During this week of training at Escalla, we've been learning about marketing information and research. We managed to cover 10 units during our week, and I can definitely say that I'm learning new information and developing my marketing skills.
We've worked hard to create a report, covering everything from databases and questionnaires, to statistics and data. We've also made a detailed glossary, which helps us to define key marketing phrases. I've found out really useful to make these documents, and I know that they'll definitely come in handy when I begin my revision.
I also created a draft questionnaire, which will be used after my Tipis by Twilight event. It will be a feedback survey, and this will be given out to all of our exhibitors after the show. This will be super useful as we'll get quantitative and qualitative data from each person, both of which are great for analysis and finding out overall opinions of our wedding fayre.
Another great week - thanks Em! :)
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Creating our 25% autumn discount
I've recently been spending time creating a new autumn campaign! We wanted to push sales during the winter months, and fill the calendar with plenty of new tipi events. To achieve this I created a 25% discount which could only be applied to new 2019 autumn bookings.
I firstly spent some time researching our competitors, and finding out what types of offers they use They were all pretty similar to ours, but I didn't find another tipi company promoting discounts for autumn events. This mean we could be confident that our offer would be exclusive and set us out from the competition.
Before designing the campaign I had to create a new marketing list on our HubSpot database. This list had to only include people that have been in contact for an autumn event, but not yet booked. I gathered email address from clients who showed interest for dates between 20th August - 31st October 2019. This left us with a large list of 2,076 clients to reach out to! I also had to ensure any clients who had already booked were removed from the list, and this was the same with any competitors.
We then had a quick team meeting to discuss the design brief for our new campaign. We wanted it to be bold, easy to read, engaging, and eye-catching. It was important for us to stay true to our brand, so we made sure to include the correct fonts, logos, colours, and phrases.
Once the email list and campaign artwork had been created, it was time to write and send out the marketing email. This needed to be friendly, excited, and full of key information (T&Cs), whilst remaining short, snappy, and to the point.
Below are screenshots of the email, as well as the analytics and results once it'd been sent:
These results were taken a day or so after sending the email, so things may have changed since then. We can see that the open rate was 23.7% with 487 unique opens, and 714 total opens. It's also useful to see how many people unsubscribes, as those 46 contacts wouldn't have been interested in our product/service, so we don't need them in the database. It was also great to see that 78% of contacts spent the time reading the whole email, whilst only 17.9% skimmed and 4.1% glanced.
Following the marketing email, I had to promo the discount across all of our social media pages. These different perform as well as I'd have liked, but I know we need to continue pushing the posts and keeping up the excitement.
That being said, we have had a lot of interest since launching the campaign, and have even secured a few bookings which is great news. One of the booking I secured and am dealing with is for the CoOp's awards evening - which I'm pretty proud of if I don't say so myself.
I firstly spent some time researching our competitors, and finding out what types of offers they use They were all pretty similar to ours, but I didn't find another tipi company promoting discounts for autumn events. This mean we could be confident that our offer would be exclusive and set us out from the competition.
Before designing the campaign I had to create a new marketing list on our HubSpot database. This list had to only include people that have been in contact for an autumn event, but not yet booked. I gathered email address from clients who showed interest for dates between 20th August - 31st October 2019. This left us with a large list of 2,076 clients to reach out to! I also had to ensure any clients who had already booked were removed from the list, and this was the same with any competitors.
We then had a quick team meeting to discuss the design brief for our new campaign. We wanted it to be bold, easy to read, engaging, and eye-catching. It was important for us to stay true to our brand, so we made sure to include the correct fonts, logos, colours, and phrases.
Once the email list and campaign artwork had been created, it was time to write and send out the marketing email. This needed to be friendly, excited, and full of key information (T&Cs), whilst remaining short, snappy, and to the point.
Below are screenshots of the email, as well as the analytics and results once it'd been sent:
These results were taken a day or so after sending the email, so things may have changed since then. We can see that the open rate was 23.7% with 487 unique opens, and 714 total opens. It's also useful to see how many people unsubscribes, as those 46 contacts wouldn't have been interested in our product/service, so we don't need them in the database. It was also great to see that 78% of contacts spent the time reading the whole email, whilst only 17.9% skimmed and 4.1% glanced.
Following the marketing email, I had to promo the discount across all of our social media pages. These different perform as well as I'd have liked, but I know we need to continue pushing the posts and keeping up the excitement.
That being said, we have had a lot of interest since launching the campaign, and have even secured a few bookings which is great news. One of the booking I secured and am dealing with is for the CoOp's awards evening - which I'm pretty proud of if I don't say so myself.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Managing difficult clients and unrealistic expectations
Since taking on a more managerial role at Tipi Unique, I am exposed to a wide range of clients, conversations, and expectations. This year the amount of events we've delivered has increased, and with that so has my client base. I've dealt with some really lovely people, and some people that aren't as much of a pleasure to help!
When managing difficult conversations it's key to remain true to our brand ethos and values - I must always be upfront, honest, polite, friendly, and look to resolve the problem in a way that suits all parties. We market ourselves as being the go-to company for bespoke outdoor weddings/events, and our clients rave about our professional and friendly customer service. All of our FAQ's can be found on our website, and go into great detail about the above topics - https://tipiunique.com/our-tipis/tipi-hire-faqs/
This means that when I'm dealing with customer complaints or issues, I have to be sure that the advice given or resolution always reflects the Tipi Unique brand.
We're very aware that planning any kind of event can be extremely stressful, so it's important for our company to be perceived as helpful, supportive, flexible and genuine. The most common subjects are VAT, damage waiver, insurances, availability, delivery, commission (which we do not support), and of course pricing - all of which can be quite personal and sensitive topics.
I take everything as a learning curve and aim to use feedback, whatever it may be, to better both myself and the business. Due to Tipi Unique still being a relatively small business, we encounter new challenges with each event season, yet we're confident that remaining true to our values will forever be the correct approach to winning over challenging clients.
When managing difficult conversations it's key to remain true to our brand ethos and values - I must always be upfront, honest, polite, friendly, and look to resolve the problem in a way that suits all parties. We market ourselves as being the go-to company for bespoke outdoor weddings/events, and our clients rave about our professional and friendly customer service. All of our FAQ's can be found on our website, and go into great detail about the above topics - https://tipiunique.com/our-tipis/tipi-hire-faqs/
This means that when I'm dealing with customer complaints or issues, I have to be sure that the advice given or resolution always reflects the Tipi Unique brand.
We're very aware that planning any kind of event can be extremely stressful, so it's important for our company to be perceived as helpful, supportive, flexible and genuine. The most common subjects are VAT, damage waiver, insurances, availability, delivery, commission (which we do not support), and of course pricing - all of which can be quite personal and sensitive topics.
I take everything as a learning curve and aim to use feedback, whatever it may be, to better both myself and the business. Due to Tipi Unique still being a relatively small business, we encounter new challenges with each event season, yet we're confident that remaining true to our values will forever be the correct approach to winning over challenging clients.
Finalising our winter styled shoot
One of my absolute favourite parts of my role is the independent management of our styled shoots. This is where I really feel that I excel at my job, as I completely thrive on the creativity and passion that goes into every single shoot.
We've done a couple of spring/summer shoots, but had never done one during the winter months, so I spotted our niche and began curating plans for a rustic-luxe winter styled shoot. The majority of tipi related shoots are done in the height of summer, and promo beachy/boho-style decor which is seemingly a little overplayed. I racked my brain and came up with the idea of a Narnia-esque shoot, with our models running through the woods and posing as royal, ethereal characters. I of course had to incorporate our tipis and furnishings, so used the tipis as a mock reception space, and created multiple shoot locations in the woodland to promote our range of furnishings.
I'll be writing about the shoot in my draft report, so will save the juicy planning details until then! But for now I'll explain a bit about the work involved during the past few months to finalise all plans for the shoot...
Once all of the final 50 pics had been selected and edited to fit my brief, I reached out to the leading wedding publications with the hopes of securing a feature with one of them. After a week or so I managed to firm up plans with Magpie Weddings who are hugely respected within the industry - https://www.magpiewedding.com/ see their website here! I had full creative freedom when writing the content for the blog, as long as I answered the questions highlighted in Magpie's brief.
It was quite challenging to manage our team's exceptions, as some of the suppliers involved wanted to share the final images months before the go-live date. I was their point of contact throughout the whole planning process, so it was my duty to appease them, and reassure them that waiting to post was the right idea. This falls into the ways in which I've planned to market the blog once it's gone live, as I aim to be very specific with what we post and when. I reminded suppliers that posting prematurely would take the hype away from the blog once Magpie promo it, which would completely defeat the object. We've also had to remain respectful of Magpie's wishes, as they ask for full exclusivity to the images - it's key for me to build a strong relationship with them and for them to have a positive perception of our brand. As soon Magpie release the blog suppliers can go as crazy as they wish - ourselves included!
The blog is scheduled to be published w.c.30th September, and I'm super excited to see it go live!
We've done a couple of spring/summer shoots, but had never done one during the winter months, so I spotted our niche and began curating plans for a rustic-luxe winter styled shoot. The majority of tipi related shoots are done in the height of summer, and promo beachy/boho-style decor which is seemingly a little overplayed. I racked my brain and came up with the idea of a Narnia-esque shoot, with our models running through the woods and posing as royal, ethereal characters. I of course had to incorporate our tipis and furnishings, so used the tipis as a mock reception space, and created multiple shoot locations in the woodland to promote our range of furnishings.
I'll be writing about the shoot in my draft report, so will save the juicy planning details until then! But for now I'll explain a bit about the work involved during the past few months to finalise all plans for the shoot...
Once all of the final 50 pics had been selected and edited to fit my brief, I reached out to the leading wedding publications with the hopes of securing a feature with one of them. After a week or so I managed to firm up plans with Magpie Weddings who are hugely respected within the industry - https://www.magpiewedding.com/ see their website here! I had full creative freedom when writing the content for the blog, as long as I answered the questions highlighted in Magpie's brief.
It was quite challenging to manage our team's exceptions, as some of the suppliers involved wanted to share the final images months before the go-live date. I was their point of contact throughout the whole planning process, so it was my duty to appease them, and reassure them that waiting to post was the right idea. This falls into the ways in which I've planned to market the blog once it's gone live, as I aim to be very specific with what we post and when. I reminded suppliers that posting prematurely would take the hype away from the blog once Magpie promo it, which would completely defeat the object. We've also had to remain respectful of Magpie's wishes, as they ask for full exclusivity to the images - it's key for me to build a strong relationship with them and for them to have a positive perception of our brand. As soon Magpie release the blog suppliers can go as crazy as they wish - ourselves included!
The blog is scheduled to be published w.c.30th September, and I'm super excited to see it go live!
Introducing Uniquely Styled
Over at Tipi Unique we're always looking to inspire and excite our clients with new ways to transform their tipis/venues. We recently launched our ‘Uniquely Styled’ range of rustic event furniture to bring affordable, luxury furnishings to the market. Our furnishings and accessories brochure has always advertised a collection of furnishings, yet up until 2019 this has never been marketed as it's own independent brand.
So with all that being said, it was my job to create the social media pages! This has been both a challenging and rewarding process, as although I have the skills to make the brand a success, it's extremely difficult to do so whilst planning weddings and events etc. I wanted the images/content to represent Uniquely Styled as an affordable luxury brand, that offers an exclusive collection of rustic furnishings for any type of event. We've designed a new logo which still incorporates our original Tipi Unique branding (fonts and tipi image), yet made it look a bit more luxe to appeal to our target market. This logo has also been rendered as a watermark so that we can ensure there is no risk of copyright from any new or existing companies.
I've created Uniquely Styled an Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter account, but for the sake of this blog I'll only discuss our Instagram page in detail - https://www.instagram.com/uniquely.styled.hire/ view it here!
The Uniquely Styled Instagram page is still very much in it's infancy. We only have 191 followers, 37 posts, and averaging about 20 profile visits a week - but it's a start! We recently partnered up with a well-known furniture manufacturer (Mogo Direct), as we buy their chairs to hire out at weddings/events. I worked alongside them to create a feature on their website which aimed to promote both our companies - https://www.mogodirect.co.uk/blog/revisited-a-collab-with-tipi-unique/
Mogo Direct has a huge following and engagement across socials, so being advertised by them was a fab opportunity to boost the Uniquely Styled brand.
Although I've loved having the freedom to create the pages, I do sometimes wonder whether they cause confusion amongst clients, as they don't tend to recognise the Uniquely Styled brand on it's own. We often find ourselves having to explain the two brands and helping clients to see how they coincide. I do however think that with more time and attention the brand will grow and become more established within the industry.
So with all that being said, it was my job to create the social media pages! This has been both a challenging and rewarding process, as although I have the skills to make the brand a success, it's extremely difficult to do so whilst planning weddings and events etc. I wanted the images/content to represent Uniquely Styled as an affordable luxury brand, that offers an exclusive collection of rustic furnishings for any type of event. We've designed a new logo which still incorporates our original Tipi Unique branding (fonts and tipi image), yet made it look a bit more luxe to appeal to our target market. This logo has also been rendered as a watermark so that we can ensure there is no risk of copyright from any new or existing companies.
I've created Uniquely Styled an Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter account, but for the sake of this blog I'll only discuss our Instagram page in detail - https://www.instagram.com/uniquely.styled.hire/ view it here!
The Uniquely Styled Instagram page is still very much in it's infancy. We only have 191 followers, 37 posts, and averaging about 20 profile visits a week - but it's a start! We recently partnered up with a well-known furniture manufacturer (Mogo Direct), as we buy their chairs to hire out at weddings/events. I worked alongside them to create a feature on their website which aimed to promote both our companies - https://www.mogodirect.co.uk/blog/revisited-a-collab-with-tipi-unique/
Mogo Direct has a huge following and engagement across socials, so being advertised by them was a fab opportunity to boost the Uniquely Styled brand.
Although I've loved having the freedom to create the pages, I do sometimes wonder whether they cause confusion amongst clients, as they don't tend to recognise the Uniquely Styled brand on it's own. We often find ourselves having to explain the two brands and helping clients to see how they coincide. I do however think that with more time and attention the brand will grow and become more established within the industry.
New social media strategy
I have recently developed a new marketing strategy for our Tipi Unique social pages, which has been designed to keep our content creative and consistent. For the past few years we've had very little structure to our social media posts, yet due to the company expanding, we now have a broader range of assets to use for marketing purposes.
It's important for us to advertise all of the different aspects of our business, from weddings and parties, to corporate events and independent furniture hire. We offer such a broad range of services, and need this to be apparent to all clients from the moment they begin to engage with us.
Our weekly schedule is now as follows:
- Monday - Either a post about an event over the weekend, or a post to advertise tipi hire for a specific event - varying from weddings, parties, festivals, corporate, charity and more.
- Tuesday - Inspiration! Taken from past wedding fayres or client events (often DIY ideas).
- Wednesday - Rustic furnishings. We've just created separate social accounts for our 'Uniquely Styled' range of furnishings so we try to post on here as much as possible, and tag from our main page etc. (Will cover this in more detail in my next blog!).
- Thursday -Testimonials & reviews. Throwback Thursday!
- Friday - A Friday fun-day post! Could be a comical image/video of clients/our team, or a feel good shot with positive messaging in the caption.
*This can be altered to include fresh new content that we want to increase the hype about! Examples of this could include new videos, blogs, wedding fayre promo (spring/autumn), new products, new brochures, and more.
In creating this new strategy, I'm hoping to see that we're more efficient when creating our posts for the week. We've often found that a great deal of time goes into deciding which post and what marketing messages to use, which takes our attention away from the planning of client events. We're extremely fortunate in that we have such a lot of content at our fingertips, and so having a new strategy helps us to ensuring we post the most exciting and engaging content for our clients.
A recent post that has been really successful on our Instagram page can be seen here - https://www.instagram.com/p/BzYPgRJBv2a/
This shot was taken from a children's birthday party over in Alderley Edge (a famous footballer's daughter to be exact!).
The post received the following interactions:
- 100 likes
- 10 comments
- 2 private messages
- 8 saves
- Reached 1,197 accounts
- 1,707 impressions
- 13 profile visits
Go team Tipi Unique!
We are however finding it somewhat difficult to stick to the schedule...Over the past few months we've been super busy, which often means we don't have a full team in the office. Unfortunately, social media isn't our biggest priority, especially when the weddings are coming at us thick and fast! This means posting content sometimes has to take a backseat, or the job is passed over to another college who may not have access to the scheduled posts.
Hopefully when the season is over, and the events have died down, we can focus our attention back onto our social media marketing techniques...Will keep you posted (pun 100% intended)!
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