How to Respond to Online Reviews in 10-ish Minutes Per Day
Last week, I went to a fancy restaurant with my husband for a nice dinner. I put on a dress, a little makeup, and (gasp) actually did something with my hair. So this was clearly a special occasion. When we got to the restaurant, we were told that there would be an hour wait, even though we had a reservation. An inauspicious beginning, but these things happen. So we found a place to wait. After an hour and 15 minutes, we were finally sat. And we sat. And sat. And sat. For another 20 minutes before we were approached to place our drink order. Which came out wrong. Then we…
Blog with Purpose (Because Otherwise, You’re Just Journaling)
Pouring yourself a cup of tea (or bourbon) and quietly writing your thoughts in a journal is a great way to clear your mind. I write a few longhand pages most mornings for this very purpose, sans bourbon of course. But if that’s how you approach your business blog, you’re probably not having the kind of success you’d like. Blogging is part of a larger marketing strategy, which means we have to be strategic about how we approach it. You can have fun with it! But it needs to have a clear purpose if it’s going to help you achieve your goals. Whether your blog is for an event venue, a…
A/B Testing for Better Email Marketing
If you have an email list (and you’re actually using it), you’re probably aware that email marketing has a great ROI. Every time you send an email to your list, you’re either nurturing those leads or trying to make a sale. But if you’re paying attention to the numbers (which we’ll discuss more below), you probably find that some emails do their job better than others. An email you thought was going to be a big money-maker turned out to be a dud. Or one that you dashed off in the five minutes between a site visit and a health inspection brought in beaucoup bucks—and you have no idea why.…
How Well Do You Know Your Target Market?
Let’s start with a little hypothetical here. You own a wedding venue, and you’re using your blog to attract organic traffic to your website. Good for you! That’s what I would do in your situation, too. So you’re doing a little brainstorming, trying to figure out what potential brides and grooms would be interested in that could get them to your site. You settle on a blog about how couples can save money wedding planning. You write it up, make sure it’s got some good SEO juice for the keyword “how to save money on wedding,” and wait for the visitors. Over the next couple of weeks, your blog post…
57+ Creative Topics for Your Wedding Venue Blog
Coming up with content ideas is one of the toughest part of blogging, no matter the industry. Fortunately for wedding venue managers, there is a wealth of ideas to write about weddings! From bridal style to centerpiece ideas to etiquette to the newest trends, you have a vast range of topics to write about. I’ve pulled together nearly 60 topic ideas that you can refer to any time you’re stuck and need a bite from the blogging muse. Real Weddings You have a steady stream of content ideas flowing through your venue every weekend during wedding season. I’m talking about the real weddings that you’ve already booked. These are your calling card. They’re…
The Quickest Way to Lose Customers
After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, jarred awake every few minutes by the A/C roaring to life, I finally began to drift off around 7:00 AM. Then… BANG! Thunder that sounded like Zeus himself was chucking lightning bolts at the foot of the bed, and a torrential downpour like marbles pelting the metal roof. I groaned and rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on my lumpy pillow. But then the wind picked up, adding to the ferocity of the storm and whistling through chinks in the window facing the lake. “Our firewood is getting soaked,” I told Kirby, who also could not sleep. I got up…
How to Share User Generated Content — And Stay Out of Trouble
Around my house, I’m known as “The Disposal.” This is because I go hunting for any bits and bobs in the refrigerator or pantry, and combine them into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster-type lunch — aka, I eat like the garbage disposal. A bit of leftover rice, ground beef, and some veggies? That’s about to be a stir-fry. Some mushrooms and scallions? Hello, omelet-city. I’m all about using what I have and turning it into something to fill the hole in my tummy — to sometimes questionable effect. User Generated Content (aka UGC) is the leftover ground beef in the fridge. You can (and should) repurpose it into part of…
