It’s almost 2026 — no, we’re not ready either — which means the year of America’s 250th birthday is upon us. The American semiquincentennial will be on the minds of a significant portion of your customers next year, and it stands to reason that your marketing campaigns should reflect that. Here are a few tips to make it happen.
Lean into history.
This is a no-brainer for destination marketing organizations — of course you should focus on how your destination connects to the American Revolution we’re going to be celebrating! But no matter what your sector, little sidenotes of history can be a great way to get a customer’s eyes to linger on your site or email campaign. Did Washington sleep ...
Continue Reading
If you’ve been online in any way, shape or form recently, chances are high you’ve stumbled across an AI search engine. From ChatGPT to Claude to Perplexity and beyond, AI tools have become seemingly omnipresent — and for good reason. With such a wealth of information, these platforms can serve as valuable tools for business owners and entrepreneurs hoping to improve workflows and save time.
Now that AI has become so integrated into search engines (Google’s AI overviews, anyone?), those good ol’ SEO practices you’re likely familiar with won’t always cut it. So, what’s a business professional to do? Adapt, of course! After all, it is possible to show up in AI search. You just need to get familiar with ...
Continue Reading
When it comes to marketing today, there are more than a few options for businesses to choose. Sure, they can promote their business on social media, whether through organic or paid initiatives, or send out emails to their distribution lists. They can work with influencers, promote their messaging on audio platforms, or even distribute through local channels in the community. While there are certainly several outlets to pursue, one that stands out from the crowd is content marketing.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is just what it sounds like, in that it’s all about marketing through content. For businesses trying to get the word out about their products or services, content marketing can not only describe the offerings but also ...
Continue Reading
A magazine can be an incredibly valuable piece of collateral to help market your organization, industry or service. But it’s also a big investment, so before you commit the funds for a magazine launch, make sure you ask yourself these key questions.
Who Is My Audience?
Before you can even decide on an editorial concept or a name for the magazine, it’s important to put some thought into who it’s all for. Is it to keep current members of your organization or association engaged? Do you want to reach new audiences who haven’t previously heard of you? A little bit of both?
What Are the Demographics of That Audience?
Depending on the age, education, wealth bracket and other demographic variables of your audience, ...
Continue Reading
The beginning of a new year is a prime time for year-end reviews. For many businesses, it’s the time to review annual budgets, expenditures, goals and traffic, and for good reason. There’s nothing like looking back to look forward, since it helps business owners reflect on strengths and weaknesses and figure out where to lean in or pivot for the year ahead.
Where some businesses go wrong, however, is making the start of a new year the only time they do a check-in. When it comes to their digital presence in particular, business owners would do well to make dedicated time for review sessions not once a year, but every single quarter (at a minimum). The digital space is changing ...
Continue Reading
Who doesn’t love getting things for free? But when brands give out freebies, they’re rarely actually free for the brand. So how do you make sure you’re getting a return on investment if you’re not getting paid? We’ve compiled a list of tips for how to do freebies right.
Give Away Something of Actual Value
Chances are that people won’t remember you if you give them a free pen with your company’s name on it. But if you host a raffle for product samples or for a free hour of your services? That’s a different story. Potential customers are more likely to become customers when they’ve received a taste of what they’re missing.
Add Urgency to Your Offer
People respond best to freebies ...
Continue Reading
In case you haven’t heard the buzz online, the Google core update that rolled out in August 2024 has had a major impact on page views and user traffic for more than a few websites. As per Google, the update aims to improve search results so they’re geared toward reader service and are “genuinely useful.”
Sounds vague, right? It all ties back to Google’s focus on E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. In other words, page rankings on search aren’t just about SEO, but a whole slew of factors. Now, instead of working on optimizing a page with the likes of keywords and meta text, creators need to also strongly consider things like brand reputation, site longevity ...
Continue Reading
If you want to know why brand voice matters to your company’s success, just remember the chicken sandwich wars.
Back in the distant social media past of 2019, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen launched a chicken sandwich. Chick-fil-A apparently took exception to this, tweeting what the New York Times called “a thinly veiled critique” of the new offering.
Thus, the first salvo of the chicken sandwich wars was fired. Within 15 minutes, Popeyes’ Twitter account returned fire with the now-immortal words “…y’all good?”
The tweet went viral, leading to such massive demand for the new Popeyes sandwich that lines formed around the block at local Popeyes restaurants and the company eventually had to concede it had simply run out of the popular offering.
While creating ...
Continue Reading
The end of the year is somehow fast approaching already, so if you’re in the travel industry, now is a great time to plan your content for the 2025 travel season. To help you out, we’ve compiled some emerging travel trends from around the web — and offered some thoughts on how to approach those trends creatively in your content.
Focus on Greater Health (and Less Booze)
For years now, there has been a growing trend, especially among younger people, to take better care of their bodies. A trademark example of this trend is the phenomenon of shrinking alcohol consumption, especially among the younger generations.
While many tourism destinations are rightfully proud of their microbreweries and distilleries (and there is great value ...
Continue Reading
You already know that email marketing is key to reaching your customers. But do you have the right targeting system in place to reach the people who are actually most likely to buy from you?
Here are just a few targeting filters you should consider implementing to ensure you’re reaching your optimal audience:
Location: Do you want to reach only people in your city or county? Or people within a day’s drive?
Age: Is your ideal audience young and single, just starting a family or on the verge of retirement?
Income: Do you only want to reach people over a certain income threshold?
Lifestyle interests: Maybe your product or service is something that mainly appeals to, say, homeowners or hobby ...
Continue Reading
