Wedding planning starts now — so should wedding marketing

By ISJ Media

Couples who are getting hitched should start planning their wedding six to nine months before the date, according to realsimple.com

Since most weddings take place June through September, couples — and wedding planners, photographers, etc. should start planning, well, now.

This is great news for business involved in the wedding industry. Businesses like photographers, florists, bakeries; vacation and travel services and wedding venues should take advantage of this early opportunity to get the attention of both the bride and groom.

So how can you make your service or business stand out during the early stages of wedding planning? Here are some tips:

1. You must have a digital presence.  There is no bend here. If your wedding planning related business or service is not online, and more importantly available on mobile devices, you’re not going to be successful in this market, period.

Think about your target audience.  According to mentalfloss.com the average age people in Idaho get married is 26.5 for men and 25 for women.  Do you think these people are scanning billboards for photographers and wedding dresses? Nope, they are on their mobile devices — a lot.

Is your website mobile-friendly? Does it need an overhaul? Now is the time to check.

Considering advertising on mobile apps and for mobile devices. Ad campaigns can be designed just for the purpose of reaching mobile customers, and mobile campaigns have proven to be highly effective in east Idaho.

2. Sell the solution, not the product. This applies to any business or service, not just the wedding industry. Identify your target customer.  You need to go beyond the simple “I’m targeting brides.”  Create a customer profile, for example, Julie is a 25 year-old getting married in June. She wants a modest dress with a removable train that won’t break the bank. Does your shop sell modest dresses? Don’t just advertise that you sell dresses, offer a solution by offering modest dresses, free adjustments etc. Solve a problem.

3.  Provide information too. Consider providing a blog with weekly wedding planning advice or a wedding planning checklist on your website. By showing that you are an expert in your industry you’ll build brand loyalty and increase your Google search ranking.

Do you need help planning a mobile campaign? Contact www.isjmedia.com at 239-3532 for a free consultation.

Content marketing tips for small businesses

By Jenny Hopkins

jhopkins@journalnet.com

Content Marketing is a way of communicating with your customers and potential customers without selling. Instead of selling your products and services you are providing valuable information and content in order to build brand loyalty and awareness.

It's a tactic that is used by many large brands, including BarkBox.com. BarkBox is a service in which the subscriber receives a box monthly filled with dog toys and treats for his or her canine companion. A percentage of the proceeds are donated to canine rescue groups and animal shelters. BarkBox also produces a newsletter that features news stories about dogs and the animal rescue groups. The newsletter is not selling their product, but provides a service by giving subscribers feel-good stories about something that interests them – canines.

Content marketing also helps your website get picked up by search engines like Google. Search engines use “bots” to “crawl” the web and catalog elements such as keywords in order to create their search rankings. If a website does not get updated the “bots” have no reason to come back to the site and it will drop in the search rankings. Sites that are updated more frequently appear higher in search rankings, so creating fresh content for your site plays a crucial part in getting your site recognized by search engines.

Of course we don't all have time to create a weekly or monthly newsletter, and hiring a content marketer is not in the budget. But there some things you can do right now to create fresh content, some of which you may already have.

1. Shoot a quick video: Content marketing does not have to be text-based. It can be photo and video too. Try taking a quick video that features a new employee or a behind-the-scenes of your business. How-to videos are huge right now, so try creating a quick how-to video that relates to your business or service without directly selling it. You don't have to be a professional videographer to do this, every cell phone has a camera built in nowadays, and there are countless free video editing apps available on Google Play or the App Store. Just remember to not make the video too long, a minute or two is good, any longer than that and your viewers are likely to lose interest.
2. Add some history about your business: You already know how, when and why your business got started, and of course you're proud of it, so why not tell the world! Write a mission statement, a little information about the inspiration behind your business's beginnings, or a time-line of events and milestones.
3. Add photos: Take some quick behind the scenes photos of your staff or a step in the process of creating whatever product or service you offer. Did your business recently have an employee retreat or volunteer in the community? Take some photos to post on your website and social media. Show your human side.
4. Use curated content: Create a round-up of links to articles that relate to your industry. Save your audience time by bringing the best articles and information regarding your service or product to them in one place. If your business is home décor, for example, create a list of articles about the latest home design and Do-It-Yourself trends. Make sure you link back to the original source.
5. Encourage user-generated content: Wouldn't it be great if you could get people to interact with your business or service for free? Well, you can, but only if you ask for it. Try prompting your audience to share a photo of themselves enjoying your product or service or asking them to tweet about how your product or service has benefited them. Don't be vague, pick a specific theme. Going back to the home décor, for example, you could ask people to share a photo of their best fall decorating projects. Use a hashtag that corresponds with the theme to encourage others to participate. You'll get more response with some than others, but don't get discouraged, try different prompts until you find the ones that click. Try offering a prize for participants to increase participation. Pick a random participant to win or offer a discount to all.

Get more marketing tips and find out how ISJ Media can expand your digital reach at www.isjmedia.net

Think With Google - free download

Have you visited thinkwithgoogle.com yet?

If you are a marketer, business owner or anyone who wants to keep up with consumer buying trends in the digital world you'll be amazed at the wealth of information there.

Google is by far the leader when it comes to online — well, just about anything. Think With Google has tons of insights on consumer behavior across different audiences and platforms such as how sports fans use YouTube, for example. There is a section on mobile advertising trends including how to design a better mobile experience for shoppers and creating effective video ads.

The tools section features planning tools such as shopping insights; just type in the brand or product you'd like to research into the search bar and a map will appear that shows the areas where the product is popular as well as each quarter's sales results.

Probably most useful to business owners is The Customer Journey to Online Purchase. Select your industry, business size, country, and what channel you'd like to search (organic traffic, paid traffic, referral, etc.) and you'll see percentage results for consumers who are in the beginning, middle and end of the purchase cycle.

Consumers more often use organic search at the beginning of the purchase cycle and direct click is near the end of the cycle when the consumer buys. Knowing what stage your target audience is in will help you to better direct your advertising and promotion focus.

Today I have been reading through the section on Mirco Morments. Did you post back to school photos of your kids on Facebook? Do a quick search for movie times? Those are Micro Moments. People want what they need quickly and easily. If you can anticipate the micro moments for your target audience you can make better decisions when deciding when and where to promote your brand.

There is so much more that I could write about, but why don't you go check it out for yourself? I guarantee you will find something useful there, regardless of your business size, service or product.

Let me know what you think!

Download the free guide "Micro Moments: Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile" to learn more.

Check out these FREE digital marketing tools

Hi there fellow marketers, and greetings from ISJ Media!

This industry is changing and evolving every day, so much so that it is difficult for even the most advance digital marketers to stay on top of the game. There are countless online courses and digital marketing companies that offer advice, resources and management — for a price. But if you're a small business owner your budget is tight. Like, submarine tight.

Luckily for us there are TONS of free digital marketing resources out there, as well as TONS of free downloads to help us get educated and organized.

Here are just a few:

• Social media templates from Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows you to manage several social media accounts in one place. You can create and schedule posts, as well as view your social media feeds. You can have a certain number of streams for free, I believe the limit is 3 (I use it for Twitter and Facebook), and you can add more if you opt for a paid membership.