Saffire Blog

Snapchatting your Events!

Chances are you’ve seen a Snapchat photo or “snap,” with their recognizable scrawled drawings announcing everything from the silly to the promotional. While it started as an easy way to electronically send the kind of messages one would want quickly erased, Snapchat has now become a tool for savvy event marketers. With Instagram, Facebook and … Continue reading “Snapchatting your Events!”

With Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, what does Snapchat offer that existing platforms don’t? First of all, the limited nature of the content means that only those who engage with your Snapchat immediately have access to your snaps, and only for a period up to 10 seconds.

So…how does that help marketing?

Particularly for event purposes, Snapchat’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it platform provides exciting opportunities for users to generate event-specific promotional tools and original content. The Association of Surfing Professionals utilize Snapchat to engage with their audience through snaps of real-time updates of surfing contests and will even have surfing professionals send through “autographed” selfies to fans.

Snapchat’s format also allows for real-time updates to event attendees and participants – imagine being able to let visitors know a special event will be starting soon, or about a last-minute change of venue without having to draft an email. Coordination with vendors can also lead to short-term special deals (10% off funnel cakes? Be right there!). Allowing celebrities or important figures to “take over” your account can further increase your reach, and allow attendees to feel like they are intimately connected with them, all thanks to your brand! The benefits of using Snapchat year-round can keep people talking about your event all year.

Like any social media site, it’s important that your selected username makes sense related to your organization – this isn’t your personal account. It’s meant to relate specifically to your organization or event needs. As a general note, it’s always a good idea to have synchronicity between your social media usernames to help with audience loyalty and engagement.

With Snapchat, you typically have to select users to send your snaps to, so it’s absolutely essential that settings are set to display content to “everyone,” so that you never have to manually select your list (which hopefully becomes too long to look through!). This way you’ll be sure that you’re never limiting your audience (of course this does offer specialized promotion opportunities for those extra-special followers).

Be sure to let your followers on other social media sites know that you are now on Snapchat. It’s also a good idea to provide content that you don’t post elsewhere. This ensures that the audience feels like they are getting special treatment as a reward for following you.

While new social media platforms seem to be on the rise every day, Snapchat provides a great current option for event marketing, specifically in delivering premium and exclusive limited-time content to loyal followers. Start snapping those behind-the-scenes pics and get people ready for your next event today!

Facebook’s Power Editor Gets an Upgrade

Here at Saffire, we love using Facebook’s Power Editor! This tool is especially helpful when creating a large number of ads, like for an event or social media campaign. The Power Editor enables advertisers to save time by creating ads in bulk as well as mass-editing their ads and posts across all campaigns, accounts and … Continue reading “Facebook’s Power Editor Gets an Upgrade”

Here at Saffire, we love using Facebook’s Power Editor! This tool is especially helpful when creating a large number of ads, like for an event or social media campaign. The Power Editor enables advertisers to save time by creating ads in bulk as well as mass-editing their ads and posts across all campaigns, accounts and pages. This tool will save you time and allows you to be more accurate than Ads Manager.

If you currently use Power Editor, you might have already known that it recently got a MUCH needed update. It now has some brand new features as well as old ones that now appear in different places. Don’t panic! The Power Editor’s design has changed quite a bit, but still functions the same. You will be a pro in now time as you just play around with the Editor.

Side Navigation

Let’s talk about the changes made. The navigation items on are now on top, displayed for easy access. The new side navigation display icons represent the campaign, ad sets and ad groups. When you click any of these levels, you’ll get all of the information on the right-hand side. You’re no longer going to see a list of campaigns, ad sets and ads on the left; so it is important to use the filtering.

Editing

One of the biggest changes in the new Power Editor is that it now has more room to show lists of campaigns, ad sets and ads. You’ll no longer see a separator between the list and the editing pane. Whether you’re creating or editing a campaign, ad set or ad, the next view will look the same. If you want to edit a campaign, just click on the pencil image on the right. The editing pane will fly out from right to left and take over the majority of your screen. Once you’re done, just click on the pencil again and the editing pane will close. For you Saffire users, this is very similar to the way that we have editing set up!

Search

The Search feature at the top left-hand corner is used to filter the list by Campaign Name, Ad Set Name, Ad Name, Campaign ID, Ad Set ID, Ad ID or Tag. You can also use the Filters drop-down menu to narrow down the list. The filtering options are categorized in the dropdown menu. Once you click on any of the options, the selected filter will appear on the right (some filters will require you to choose a variable). This feature will come in handy if you have lots of ads.

Reporting

Power Editor also has a place for all of your saved reports. To get there, click on the Reporting link at the top of the page and you’ll be able to see your scheduled reports. The list will show sample reports from Facebook as well as the custom reports that you’ve created. It also lets you generate a report while viewing a filtered campaign list under Manage Ads.

Keep in mind that trying out the new version of Power Editor will not affect anyone else who currently works on your ad account. You also have the option switch back to the older version if you’re not comfortable. All you need to do to see the old version is click on the Help drop-down at the top right-hand corner and choose “Use older version of Power Editor.”

You’ve Got to Pin it to Win it!

Seriously Saffire, another Social Media site we have to maintain? Yes! With 70 million users and 28% of online US adults using the site, it is definitely worth pinning for a few minutes a day! Do you know what the fastest growing demographic on Pinterest is? Men! Currently, 79% of users are female with only … Continue reading “You’ve Got to Pin it to Win it!”

Seriously Saffire, another Social Media site we have to maintain? Yes! With 70 million users and 28% of online US adults using the site, it is definitely worth pinning for a few minutes a day!

Do you know what the fastest growing demographic on Pinterest is? Men! Currently, 79% of users are female with only 21% male. But when you consider that in 2014 the number of men using Pinterest doubled and there are now more men using the site than read Sports Illustrated and GQ combined, Pinterest is quickly breaking free of the stereotypical recipe and interior design rapport. Pinterest recently announced a change to its site’s search settings, which will now filter search results based on whether you’re interested in products for men or for women. By introducing these new search filters, Pinterest shows its devotion to diversifying its customer base.

In late 2013, Pinterest introduced one of its best features: Place Pins! If you are a destination marketing organization (DMO), Place Pins provides users with great, rich information about your destination in a map format. Place Pins allows for more context and information for travelers and requires minimal effort from a DMO. Below is an example from two different Pure Michigan’s boards which shows how much more interactive a destination post can be when placed on a map.

If you are planning an event, one of the best ways to get pinners involved is to easily collect photos from attendees! The Pinterest mobile app allows event attendees to pin photos from their mobile devices. At some point during the event, invite attendees to contribute to a collaborator board (i.e. a board named 25^th Annual Saffire Valley Rodeo) and you have a real-time, crowd-sourced photo album! To make it even more successful, you can even turn this board into a contest and give prizes to the pinner with the most repinned photos.

If your organization does not have a Pinterest yet and need help getting started, check out our tips on creating a successful Pinterest page: Click Here! Let us know what Pinterest strategies you use and what has been successful for your organization!

FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER IN A NUTSHELL – Guest Blog from Jen Smith Social

Finally, Facebook’s new secret tool is finally out! Facebook recently announced the launch of Business Manager, a tool that helps brands, app developers and agencies manage accounts, Pages, apps and permissions all in one platform. MANAGE FACEBOOK EASILY Business Manager simplifies Facebook advertising efforts by integrating all aspects of Facebook marketing into one easy-to-use tool. … Continue reading “FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER IN A NUTSHELL – Guest Blog from Jen Smith Social”

Finally, Facebook’s new secret tool is finally out!

Facebook recently announced the launch of Business Manager, a tool that helps brands, app developers and agencies manage accounts, Pages, apps and permissions all in one platform.

MANAGE FACEBOOK EASILY

Business Manager simplifies Facebook advertising efforts by integrating all aspects of Facebook marketing into one easy-to-use tool. This is useful for users who manage their own marketing or on behalf of a brand. For example, if the user is part of an in-house marketing team or their own personal business.

This tool also takes Facebook to a more professional level, since it separates personal from business experience. While people can use a personal email and login to access ad accounts and Pages for management, you won’t need to friend other team members at work just to collaborate. Business Manager allows you to also get notifications using a work email instead of personal address. BONUS: You wont need to switch from your personal account to “use as page” whenever you need to work on your ad campaigns.

BUSINESS MANAGER TOP FEATURES

1. View Pages, ad accounts, apps and permissions linked to your brand

2. Add people on your team who can access campaign assets and collaborate on tasks.

3. Manage external partners, like agencies or Preferred Marketing Developers (PMDs), that are integrated to your Pages, ad accounts and apps

4. For professional advertisers, you can organize all of your clients’ Pages, ad accounts and apps permissions, as well as collaboration permissions.

5. With Business Manager, you’re in total control of all aspects of your Facebook business advertising. You can add, delete and manage ad campaign accounts linked to your business

As well as add or remove permissions to employees and external partners for your ad accounts, apps and Pages.

The tool is very intuitive and designed to help users without a technical background work efficiently. With just a few clicks, it reduces time spent on setting up and managing pages in addition to campaigns. Team members and partners can easily view and organize what’s going on behind the scenes of a Facebook account. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check out the tool for yourself to see if your business can benefits from features.

Right now Business Manager is only available to select users in the US. Facebook plans for a full roll-out internationally over the next couple of weeks.

To learn more or to get started, you can visit business.facebook.com.

So what do you think? Will you use Business Manager? Do you have access to Facebook Business Manager yet?
Leave a comment below!

* Images from Facebook for Business

Saffire would like to thank Jen Smith with Jen Smith Social for this great guest blog!

All Gain, No Pain: Eliminate Guesswork on Facebook Ads

Living in a digital world that requires you to “pay to play” usually isn’t as wallet-friendly as we’d all like. Most of us are on a tight budget, which doesn’t always go well with our online marketing goals. The good news is, we’ve got a bullet proof plan to help you decide where your money … Continue reading “All Gain, No Pain: Eliminate Guesswork on Facebook Ads”

Living in a digital world that requires you to “pay to play” usually isn’t as wallet-friendly as we’d all like. Most of us are on a tight budget, which doesn’t always go well with our online marketing goals. The good news is, we’ve got a bullet proof plan to help you decide where your money is best spent. After all, we want you to have the biggest bang for your buck.

Where to spend money:

Offer ads. Whether you’re an event, venue, or destination, your main source of revenue is butts in seats. This means that your online ticket sales should be a main priority for your online marketing. The good news is, Facebook advertising has evolved to such an advanced level that you can actually drive traffic straight from Facebook to the page that you sell tickets. Hello, cash flow!

By clicking the “get offer” button, your page visitors are instantly directed to a revenue-generating place. When the average cost of a Facebook ad is somewhere around $0.25, you’re basically paying a quarter to get someone to make a purchase. That’s a pretty big return on investment compared to the cost of your tickets.

Posts that get visitors thinking about themselves. Posts like this tend to create more of relationship between viewers and your brand because they appeal to emotion. The more attached a consumer is to a brand, the more trusting they are of the brand and the more likely they are to spend money on that brand. For example:

Wording like this gets parents thinking about their kids as well as their own inner-child, thus tugging at their heart strings.

Posts that involve your partners and sponsors. This shows that you’re “bigger than yourself” and also helps to pull in from the fan base of the partner you’ve tagged. Your partners and sponsors are always going to have loyal followers, and if those followers see your affiliation, then you’ve already got your foot in the door!
Posts that are fun. First and foremost, you want to be a resource for entertainment. After all, people are coming to social media as an escape from boredom. So why not make your page one of the most fun to interact with? It’s okay to do a business plug every now and then, but remember the 80/20 rule. About 80% of your posts should be fun, and 20% should be promotional.

Where not to spend money:

Getting page likes. This is a “vanity statistic,” and it’s more valuable to spend money where you will make money. Unless you’re starting from scratch, chances are that you already have a large fan-base that you can use as an audience—this will only continue to grow as you post. When you create offer ads and link posts, there is a “like page” button built in, thus making it unnecessary to also spend money on page promotion ads. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t spend a little here and there, but you definitely shouldn’t put all your eggs (money) in this basket.

From our experience, spending (or not spending) money in these places has proved to give us the biggest bang for our buck. The most important thing is to pay attention to your fans and what they interact most with, and focus your dollars there. After all, if you’re not watching and listening, you’re not learning about your audience’s behavior. Facebook advertising involves quite a bit of trial and error, so we want to make sure that you had our inside scoop to help you stay ahead of the curve!

Improve Your Instagram Life

If you’re not using Instagram for your event, venue, or destination, then it’s time to hop on the bandwagon! We know what you’re thinking, “Oh great, just one more thing I have to keep up with in the online marketing world.” The thing is, it’s actually really fun and one of the best ways to reach a younger audience. Whether you think using Instagram is worthwhile or not, it’s important to be present everywhere your customers are, otherwise you miss out on the opportunity to reach a huge segment of your audience. Thankfully, there are some great apps and tools that can make your Instagram life a breeze while making you look like you’re ahead of the game!

Moldiv. There are a ton of photo collage apps, but this one is definitely our favorite because it has a ton of cool collage templates to choose from. Not only can you create collages, you can also add effects and decorations to your photos to create something truly unique. Once you’re done editing, you can share your photos straight to social media, email, or save it to your photo album.
Rookie. This is another favorite of ours because it provides 116 filter effects that can take your photos above and beyond. That’s right, 116! Be careful though, it’s addicting. It’s hard not to use this app on every single photo in your gallery because it really does make you look like a pro. Did we mention that it’s completely free in the app store?
Primary for Instagram. Do you manage multiple accounts and find it incredibly annoying to constantly be switching between them? Primary is an awesome way to help manage that. You can switch between accounts, filter out unwanted posts, users, or tags, and pinch to zoom in. It’s $1.99 in the app store, but well worth it.
IFTTT (If This Then That). Do yourself a favor and sign up for this awesome service! It’s completely free and does an awesome job at automating your digital life. You can create “recipes” that put the web to work for you. One helpful recipe is IF I post to Instagram, THEN also post to my Facebook page. This is one of very few automation tools that includes Instagram, so take advantage of it!
Latergramme. This app is awesome because it allows you to plan your Instagram posts in advance. It doesn’t do the posting for you, but it will send you push notifications when it’s time to go.

Don’t let yourself get weighed down trying to keep up with the Joneses of the social media world, especially when there are a variety of apps that were created specifically to help you take a load off. Instagram is one of the quickest and simplest ways to give your fans an inside look at your organization, so have fun with it!

Getting Seen and SHARED on Social Sites!

It’s no secret that we are living in the days of “more” – more content from more sources, being shared with more people, more frequently and more quickly. The question is, in the sea of information flooding consumers today, how do you ensure that your social marketing efforts will be read – and ultimately shared? … Continue reading “Getting Seen and SHARED on Social Sites!”

It’s no secret that we are living in the days of “more” – more content from more sources, being shared with more people, more frequently and more quickly. The question is, in the sea of information flooding consumers today, how do you ensure that your social marketing efforts will be read – and ultimately shared? Sharing certainly is not a new concept. People love to tell their friends about great finds, ideas and experiences, it’s just a lot easier to do so with the help of modern technology, and you should be taking advantage of this fact!

Why does it matter if your customers share your content? According to The Psychology of Sharing, a study published by The New York Times, “73% [of people surveyed] say they process information more deeply, thoroughly and thoughtfully when they share it.” This means that if you post about an upcoming event on your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, and one of your followers shares this post, that person will be more likely to really contemplate the event, making them more likely to buy tickets and end up attending the event! Also, once they’ve taken the time to share your event information, it is probable that they will continue to talk about it with others (since you are now top-of-mind), which often translates to more tickets sold!

Time is of the Essence. One of the implications of consumers receiving so much data is our attention spans are shorter than ever. In other words, if you want to capture your target audience, you need to get information to them as quickly and frequently as possible. Big concert next week? Let you consumers know through a number of different channels – email, social media, and on your website – as soon as possible, so they will be thinking of you and be more driven to share this information with others. Make it easy for them to share, too! Incorporate social media buttons directly on your webpage that link your site to your social media pages. If customers can share your content with one-click, they are far more likely to do so. Another important consideration – even if you aren’t working on Wednesday and Thursday one week, your customers are still looking at your content, so try to keep active every day. (For tips on leveraging social media on the weekends, see the article we linked under “Latest Headlines,” at the top of The Dirt.) On the flip side, people will generally share your content only if they feel like they can trust you, so make sure you take any outdated information down with the same sense of urgency as you’re posting.

Get Engaged! When posting, don’t just think about the business side of your venue, but about what draws consumers to your venue in particular. In other words, what are the interests of your target audience? Most people choose to share information when they believe the information is a direct reflection of their personality, interests and beliefs, so try to match up with your customer’s mindset. Also, your fans want to be heard just as much as you do. If they take the time to comment, reply or write you an email, make sure you respond! Engagement makes people feel valued, and the more appreciated they feel, the more likely they’ll be to share your information with others.

Make it Fun! While thinking about being timely and engaging, try to also find a unique way to get your customers involved. Some great tools include polls, contests and open-ended questions. For example, if you have 3 big shows coming up over the next couple of months, put a poll up asking your fans who they are most excited to see. Not only will this get people voting, but it will likely get them to share as they see the preferences of others. You may also choose to post a photo of one of the favorite foods served at your event, and ask people when the last time they tasted this dish was. Leaving the question open-ended invites more conversation, which makes readers give more thought to the post, resulting in more shares.

Think of posting to social media in a similar fashion as talking to a group of friends. You want to stay on topics that will be interesting to the group, and hopefully get everyone involved. The real victory is when you choose a topic that so interesting, your friends talk about it even after you part ways. Also remember, no one likes being the person who shows up late, making the others wait, so be sure to exhibit a sense of urgency with your social media posts. Sharing isn’t a new idea – in fact, people love to share when you give them content that sparks their interest, so start posting!

Online Superstitions – BUSTED!

It’s Friday the 13th so we wanted to go through our top 5 online misconceptions we hear and discredit them where they stand! We want you to feel comfortable online and put to rest any fears you may have that keep you from moving forward in this ever-changing digital world. 5. All web browsers are … Continue reading “Online Superstitions – BUSTED!”

5. All web browsers are created equal – NO WAY! It’s clear to us that Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are top notch! Make your online experience easier and ditch Internet Explorer as it is the most victimized browser out there.

4. It’s dangerous to make a purchase on my mobile device – WRONG! It’s totally safe- just keep these tips in mind:

Look for the padlock symbol at the top of the page next to the website’s name (like above) when you’re purchasing in a browser. If you don’t see it, DON’T buy it. This icon let’s you know the site is encrypted (information that has been coded so that only authorized parties can actually read it).
Use an app! Apps generally provide a much easier purchasing process for you while keeping your privacy a priority. Sites like Ebay and Amazon have apps that are user-friendly AND safe!
41% of smartphone owners have made a purchase on mobile – so we know that online security will continue to grow for mobile ecommerce. (Does this stat make you think twice about your customer? Maybe you should sell your tickets online this year!)

3. Facebook advertising is too expensive – we’ve seen success with just $3 a day committed to Facebook advertising! Less than $100 a month can give you more reach and interaction with your customers on social media – Americans spend an average of 127 minutes per day in their mobile apps!

2. Online banking is a risky idea – actually your personal information is just as vulnerable offline as it is online. Due to the fact that banks use encryption software and test their security in real-world scenarios, your account info is VERY secure and safe to be handled over the internet. However, a few checks you can give yourself before banking are:

Are you on a secure network? NEVER type in passwords or bank account numbers while on a public Wi-Fi (like at Starbucks), this includes making purchases with your credit card on ANY website over a wireless network that you don’t know. Even on mobile, your wireless provider’s network (like 3G, 4G and LTE) will be safer than free wi-fi.
Just like using your mobile device to make a purchase, check for the “s” in the beginning of the URL (https://www.saffireevents.com) and a padlock icon in your browser when on a website (sometimes there will be a green bar or green URL – these are very safe).

1. Yeah we have a website, that’s all we need – NOT TRUE! Just because your website exists doesn’t mean people are finding it

Be sure your site is listed on MULTIPLE search engines. Add keywords and descriptions to the important pages of your website within your admin tool (or have your web provider update this).
Cross market! Send people to your website from your social media – hyperlinking is very easy with Facebook and convenient tools like bit.ly help you shrink the length of a URL so they fit nicely in a tweet on Twitter.
Your website needs to be UP-TO-DATE! Leaving last year’s dates or irrelevant content on your website all year long is NOT the way to keep your customers engaged and trusting your website. Refreshing your homepage with new and exciting images will keep folks coming back for more too, instead of leaving your site immediately.

5 Steps to Help Your Event, Venue or Destination Take Off With Facebook Advertising

If you’ve seen one of our many presentations in 2014, you’ve probably heard us mention the importance of Facebook advertising. In September, Facebook made a change to its algorithm, drastically reducing the reach of business posts. In December, they did it again and now only an estimated 3% of your followers will see your posts … Continue reading “5 Steps to Help Your Event, Venue or Destination Take Off With Facebook Advertising”

If you’ve seen one of our many presentations in 2014, you’ve probably heard us mention the importance of Facebook advertising. In September, Facebook made a change to its algorithm, drastically reducing the reach of business posts. In December, they did it again and now only an estimated 3% of your followers will see your posts if you don’t advertise. With that in mind, we’ve put together our top 5 basic steps to get started with Facebook advertising.

Step 1 – Ads Manager & Power Editor: When you’re first getting started with Facebook advertising it’s sometimes hard to find where to begin. Once you’ve accessed the “Ads Manager” page it will show as a link on your Facebook “Home” page on the left side navigation, but for your first entry point you can start by clicking on this link: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/. If you manage several business pages, you’ll want to make sure you have your Account dropdown in the top left corner set to the correct account. The “Ads Manager” is where you’ll set up your billing information, your users who are allowed access to your ads, and where you’ll access your reports. Once you have the billing information set up, you can click on “Power Editor” to actually start building your audiences and campaigns. Each time you go into the Power Editor you will want to click the “Download to Power Editor” button to ensure you’re working with the latest data.

Step 2 – Audience: Once you’re in the Power Editor, you’ll want to start building some audiences to target your ads to. There are 3 different types of audiences you can create. The first is a Target Group that allows you to select different user demographics that match the demographics of your audience. If you’re a venue or event you may want to set up a target group that lives within a 50 mile radius, and is “interested in” a specific performer coming to your stage, or sponsors supporting your events, or local media outlets. If you’re a destination, you may want to target a different city or state that you know travels to your area frequently, along with a specific age group, or parents of children in a specific age group. You can also create target groups of people who “Like” your page and their friends. There are a ton of options here so we recommend you explore the possibilities. The 2nd type of audience is a Custom Audience. This is a spreadsheet of email addresses that you’ve collected for your newsletter, volunteers, sponsors, board members, etc. that you can upload to Facebook and it will search for Facebook accounts tied to that email list. You can also create a custom audience of people who visit your website. The 3rd audience type is a Lookalike Audience which Facebook creates based off the demographics of your uploaded Custom Audience, and matches those demographics to other Facebook users with similar likes, interests, ages and locations.

Step 3 – Campaigns, Ad Sets & Ads: Now that you have your audiences set up, you can start creating those ads. There are 3 levels of ad creation. The top level is the Campaign. The Campaign is where you set the Objective of a group of ads. The ad objectives range from increasing engagement with your posts (generating more likes, shares and comments on a specific post), to increasing page likes (the number of people who are following your business page), to increasing website conversions (actually getting users to click through to your website and make a purchase). The Ad Set is the middle level of a group of ads and is where you set your budget and the start and end date for the group. Important tip: Please note that Facebook defaults your ad set to run continuously with no end date and with a $10 daily budget. You can edit this amount and add an end date if you would like. We’ve seen success with budgets as low as $3/day. You can have multiple ad sets within a campaign which helps you budget different amounts to different groups of ads. The bottom layer is the Ad itself. You can make an ad out of any of the following: a post that is already live, a post that is scheduled to go live in the future, or an unpublished post that doesn’t actually show on your business page but does show on your audience’s wall. You can have many ads within an ad set, and this allows you to create an ad for each audience using the same content for each or possibly different content depending on your needs. When you create the ad you need to set the name and select the post on the first tab, set the audience on the second tab and set the “Optimization & Pricing” on the third tab. I typically use the Optimized CPM option to allow Facebook to determine the best mix of how to spend my set budget between my ads within an ad set.

Step 4: Create an editorial calendar and budget for your Facebook advertising that will help you determine how much you will be spending throughout the year. Consider ramping up your budget in the weeks leading up to tickets going on sale and while tickets are on sale, and then lowering it during your off-season. Your editorial calendar should reflect milestone dates for your venue, event or destination as well as for your surrounding community and national holidays and events so your posts can be relevant to what your fans are already paying attention to. Consider scheduling contests and promotions to garner excitement and use that as an opportunity to spend additional advertising budget on posts that your audience will be most excited about. Whether you’re spending a dollar a day or $50 a day, you’ll be guaranteeing that more people will see your posts than if you do not advertise at all.

Step 5: Practice makes perfect and this is a format that will likely take a bit of trial and error. If you’re looking at the reporting during a campaign and realizing that a target audience isn’t responding, think about what needs to change for that audience to work better. Adjust your settings and keep moving forward. If you notice that posts with images or promotions get better traction than posts without those things, then do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook is space that cannot be ignored, but you simply won’t be seen without spending some advertising dollars there!

Prepping Your Online Marketing Before Your Big Event!

We all know the pressure rises as time starts to tick away getting closer to the “BIG DAY.” Of course we’d love to schedule every little feature and post long in advance of our event, but we don’t always have that luxury or organization (procrastinators raise your hands). So we’ve come up with a few … Continue reading “Prepping Your Online Marketing Before Your Big Event!”

We all know the pressure rises as time starts to tick away getting closer to the “BIG DAY.” Of course we’d love to schedule every little feature and post long in advance of our event, but we don’t always have that luxury or organization (procrastinators raise your hands). So we’ve come up with a few things we think are a must for you to tweak to refresh your online marketing and give your customers something new and exciting to look at while keeping your key ingredients in the mix.

Homepage Update

Imagery: Who wants to look at the same old info and same old photos day in and day out, year-round? No one! We know it can take some effort to locate images or files that are worthy of your homepage, but it will be SO worth it! The likelihood of an image getting clicked on (taking your customer further into your website – thus, closer to making a purchase or deciding to attend) is much greater than just a link or a page in your drop down menu. What does that tell us? We need to have fresh and inviting photography on our homepage. Make the effort to find images from recent events that are action-packed or evoke a personal emotion and put those pictures on your homepage to get your customers clicking!

Dates/Hours/Times: One way to really drive home your customer loyalty and comfort with your website is to make the dates of your event incredibly clear on your website (for fun, you may even want to include a countdown). Be sure that your dates are in a legible font, very large, and if you can, put them in the header of your website so that they are on every page. Then be sure your customer has access to your specific hours of operation so they know how early they can show up and how late they can leave. We know that during your event you don’t have time to answer the phone, and your website is your first line of defense against the #1 question asked: “What are your hours?” So save yourself some time and put that information in an accessible (dare I say obvious) place on your website. Your customers will feel confidence and enjoy their experience on your website if they know exactly when they should attend.

Email

We can’t say it enough, email marketing is not dead. At about two months before your event, you should start pinging your customers and letting them know you’re getting geared up for your event and that they should jump on board with the excitement. A trickle of announcements can be the best way to peak interest and keep them coming back for more. We recommend that EVERY day of your event you remind folks what’s going on at your facility so they can be prepared as they make plans. Things like parking, ticket prices at the gate, and major performances will always encourage attendance and turn those last minute decision makers into buying customers.

Ecommerce

Are you selling your tickets in advance online? What about carnival items like wristbands and tokens or sponsorships and vendor registrations? Collecting money through your website is one sure-fire way to guarantee money in the bank before your event starts and put a little bit of cushion in your pockets. However, be sure that you’ve got all of your prices in order well in advance. Scheduling a ticket for sale for your early bird specials is a great way to increase traffic to your website AND ease your own anxieties about revenue.

Social Media

It’s how people stay connected, why not keep them connected to your brand by beginning to engage them weeks before your event? Lucky for you, social media is available on mobile and your customers are starting to spend more and more time on their cell phones and tablets rather than their computers. Drive traffic to your website through exciting posts (again with imagery), contests, and promotions on discounted tickets or sale items! If you’re not catching your customers on mobile, you might be missing them altogether. Do yourself a favor and start to really focus your efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even YouTube–let’s get that name recognition growing!