Justin Smith, owner of Chameleon Consultancy and Training Limited, has 20 years’ experience working in secondary schools throughout Norfolk and Suffolk. Here, he shares his advice and tips on how to market your school efficiently using everything from student input to following the lead on successful charity fundraisers.
- Topic:
- Education
An effective brand story does more than simply communicate the origins of your visitor attraction. In fact, that doesn’t even have to come into it. Instead, an effective brand story tells people about your ‘why’.
Your ‘why’ – your purpose – is harder to understand than your attraction’s ‘how’ and ‘what’. Your ‘why’ is what differentiates you and what people will relate to, if it’s communicated to them effectively. It should be real, thoughtful and memorable.
A well-written brand story can elevate your visitor attraction into a brand that people notice and want to engage with. It’s one of your most powerful marketing tools, creating trust, advocacy and a framework for every aspect of your visitor attraction, from content planning to welcome.
- Topic:
- Visitor Attractions
Many businesses are aware of the pent-up demand for holiday across their workforce. It’s been a challenging year and across the UK as we make good progress towards achieving more normality and freedom in our daily lives, it’s understandable that so many of us are now thinking about taking time off from work.
Various announcements about the prospect of travel both in the UK and abroad have prompted plenty of people to finally start making plans for holidays over the coming weeks and months. And all of this presents a potential issue for line managers and HR staff to deal with.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Last week, we lifted the veil on key terms for digital fundraising. Inspired by this list, this week we want to explore the idea of user-generated content (UGC). Doing exactly what it says on the tin, UGC is a catch-all term for any type of content that is created and shared by your users. Think photos, videos, competitions, blogs, stories and even reviews. Lots of corporate brands are turning to UGC, and we think there’s huge scope for charities and non-profits to get involved too.
- Topic:
- Not For Profit
Designing your recruitment website for a smartphone rather than a desktop is a business-critical decision. But don’t confuse mobile responsive with mobile-first - there is a big difference, particularly when it comes to results.
According to the Ofcom Online Nation 2020 report, 71% of all measured time spent online was on smartphones. While 35% of internet users accessed it only via a mobile device. For recruiters of even greater significance is that according to Indeed, mobile devices account for the majority of job searches for most occupations.
Here’s why mobile-first recruitment websites are the ultimate conversion tool and the key numbers to bear in mind when you are thinking about your mobile recruitment website project.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
User experience and functionality make a big impact on the success of your recruitment website ensuring it a revenue generator. Is your website helping you win new clients, as well as attract candidates? Is it converting visitors to applications saving you money on job boards?
Here’s 5 of the most common areas why recruitment websites fail and where they may not be delivering the best return on investment.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
There are many words we could use to describe 2020. Unprecedented. Challenging. Exhausting. But for now, let’s go with ‘An education’.
The year started with cheerful predictions for the rise of wellness, bleisure (a blend of business and leisure), long-term and pet-centric travel, as well as more holidays for kids travelling with grandparents. Significant growths in the use of VR, AI and the personalisation of the visitor experience were also projected.
Then the pandemic came along, putting the kibosh on so many of these projections while accelerating others. In 2020, Covid-19 didn’t so much re-write the tourism industry rule book as toss it out of the window.
Never have visitor attractions come up against such a relentless list of challenges: enforced closures; record numbers of no-shows and last-minute cancellations; high levels of staff absence and anxiousness; the overnight disappearance of the international visitor market; the imposition of expensive but wholly necessary health and cleaning measures; and the need for more investment in digital marketing, to name a few.
And yet. And yet. Among the bombardment of challenges and frustrations, there were opportunities to learn, grow and make positive changes for a better future.
- Topic:
- Visitor Attractions
If 2020 has taught us one thing, it’s the need to embrace digital technology. Digital can bridge the gap between home and visitor attraction, helping VAs stay front of mind when visiting isn’t possible and helping guests have a smoother experience when they do visit.
As well as making visits more memorable, apps can be an invaluable window into crowd flow, an effective way to increase revenue, an imaginative way to layer meaning onto existing exhibits and a way to partner with local tourism businesses.
If launching an app forms part of your digital marketing strategy for 2021, or you’re just considering how an app might work for your family-friendly attraction, this list of family-oriented apps will inspire you.
- Topic:
- Visitor Attractions
‘Twas a few weeks before Christmas, and all through the team
Annual targets are looming, and campaigns gather steam.’
Just when you thought 2020 would never end, the holiday season ‘tis finally upon us. Digital fundraising campaigns are launching, direct mails are dropping, merchandise is selling and you’re one virtual Santa dash away from this year’s target. December is a peak time for charitable giving. Now more than ever your website is your shop window to the world. That’s why we’ve put together a few ideas to help yours shine brightly this festive season.
First up, it is important to…
- Topic:
- Not For Profit
With Siri, Alexa and friends increasingly called on to help answer search queries, voice search looks set to drive digital content marketing strategies across the board.
More and more people are turning to voice search as a quicker, more convenient way to find information on the fly. It’s fast becoming part of our everyday lives.
A clear indication of voice search’s growing popularity is the increase in smart speaker ownership. Thirty-two per cent of the adult UK population now own a smart speaker (source: Rajar data release, Q1 2020), and Google voice-search queries have gone up exponentially over the years.
But let’s go back to the basics.
- Topic:
- Visitor Attractions
