Saffire Blog

Welcome Coors Ranch Rodeo!

It’s hard to believe it, but today we are happy to announce our second partnership with an event in the great city of Amarillo, TX! Our dear friends at the Amarillo Tri-State Fair & Rodeo recommended us to the Coors Cowboy Club, and now we are working on a new website for the Coors Ranch … Continue reading “Welcome Coors Ranch Rodeo!”

It’s hard to believe it, but today we are happy to announce our second partnership with an event in the great city of Amarillo, TX!

Our dear friends at the Amarillo Tri-State Fair & Rodeo recommended us to the Coors Cowboy Club, and now we are working on a new website for the Coors Ranch Rodeo!

We are excited to welcome another rodeo to the Saffire community, and we can’t wait to show you our new ideas for the look and feel of their website.

Now that we have so many friends in Amarillo, I think I see a road trip to West Texas in our future!

Social Media & Your Event

In our webinar this afternoon, we will be discussing how-to market on a budget and one of the best ways to save money is to take advantage of social media. If you let your customers market for you, its a win-win situation! You don’t have to pay for marketing, and they feel involved. And the … Continue reading “Social Media & Your Event”

In our webinar this afternoon, we will be discussing how-to market on a budget and one of the best ways to save money is to take advantage of social media. If you let your customers market for you, its a win-win situation! You don’t have to pay for marketing, and they feel involved.

And the truth is, having your customers share information about your event won’t be a stretch. Take a look at how much time the average user spent on social media in January 2012.

A great example of an event that has taken advantage of Social Media is the South Texas State Fair in Beaumont, TX. At the beginning of their 2011 event, they didn’t even have a Facebook page. And today, they have 1,139 fans!

Part of what has helped increase their fan base is that each post encourages interaction. Whether they are asking for feedback, suggestions or a simple “like,” their fans feel that they are doing their part to help and promote the event.

They also cover a wide variety of topics. Make sure you aren’t just talking about the same event all the time, but also discuss new fair foods or events that are taking place each day.

Have fun with social media and feel free to offer incentives! If you want to increase your fan base, say you’ll randomly choose 2 fans to win a prize once you reach your goal number. This will get your fans to tell their friends about your page, and your numbers will skyrocket. Trust us! We’ve seen this happen more than once.

Don’t be afraid to try new things with social media and make a commitment to finding the right formula. And if something doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Rodeo Austin: Where Weird Meets Western

It is always a highlight for our team when we get to go see one of our events in action, and this Wednesday we drove across town to visit our very first Saffire client, Rodeo Austin! First, we got to go on a tour of their newly remodeled office and the fairgrounds. Our tour guides … Continue reading “Rodeo Austin: Where Weird Meets Western”

It is always a highlight for our team when we get to go see one of our events in action, and this Wednesday we drove across town to visit our very first Saffire client, Rodeo Austin!

First, we got to go on a tour of their newly remodeled office and the fairgrounds. Our tour guides were wonderful and we enjoyed learning even more about their event.

Next, we enjoyed a yummy dinner in the Founders Club. If you ever have the chance to enjoy dinner there, we highly recommend the friend pickles and homemade peach cobbler.

We headed down to our seats and watched an exciting rodeo. As a former intern at Rodeo Austin, Cassie got to see a lot of her old friends, including the one and only Rusty Rodeo!

But we would lying if we said that most of our excitement came from getting to see Josh Turner in concert! He is definitely a favorite around the Austin office, so we sang along to every song he played.

After the rodeo and concert, we headed over to spend some time at the 100X club for drinks and dancing. We enjoyed some live music from Clayton Gardner before we left the grounds.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and we can’t thank the staff at Rodeo Austin enough for their hospitality. We are proud to be your partner!

Saffire 101: ShoWorks Integration

As we began talking with our clients about what our software could do to make their lives easier we heard over and over again that they would like to enter their results only once. They were already doing this with ShoWorks, and we agreed that there was no need to double the effort to get … Continue reading “Saffire 101: ShoWorks Integration”

As we began talking with our clients about what our software could do to make their lives easier we heard over and over again that they would like to enter their results only once. They were already doing this with ShoWorks, and we agreed that there was no need to double the effort to get results to customers by entering the information again for their website.

We approached our friend Mike Hnatt, and now we couldn’t be more excited to announce our partnership with ShoWorks! It means so much that a company with an incredible reputation in the event industry believed in our vision for the improving the industry’s online presence enough to partner with us.

In today’s episode of Saffire 101, Kirk will show you how easy it is to integrate your ShoWorks results with the Saffire software.

Welcome Lea County, New Mexico!

The original vision for Saffire was to help fairs, festivals and rodeos improve their online presence, but the folks of Lea County, New Mexico saw more to what we had to offer! As our newest clients, this county website will be our first site that isn’t based around a specific event like a fair, but … Continue reading “Welcome Lea County, New Mexico!”

The original vision for Saffire was to help fairs, festivals and rodeos improve their online presence, but the folks of Lea County, New Mexico saw more to what we had to offer!

As our newest clients, this county website will be our first site that isn’t based around a specific event like a fair, but the Saffire software still works for them! They have the ability to create all the pages of basic information they want, but their main goal is to make it easier for their community to find out what events are taking place. What better way to share event information than with the Saffire software?

Please join us in welcoming Lea County, New Mexico to the Saffire community!

SXSW Recap: Social Storytelling & Building a Narrative for Your Brand

I attended a session on Monday presented by Helen Klein Ross, the creative mind behind @bettydraper, a twitter account that maintains the voice of AMC’s mega-popular character Betty Draper, played by January Jones, in the hit show Mad Men. Everything about this twitter account is spoken in the voice of the character from the show. … Continue reading “SXSW Recap: Social Storytelling & Building a Narrative for Your Brand”

I attended a session on Monday presented by Helen Klein Ross, the creative mind behind @bettydraper, a twitter account that maintains the voice of AMC’s mega-popular character Betty Draper, played by January Jones, in the hit show Mad Men. Everything about this twitter account is spoken in the voice of the character from the show. Not the actress, not the writer, but the character is perpetuated in this easily accessible and massive platform.

She provides a connection for several thousand fans of the Mad Men brand, and gives them an opportunity to interact with her in a way that helps them feel personally connected to the show.

Social media allows you to stay connected to your consumers, but it’s not just about having a twitter account or Facebook page. Those are simply the platforms for building a connection with your brand. You have to give consumers a REASON to connect, because just being present in these spaces is typically not enough.

Whether it’s maintaining your brand recognition and story throughout the off-season when consumers may “forget about you,” or just perpetuating your brand in new arenas, it’s a way to broaden your market and at the same time strengthen your connection with your existing fan base. Creating content that engages your consumers creates an emotional connection and gives them a reason to want to share that experience.

As you begin to craft your story, consider your audience. Think about who you are trying to reach, and instead of considering how many people you are trying to connect with, think about WHICH people you are trying to connect with. Think about the stories you can tell that will resonate with your customers, and if you’re ever in doubt, use Betty Draper’s recipe for successful storytelling.

Create the content (the more the better), keep a consistent and continuous voice for your brand, keep it simple and always make it easy for others to share it with their friends.

Join our Webinar “Marketing on a Budget”

Marketing on a Budget Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/890304078People say you have to spend money to make money. But for fairs and rodeos, there isn’t always a lot of money to spend, so you need to make every penny count. From this Free Webinar you will learn: Where you need … Continue reading “Join our Webinar “Marketing on a Budget””

Marketing on a Budget

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/890304078People say you have to spend money to make money. But for fairs and rodeos, there isn’t always a lot of money to spend, so you need to make every penny count.

From this Free Webinar you will learn:

Where you need to be spending your marketing budget
Why your website plays an important part in the success of any event or business
How to get people to engage with you on mobile during your event
6 free tools you can use to enhance your online presence

Register now to join Kendra Wright, President of Saffire, and Cassie Roberts, Manager of Sales and Partnerships, as they answer these questions and help you get the most bang for your marketing buck.

Title: Marketing on a Budget
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Have we got a deal for you!

Last week, one of our friends in the fair industry introduced us to a wonderful company called Consistent Computer Bargain and we wanted to share this resource with all of you! We hear from events all the time that money is tight, and we understand that when finances become available, there are often more pressing … Continue reading “Have we got a deal for you!”

Last week, one of our friends in the fair industry introduced us to a wonderful company called Consistent Computer Bargain and we wanted to share this resource with all of you!

We hear from events all the time that money is tight, and we understand that when finances become available, there are often more pressing issues than updating your technology. That’s where CCB comes in.

They provide reasonable pricing to non-profit organizations to stay up-to-date on the latest available technologies including brands like Microsoft, Apple, Dell, McAfee, HP and more.

If your event is a 501(c)(3) Organization, we encourage you to see what CCB can do for you! Please know, you will need to be able to prove your tax status with documentation to verify your current status as an accredited charitable organization to take advantage of this opportunity.

Saffire 101: Create Your Own Form

It is no secret that a lot of people are involved in making an event successful. Coordinating and communication information takes up a lot of time, so we wanted to do what we could to make the lives of our clients a little easier. Gone are the days when customers, vendors and sponsors printed PDF … Continue reading “Saffire 101: Create Your Own Form”

It is no secret that a lot of people are involved in making an event successful. Coordinating and communication information takes up a lot of time, so we wanted to do what we could to make the lives of our clients a little easier.

Gone are the days when customers, vendors and sponsors printed PDF forms and mailed them to your office. Now, you can create custom forms to collect the information you need, complete with online submissions. And you no longer need to manually enter the information, because forms come to you by email and you can also export form data to a spreadsheet or any database.

In this episode of Saffire 101, our creative director Jeremy will show you how easy it is to create a form and access the data to learn more about your customers, vendors and sponsors.

Understanding the New Facebook Timeline

After lots of buzz and a first appearance on personal accounts, Facebook rolled out Timeline for brands on February 29. While some brands have received the new format with open arms, others are a little unsure of how to create their new presence, so let’s take a little time to explain the Timeline and what … Continue reading “Understanding the New Facebook Timeline”

After lots of buzz and a first appearance on personal accounts, Facebook rolled out Timeline for brands on February 29. While some brands have received the new format with open arms, others are a little unsure of how to create their new presence, so let’s take a little time to explain the Timeline and what it can do for your event.

Some have compared the new Timeline to a blog template that allows you to focus more on images and milestones. You are basically given a skeleton to fill in with your event’s unique story. Now, you can focus less on trying to sell yourself and more on showing your personality which will create a personal connection with fans.

Cover Photo

Not long ago, brands began creating default landing pages to display large images. While that will no longer be available with the new Timeline, Facebook’s answer to the situation was offering a cover photo. The recommended image dimensions for the large photo are 850 x 315 pixels.

The cover photo is your chance to get creative. Use this space as a way to make big announcements like next year’s dates and concert performers. You can change your cover photo any time, so it would be beneficial to change it each day during your event to focus on what’s happening on the grounds each particular day.

While many people are excited about the possibilities of cover photos, please don’t forget your profile picture. This picture will still appear everywhere else on Facebook, so make sure it can stand alone and represent your brand.

Milestones

While the new timeline will automatically create a recent history of your event, you can also tell the story of how your event became the experience visitors have come to know and love.

You can add milestones as far back as the year 1000. You should use the information you already have, but take this opportunity to research your event’s history for new information. You may find interesting photos and stories that could also be used as marketing materials.

Make sure to call out important photos and events on your Timeline by clicking the star on a post that expands the photo to a widescreen view. You can even pin content so it will remain the top post for 7 days.

For some fans, displaying your history may reignite enthusiasm for your event. They may see something that reminds them of their experience when they were younger and encourage them to once again make your event a priority.

Because Facebook no longer has the issue of information being “below the fold,” your content has a much longer lifespan. Users will likely continue to comment and like posts long after their initial creation date, which means you need to focus more on quality of posts instead of quantity.

What’s next?

Brands have until March 30 to go live with their new Timeline, but some pages have already made the switch.

Here is our list of events to watch as you create your new profile:

Missouri State Fair– Their cover photo collage gives you a look at the past and present of the fair to show you that they are an established event that has stood the test of time.
Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo– You quickly see that this event has a rich history since their milestones go all the way back to the 1900’s!
California State Fair– Their dates are right at the top for all to see.
Montana State Fair– Touting a giveaway is a great way to increase fans and interaction on your page.
Eastern Idaho State Fair– While their cover photos is whimsical, they remembered the importance of their profile picture as a Facebook wide representation of their event.