go to your website, so you may as well save them a step.)

Stories Highlights Would Do the Rest

Your Stories Highlights would spotlight everything beyond the main course that someone might want to know about your restaurant: “Drinks,” “Weekly Specials,” “Inside the Restaurant,” and “Our Team,” to name a few. Stories Highlights have long been part of Instagram best practices for restaurants, but some go overboard (including unimportant or disorganized content), while others don’t do enough. The goal – between your bio, the menu in the feed, and the Stories Highlights – would be to answer every curiosity that someone had about your restaurant, instantly, all within your account.

…So, Why Not Try It?

As far as we can tell, nobody else is using the “Ultimate Menu” Instagram approach yet. If executed well, changing course and going this route would certainly make your Instagram account more accessible and useful to people and could drive more business – plus, it would be easy to switch up if you weren’t happy with the results. If you’re starting from scratch and just beginning to explore how to use Instagram for restaurants, this would be a logical – and bold – place to begin your efforts.

How Inns & Hotels Can Stand Out in the Age of Airbnb

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

There are plenty of things hotels can (and should!) borrow from Airbnb, like their content marketing strategy, their super easy-to-browse website (and app), the way they incorporate data science into their marketing strategy, and how they collect and display guest feedback. But hotels won’t win this battle (though let’s be clear – it’s not winner-take-all!) by out-Airbnb’ing Airbnb. They should zig where Airbnb zags and lean into their strengths. Here are some ideas to consider.

Predictability

For some, the variance that you experience with Airbnb is exciting. While the listings may have plenty of photos, you never know exactly what you’re going to get until you arrive. We’re not saying every room of your hotel or inn should look the same, of course, but there’s some comfort for guests in having a baseline of what to expect, and you should lightly emphasize this point in your messaging. Vacations (and business trips, for that matter) can be stressful, and having one less variable to stress about – where you stay – can strip away some of that anxiety.

Safety

Similar to “predictability,” safety is an issue that you may not think prudent to address in any way with customers, but we’ve all seen the Airbnb horror stories in the news, and it’s opened up an opportunity. Safety doesn’t just mean security, but cleanliness, too. Be specific with your selling points – more specific than you would’ve been a decade ago – and give travelers peace of mind that they can’t get with an Airbnb. Make investments in this space and share your advances proudly.

On-site Expertise

The robust Airbnb content marketing strategy aims to make them an authority in destinations all over the world. But you (presumably) have a concierge service. Make this person recognizable on your social media channels and exceedingly accessible in-person. Give them their own social media channel that guests can engage with and quickly exchange DMs with. Further than that, you employ a building full of (presumably) locals – consider empowering them. Let them occasionally do takeovers of your social media accounts and take visitors around some of the best spots around your property (and on Instagram, make sure to make this a Story Highlight!) Finally, consider investing in an in-room magazine that reaches guests in the right place and at the right time.

Service

Last time we checked, Airbnbs don’t tend to come with daily housekeeping services or a front desk to handle billing issues face-to-face. If any number of issues go awry with the TV, plumbing, heat or A/C, etc. in an Airbnb, who’s there to help when you need it? The people who operate a hotel often fade into the background as part of a guest’s stay, but it’s worth highlighting that they’re there if you need them.

Amenities

It should be thought of as a luxury to get away from home. A stay at a boutique hotel or inn should be considered a vacation in its own right. Room service, pools, fitness centers, spas, and on-property restaurants punctuate this point. Knowing that you can eat and work out on-property takes away some thought and stress from the larger journey for leisure guests. For business travelers, this is even more true. Position these premium services accordingly, because that’s what they are.

The Brilliance of Snapchat Geofilters for Wedding Venues

in Event Venues, Social Media Marketing by Kristen Noonan

It’s the evening of a big wedding at your venue, which means that guests are invariably taking out their phones to document and share the occasion. But where are those images ending up? Facebook and Instagram, sure. Another big player you may not have considered is Snapchat. With 2.5 billion “snaps” (a photo or video sent on Snapchat) sent each day, there’s a tremendous opportunity for wedding venues to capitalize on the service’s popularity – without having to create their own content. It’s called the Snapchat Geofilter, and it can help get eyes all over your venue. Let’s take a look at how Snapchat Geofilters are a perfect fit for wedding venues.

How Snapchat Geofilters Work for Wedding Venues

After a user takes a “snap,” they’re able to add a Geofilter – a graphic overlay on the image – that offers some context about where the snap was taken. For example, on Cape Cod, the Geofilter would include the words “Cape Cod” and a small illustration related to the Cape in some way. Users don’t have to download anything additional to access these special filters. As long as their location services are enabled in Snapchat, the filter becomes available to them in a designated geographic location (hence the name “Geofilter”).

Some Geofilters are only available in an area as small as a backyard; other times, they cover many square miles. For a long time, Snapchat dictated which Geofilters appeared where – until they introduced self-serve Geofilters. Now anyone can make their own for a small cost.

Why Snapchat Geofilters Are a Great Fit for Wedding Venues

If you’re responsible for the marketing efforts of a wedding venue, a lightbulb in your head should’ve just lit up. Here’s how you capitalize on this: Make (or hire someone to make) Snapchat Geofilters for couples in their early-to-mid-20s – that feature the couples’ names and the name of your venue. Guests using Snapchat (and there’ll be many of them) will see that there’s a Geofilter dedicated to their friends and use it on their snaps. When the recipients see the image with the Geofilter, they will instantly know at which venue the wedding was held. It’s a low-cost way to drive attention, build awareness of your business, and get relevant attention from someone who could be your next client.

How To Make A Snapchat Geofilter

1. Go to the On-Demand Geofilters section on Snapchat’s website and hit “Create Now.”

2. Select either “Create Filter” or “Create Lens.” A lens is essentially a traditional filter, or Geofilter, with an additional filter for the Snapchatter’s face. You’ve likely seen Snapchat’s general face filters including the ever-popular flower crowns and animal ears.

3. Select either “Upload” or “Design.” If you choose Upload, you’ll be able to use a Photoshop or Illustrator template to craft a Geofilter, whereas if you hit Design, you’ll be able to build one right on Snapchat’s website. There are many third parties online that design Geofilters if you want something custom but you’re not sure how to make it.

4. Pick a date and time range that you’d like the filter to be available. The longer it’s available, the more expensive it’ll be, but it only needs to be up for the duration of the wedding.

5. Pick the boundaries of the Geofilter by plotting points on the map. Remember, guests don’t need to download anything to access this filter. It will simply become available once they are in the appropriate geographic location.

6. Pay with a credit card. Snapchat will send you a confirmation email.

7. Log in to access management tools, and – most importantly – performance metrics, so you can see how the Geofilter is performing.

That’s it. At its best, it’s a subtle, inexpensive, far-reaching ad for your venue – but it’s up to the guests to add it to their snaps, so make sure that it’s well-designed and celebrates the couple.

Website Design Questions You Were Embarrassed to Ask

in Destination Marketing Organizations, Event Venues, Hotels & Resorts, Markets, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Photography & Video, Websites, Wineries by Ally Cardello

Y

ou’ve got a grip on what website responsiveness is, why white space matters in web design, what CTAs are, and more. But what about some of the more complex elements related to website design that translate to not just a pretty site, but how they work? Don’t feel like you have to bite your tongue – these are all worthy questions you should never feel embarrassed to ask of your website partner.

In fact, to ease some of the awkwardness, we’ve detailed a few of the leading questions our own clients often pose to our team of web strategists and design consultants when it comes to better understanding the ever-evolving wide world of website design.

What’s the Difference Between a Web Domain Versus Web Hosting?

A domain is a website’s address, sort of like a street address (the domain for our website is hawthorncreative.com). You can have a domain without having a website, but it’d sort of be like sending someone to an empty lot. A host refers to the server that stores your website and serves it up to everyone trying to visit it at your domain or web address. Think of it as the virtual home (like an apartment, house, condo) where your website lives. The host and the domain need to be able to communicate with each other, but they aren’t the same thing.

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Losing Visitors to a Muddied Website Design?

Visitors should understand exactly what your business does within 3 seconds of landing on your homepage

Websites that Engage

Why Have I Heard the Terms “Open-Source” and “Proprietary” in Reference to a CMS?

Open-source refers to any free-of-copyright website building platforms – like WordPress and Squarespace – that allow users to construct websites starting from templates. Whereas proprietary (or closed-source) is a copyrighted CMS built by a web developer from scratch (think original code, not templates).

Does That Mean if I Build My Website in an Open-Source CMS, It’s Going to Look like Other Websites?

Not at all. Thanks to custom plugins and the ability to go in and tweak coding in an open-source CMS, you can drastically customize your own website – at a fraction of the price of what it would take to build the website entirely from scratch. Whereas, proprietary CMSs, while custom-coded for a brand, don’t allow much in terms of flexibility once the core elements are built. That means if you want to tweak something, it’s expensive and time-consuming. They are also copyrighted – meaning that the agency or web developer who built the CMS owns it outright, not the brand or company it is built for. This can lead to unhappy companies being stuck with the agency they started with.

Here, at Hawthorn, we only build websites using open-source CMSs, because we want the flexibility to easily update designs/functionality for our clients as the needs or trends change (after all, we believe a website shouldn’t be a static thing: It should grow and evolve as your business grows and evolves). We also want our clients to have ownership over their own websites outright and not worry that we could handcuff them – that just part of how we start to build trust.

Is Post-Launch “Website Maintenance” Really Necessary if Everything Was Clearly Set Up Correctly?

Think of it like buying a new car. After a certain amount of mileage, there is bound to be some maintenance requirements to keep things running smoothly. It’s the same idea with websites to monitor that everything is being indexed correctly, automatic backups and security are running properly, plug-ins are current, redirects are working – all of which helps to protect the site from hacks.

In addition, a good website agency or developer won’t just hit the “launch button” and send you packing. They should provide a level of support also related to how your website is performing – in particular, insights into traffic, top-performing pages (not just in terms of earning the most pageviews, but time on page, bounce rates, additional pages visited), number of conversions, etc. That way, they’ll be able to show you your website redesign’s more-than-worth-it ROI.

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Fathom Companies’s Website Redesign

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Other Web Jargon You Should Know (If You Don’t By Now)

  • UX Stands for “User Experience.” It’s a key component of all website design because it doesn’t focus on how something looks, but instead on how something works. Your consumer needs to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. If they don’t, they won’t stay on your site for long.
  • IA Stands for “Information Architecture.” It’s basically how people get around your website. Think of the options you see at the top of the homepage when you go to your favorite sites that lead you to different pages when you click on them. You want your navigation, or menus, to be clearly visible and well organized so people can get to where they need to go.
  • CTA Stands for “Call to Action.” A crucial part of any website, a CTA is a design element, frequently a button or link, that serves to highlight what you want people to do on your site. Some common examples include “Book an Appointment,” “Subscribe to Our Newsletter,” and “Contact Us.” See our blog post, 5 Tips for Writing Irresistible CTAs Every Marketer Should Know, to take your CTAs to the next level.
  • SEO Stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” There are a lot of ways to get people to your website, but the biggest driver of traffic for many hospitality websites is through search engines like Google or Bing. SEO is the term for a set of tactics that will move your site up in the rankings so that you appear first when people are looking for businesses like yours. It’s actually something that Hawthorn specializes in.

RELATED READING

6 Easy Google My Business Tips for Your Small Business

in Destination Marketing Organizations, Event Venues, General Marketing Insights, Hotels & Resorts, Medical Aesthetic Spas, Practices & Suppliers, Real Estate Management Companies, Search Marketing, Websites, Wineries by Hawthorn Editorial

Google continues to create ways for users to find everything they need without ever clicking to your website. Enter your Google My Business page. It’s a vital, easy win – if you know what to optimize.

A hard truth: Google is no longer interested in being the vehicle through which users get to your website. Over the past few years, the company has continued to unroll updates that allow users to find exactly what they want within the Google interface using maps, “local pack” products, and others. In other words: For location-based businesses, your customer may never even click on any search listing; they get what they need right there in Google.

As a digital marketing agency in the hospitality industry for hotels, wedding and special event venues, wineries, and others, we’ve paid keen attention to Google My Business. Launched in 2014 as a way to give businesses more control over what appears in the search results (both on Google.com, and in Maps) when someone searches a business’s name, your GMB page is now not only a huge ranking factor in Local SEO, it’s the tool that informs all of these native Google products. Basic information (think hours, address, phone), photos you want to spotlight, messaging, and Q&A are a few of the features that comprise GMB.

While the suite of tools is a boon to those eager to use it, it also puts less-digital-savvy businesses at a disadvantage. (By the way: if you’re completely new to Google My Business, this article walks you through how to get set up.) With that in mind, we outlined six ways to build a strong profile so that you get the most out of Google My Business.

Consider it an Extension of Your Website, and Update Often

All the basic fields – name, address, website, phone number, and business description should always reflect your business’s reality right now. When any of these things change, your first instinct may be to update your website, and then your social media profiles – but don’t forget Google My Business. In fact, Google penalizes businesses whose “NAP” (name, address, phone number) are different on their website versus their GMB page.

Monitor and Manage the Reviews

Google My Business offers excellent visibility to businesses – but if you’re not good to your customers, this is the area you’ll be exposed. Use your GMB page to respond to reviews on Google. It’s not just good customer service, Google has also made it clear SEO value increases for those companies who respond to reviews. Make sure you respond to negative reviews in particular (others are watching!) and check this section frequently. When you’re logged into your GMB account and tap the “Reviews” tab (next to the star icon) you’ll be able to see, filter, and respond to your reviews using three tabs: “All,” “Replied,” and “Haven’t Replied.” Google makes it easy to immediately see and reply to all reviews – good and bad – so you can thank a customer for their positive feedback, set the record straight, or apologize, if needed. If you’re too busy to proactively think to check your GMB page for new reviews needing replies, just click into the GMB settings tab and check the “Customer Reviews” box to be alerted to all new reviews via email.

Take the Conversation to Text

Have you noticed that nobody wants to get on a phone call these days? Wedding venue marketing expert Alan Berg told us as much, and the reluctance to jump on a call applies to other businesses, too. iMessage has conditioned us to send messages and expect quick replies, rather than picking up the phone. Google My Business offers a mobile app that lets you opt to receive and respond to messages from customers (prospective or otherwise) with your mobile device. You probably won’t want to use your personal phone number, but there are also third-party apps that will give you a second phone number that you can use for your Google My Business listing.

SOLUTIONS

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Curate the Imagery You Want Visitors to See

This is obviously a big one for us as a marketing agency in the hospitality space where showing off that breathtaking winery or view from that corner hotel suite may be stronger than any ad buy you could make. The photos you upload to your Google My Business profile will be mixed with the photos that your customers upload, but you can tag them (think “exterior,” “interior,” “food and drink,” “rooms,” etc.) to make it easy for visitors to browse through. Be sure to keep your photos fresh, too – if you only have imagery that’s a few years old (or more), people will wonder what’s changed. Finally, if you get just one thing right, make sure it’s your profile picture. It’s the first thing people see on this page. Imagine, “If this were the only photo someone sees about my business, would I want it to be this one?” Choose carefully.

Don’t Forget the Extras

If you’re a hotel, sometimes it’s the amenities you offer that are the difference between you and a competitor getting the booking. Have laundry service? Pet-friendly rooms? A spa? For special event venues and wineries whose businesses and offerings can be so varied (from AV capabilities to nightly events), Google My Business makes it easy to denote these things so that people quickly scanning a listing can qualify their choices and make quick decisions. Be comprehensive with the details – sometimes it’s something little that drives a booking.

Use Insights to See How You’re Doing

The information offered within the “Insights” tab is perhaps the richest section of Google My Business, helping you understand the rewards you’re reaping after configuring your profile. In this section, you can see things like the queries people use to find your business (sorted by unique users), a pie graph breaking down how customers are finding your business (divided by Direct, Discovery, and Branded queries), and where customers view your business (search vs. maps). You can also view the types of actions they take on the page (visit your website, request directions, call you, message you, etc.), how often they’re looking at your photos, and how many photos you have compared to competitors. It’s a treasure trove of information, and you can use the results to refine your listing and drive even more attention.

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

7 Takeaways for Venues From The Knot’s Real Weddings Study

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

Each year, we wait with bated breath for The Knot Real Weddings Study, an industry-trusted report that surveys over 14,000 brides and grooms across the United States who were married the prior year, about all things wedding-related, including spending, planning, personalizing, and more. While wedding venue marketing professionals realize that real change tends to evolve slowly, they nonetheless look to the report to help shape their strategies. With that in mind, here are a few of our takeaways from this year’s report.

There Was a Slight Uptick in Average Cost

Last year’s edition of the Knot’s study reported that the $33,391 average cost of a wedding in 2017 was a slight downturn from the prior year. But in 2018, that cost jumped to $33,931, just over a 1% increase from 2017. The average venue spend was $15,439, or just over 45% of the total wedding cost, and 86% of couples invested in a professional wedding venue.

The Most Popular Month to Get Married: Not June, Not July, Not August…

September is the most popular month to get married – not overwhelmingly so, at 18% of the responses, but some will be surprised that it’s a more popular date than earlier summer months. Note: this means that September is the most common time to get married, not necessarily the most desired time.

The Most Popular Month to Get Engaged: December

No surprises here. With the holiday season and the approach of a new year, December has long been one of – if not the most – popular months to get engaged. Remember to time your social ads accordingly!

Almost Every Couple Contributed to Paying for the Big Day, and Most Set a Budget

91% of couples contributed to the total cost of their wedding, and 9% of those couples paid for the entire wedding. In the past, when parents picked up a larger slice of the bill, they may have had more say than they do now, according to wedding marketing expert Alan Berg. Also: 80% of couples surveyed reported setting a budget beforehand, though 45% go over their budget.

The Average Marrying Age Continues to Tick Up

Men averaged out at 30.5 years old, while women were at 29.1 This is an important consideration, especially when using newly engaged social media ads to reach couples.

Destination Weddings Drove Many Bookings

Nearly a quarter – 23% – of couples reported having a destination wedding. If you have a venue (and a destination) that affords it, consider casting your marketing net a little wider to try to capture some of these bookings.

It Still Takes A Team To Help Pull Off A Wedding

Those vendors who help pay for your event brochure are as important as ever: 95% of couples hired a professional caterer, 68% hired a florist, 67% hired a professional cake baker, and 29% hired a designer/planner to help execute their vision.

…Plus, Other Revelations in the Original Report

While these are the data points we noted, you might want to check out all of The Knot’s findings for other interesting bits of information, like average engagement length, traditions that are being tossed (and those that are still going strong), how day-of timelines are changing, and many more nuggets.

5 Easy Pieces of Evergreen Content for Wedding Venues to Produce

in Content Marketing by Catherine Shane

Wedding venues: when you produce evergreen content, you get value that more than makes up for the time and/or money invested. Think about it – content can be used to feed your SEO, email, landing page, and social strategies, just to name a few. It can also be chopped up (think images with quotes to share via social media) and re-purposed in different forms. The bottom line: content is one of the best marketing investments you can make. With that in mind, we shared five easy pieces of content that any wedding venue can produce.

1. Checklists

No wedding plan is complete without a robust checklist. Checklists bring peace of mind for brides and grooms as they’re able to tick off the many tasks leading up to the big day. They also serve to remind couples about all the things they need to consider. Organize the checklist so that it’s viewable in a blog post format, but also create and link to a public Google Doc version of the checklist that couples may download and manipulate on their own to remove the bits that they don’t need and add anything special that they do need.

2. FAQs

Couples will be full of questions when they begin to consider your venue – and while your website and photos can do a great job helping show off and explain the most important items, there are always more questions to answer. Save your sales team some time by compiling a list of your 15-20 most frequently asked questions and create a post around it. Experiment with putting a link to this post on your weddings page and removing it (instead, only sending the FAQ post to couples far enough down the funnel) to determine whether including the post impacts inbound inquiries. Maybe you’ll find that the added context drives more inquiries – or at least warmer, more carefully considered ones.

3. Ceremony Templates

With non-religious wedding ceremonies on the rise, some couples may be undecided – surprisingly late in the game – about how they want their ceremony to unfold. While some officiants will help with this process, others (like family friends) may not, leaving it up to the couple to dictate the ceremony. Create content around ideas and inspiration for wedding ceremonies, and let couples mix and match the elements that fit with their vision. Even producing a single, catch-all post that links to other websites with popular readings and other resources would bring value to the couples who check out your post.

4. Local Expertise

It’s likely that your couples will have guests arriving from out of town who may have a day or two to explore the area before or after the wedding. Produce content highlighting different things to do – shopping, food and drinks, cultural landmarks, natural attractions – and make it easy for your couples to include the link on their wedding website.

5. Fun, Useful, Stress-Relieving Content

Content marketing for wedding venues can be fun and still align with a sophisticated brand. Think posts like, “How to Decide Whether or Not to Invite those Guests on the Bubble,” “The 5 Little Things to Remember to Do on Your Wedding Day,” or “How to Pick the Right Wedding Vendors.” These posts may point less directly to your venue (though never forget to include a CTA at the end!) but they could give you some SEO authority, feed your marketing channels, and entertain and inform your readers.

How to Use Brand Research to Unlock Your Company’s True Identity

in Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

Your brand isn’t just a logo and a few colors – it’s what people think of you. Done well, brand research can help guide you to your true north. We’ve worked with happy clients across a handful of industries on their brand research and development over the past year – helping them discover exactly who they are and where their aspirations lie – and, from that point, helping them course-correct their brand so that all stakeholders are pulling in the same direction. Whether you enlist outside help or choose the major undertaking of a DIY brand research project, the benefits are clear. Here, we outline the main steps and our approach:

Become Familiar with the Current State of The Brand

First, we seek to understand the company and its existing branding through qualitative research. We look at their website and other materials, conduct employee and customer interviews, review competitors, and comb through customer reviews and surveys to gather information about brand perception. It’s important to not make assumptions about why we think customers value the brand. Instead, we need to hear it straight from them, and several others.

Interview Stakeholders

We conduct interviews with numerous key stakeholders including senior leadership, employees, current and lapsed clients, and vendors and partners. Ideally, these are 1:1, in-person interviews to try to get as much in-depth information as possible. When we interview a client’s senior leadership, we try to get a sense of how they see the company. What are the company’s strengths and weaknesses? Who are the competitors? Then, we pose similar questions to lower-level employees. Interviewing people both high and low on the org chart gives us a good sense of how the brand is seen internally. Interviews with clients allow us to see how their answers track with what the internal stakeholders said. We love to talk to past clients, but they can be tough to pin down, so often we’re able to interview just current clients.

Organize and Analyze the Data

By this point, there are usually commonalities in stakeholders’ answers (if there’s a big difference, then there’s a problem we need to address). We take all the interview data (plus any other data we’ve gathered) and quantify it. What words and phrases (whether positive or negative) are often said about the company? How can we piece those together and see patterns? What are the top themes and descriptions? What verbatim interview responses really resonated? Soon we get a real sense about what the company’s all about.

Establish Brand Identity

After distilling and analyzing the information gained via interviews, competitive research, and customer reviews, we establish the brand identity. Here’s where we determine the brand differentiators and the core pillars the company should stand on and carve out the following core components of the brand identity:

Discovery #1: Brand Attributes & Core Values

Understanding stakeholders’ views and the company’s aspirations, we develop a list of brand attributes and group them under core values. Core values are the guiding beliefs and behaviors that the company strives to identify with.

Discovery #2: The Positioning Statement

The positioning statement is what you want your clients to think and feel about your company. It defines your core value proposition, target audience, and competitive position. It’s not a mission statement or a vision statement – it’s rooted more concretely in fact. It’s about where you stand in the market.

Discovery #3: Brand Essence

The grand finale. Your brand essence is the simple phrase that defines the heart and soul of your brand. It’s your fundamental nature or quality. It’s the ultimate distillation of everything we’ve learned and should guide you in every client interaction, decision, or piece of work. It takes many hours to arrive at a brand essence, but clients cherish the clarity that it brings.

Then What?

Clients take the findings and deliverables from our brand research and use them to give their website a proper makeover, improve their social media presence, update old photography, create a new template for their proposal document, or intelligently revise any other pieces of marketing collateral.

So, Why Do It?

How long has it been since you’ve really thought critically about your brand? We urge you to consider it. Not just because developing the right marketing collateral will be easier – though it will be – but also because all stakeholders, both internally and externally, will better understand where your company is positioned in the marketplace. Just as it would for a person who takes the time for self-reflection in order to better himself or herself, companies that take the time to reevaluate who they are will be able to pursue their mission with more clarity. Interested in working together? Click here to learn more.

5 Things for Wedding Venues to Know About Creating the Perfect Contact Form

in Event Venues, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

Let’s imagine that your venue’s wedding webpage is in great shape. You’ve invested your time and money to make sure it has the right images, elegant (and readable) type, and all the information a prospective bride or groom could want before deciding to schedule a site visit with you. How are they going to reach you, though?

Remember: the bride or groom probably already has a bunch of tabs open, with other venue options just a click away. If there’s too much friction to contact you, they might click away and forget about you. All that is to say: getting your contact form right – to help you generate those valuable inbound leads – is a small but essential element in your marketing funnel and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Think about it – if you improve your form and see even a modest uptick of 2-5% in your form submissions, that could well have a measurable effect on the number of site visits you host and, consequently, the number of weddings you book. Here, we share five factors to consider when it comes to your contact form.

1. Remember, a Form is Better Than an Email Link

If your website has a link that says “Contact Us” or “Email Us” that links to a mai-lto email address, you might be unintentionally turning away leads. For example, if an engaged couple is browsing your website on their desktop and click your email link, which triggers email software they don’t use (maybe they use the Gmail website for email purposes, for example), it might cause just enough of a pain for them that they click away. Using an email link rather than a form also can limit your ability to track the source of the leads you’re getting. If you’re using social media ads to drive newly engaged couples to your website, you’ll want to track how many of them converted into actual leads. While tracking those leads is easy to do with a form (since they stay on your website and Facebook can still “see” them), it’s not as easy with a “Contact Us” email link (since it opens another app, where Facebook loses the trail.)

SOLUTION

Want to Reach More Engaged Couples?

Make sure your website is primed to capture them

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2. Nail the Form’s Design

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a well-designed form. “But it’s a couple of boxes, a few words, and a button,” you may think. It turns out, there’s a lot of art and thought behind those elements. Mono has an excellent blog post, The 10 Commandments of Good Form Design on the Web, that’s well worth a read. It might not all directly apply to you unless you’re a web designer, but you’ll know what to look for (or ask for) next time your site is up for a redesign. A couple of takeaways from Mono’s blog: “provide clear, always visible labels for each field” (rather than the field’s name going in the field) and “provide easily tappable areas” – because remember, many of the people accessing your website won’t be navigating with a mouse (on their desktop browser) but with their fingers (via their phone). Also: use radio buttons where you can to make it easy for the users to respond to a query and easy for you on the back-end when you sift through the submissions to qualify the leads.

3. Place the Form at the Bottom of the Page (In Most Cases!)

Think about any landing page – like your weddings page – as a “give,” and an “ask.” The “give,” in your case, are photos and information about your venue. That’s the reason why couples are on your site. Naturally, the “ask” should only come after they’ve gotten what they were promised. Therefore, venues that have a persistent form on the side of the page (or even at the top) are misguided. Keep the form at the bottom of the page (though if there’s a convenient spot to have an in-page link that jumps to the bottom of the page, that’s OK too), and you won’t use up valuable screen real estate before visitors are ready to see the form and engage with it. Instapage has some good further thinking on this topic. Additionally, make sure to clearly title the contact form to draw people in. “Contact Us” is OK, but something more personal to the visitor’s intention and tailored to the process would be appropriate, too.

4. Adjust the Form to Turn Your Lead Volume Up or Down

We work with some venues that are so in demand, the issue isn’t getting more leads, but getting better leads – and efficiently sifting out the poor ones that come in. If you’re constantly dealing with unqualified leads (which wedding venue marketing expert Alan Berg cites as a common issue), you can add some fields to your form to better qualify your couples. Asking for details like estimated spend range, preferred wedding date, number of guests, and phone number requires more effort and commitment and can, therefore, reduce the overall volume but increase the quality of the leads you receive, saving your team time. Conversely, if you know you’re getting plenty of qualified traffic to your weddings page, but not many visitors are filling out your contact form, consider whether the form is too much work to get through and experiment with reducing it to just the basics – name and email address. Another lever to pull to affect the volume of leads: Autofill. It makes forms quicker to fill out, so adjust accordingly.

CASE STUDY

Red Ridge Receptions

A boutique website and brochure for a breathtaking venue

See the Journey

5. Tell Them What’s Next

After the form is filled out, there should be a message thanking the visitor for his or her interest and also saying what happens next. Will they get a follow-up call? Email? When will it happen? What are the next steps? Define this so that it doesn’t feel like they’re submitting their contact information into the void.

 

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