Marketing Presentation for Ackley Iowa

BRINGING THE WORLD TO YOUR DOOR

FIRST – WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THEM WHEN THEY COME?

What does your attraction or location excel at?

Everyone has businesses, history, historical sites ….

What makes you different?

Learn how to tell your story …..

HARRIMAN-NIELSEN HISTORIC FARM

WHAT IT IS…. 100 year old house and farm Lived in by one family for 100 years Old stuff inside including old letters

THE DIFFERENCE

Built in late 1800s and one immigrant family lived there for over 100 years – it’s the history of a Danish immigrant family preserved

They kept ALL of their letters back and forth from Denmark written over those 100 years

Original furnishings still inside – step into this family’s life!

FRANKLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM

WHAT IT IS…. Old stuff from Franklin County

residents

THE DIFFERENCE

One of a kind pieces that tell the story of life in the last century in an agricultural society

Some of the farm machinery you can’t find anywhere else in the world

SECOND: GIVE THEM MANY REASONS TO COME

Your museum is not the only thing in town…..

WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO IN HAMPTON?

Shop! There are the Hampton Specialty shops -- 13 stores that work together

THE DIFFERENCE

Unique one of a kind and some handmade items at several of the stores

Swiss watch maker (only 3 in the country!) Two flower shops that work together – and

serve wine

WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO IN HAMPTON?

Eat! There’s something for every taste.

THE DIFFERENCE

El Paisita Mexican Family Restaurant – authentic Mexican food

Honk ‘n Holler – come back to the 1950’s and eat good food like they used to cook

Seven Stars – better than mom’s home cookin’ Long Branch – no one has ever eaten

everything on their plate (because you get so much food!)

WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO IN HAMPTON?

Visit all of our historical sites!

THE DIFFERENCE REA Plant and Museum – the FIRST farmer

owned electric plant in the United States Old Stone House – built in 1854 by Leander

Reeves for his wife in Ohio because she wanted a proper house

GAR Memorial Hall – the only entire building built in Iowa to honor the Civil War dead

Windsor Theatre – built in 1917 and still in use today

OFF LINE

MARKETING

Educate your locals

Do you know the hot spots for tourists around town? Gas stationsLocal eateriesRetail stores

Do the people that work there know what you have?

Why not host an open house just for them twice a year? And while you’re at it – invite the local press.

This is word of mouth marketing and very effective.

The press ….

Keep press contacts updated Call the news desk at every paper, radio

station and tv station in a 50 mile radius and ask them how they like to receive press releases

Send them something once a month, at least Thank them when they run an article or story

WRITE A MONTHLY ARTICLE

Newspapers are looking for content …..

Why not ask them if you can write a monthly historical column?

Don’t forget to reuse this content in other places!

ROTARY, KIWANIS, ELKS, ETC.

These groups meet often and are always looking for programs.

Contact them and schedule an appointment to tell the group about what events you are planning, or arrange for an old timer to tell a few stories.

Why not offer them a private tour? Remember …. They make good volunteers too!

JOIN THE CHAMBER

Most chambers have a special rate for non-profit organizations

Be sure to send them press releases and ask them to send the information to their members

Spend some of your advertising dollars on sponsoring Chamber events

No dollars? Volunteer at Chamber events!

ONLINE MARKETING

You can’t do it all …. But you can choose two or three of these options and do them well!

WHO VISITS YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK SITES?

- 18-29: 92% - 30-49: 73% - 50-64: 57% - 65+: 38%

http://www.mba-in-marketing.com/social-media-fails/

FACEBOOK

57% of your friends and family are using it – it is

quickly replacing traditional news sources

STATISTICS: More than 1 billion active usersMore than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

Over 50% of United States citizens are on Facebook.

TIP NUMBER 1:

Facebook changes. They believe in upgrading and making your time on Facebook an enjoyable experience. They also want you to be more social – and connected.

If you don’t want to be social online --- either don’t, or hire someone who does. Facebook is not the place for businesses who don’t want to be social.

Who is your average user?

They have 130 friends and are connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.

DO THE MATH.

What To Put On Your Fan Page

EVENTS

Make an event out of any activity you do. Give it a date(s), spruce it up with a lively description, add a picture and let your fans know about it!

Orange Possum

GIVE SOMETHING AWAY http://www.facebook.com/midwestlivingmag

Offer Fresh Content

Lady GagaLenny KravitsAaron SteinmannDarren RowseAshton Kutcher

TELL YOUR STORY

Friends of Historic Cedar Falls

Travel Iowa

CONTROL YOUR PAGE – Get Your Own Vanity Address http://www.facebook.com/username/

www.facebook.com/debworks

www.facebook.com/GreaterFranklinCounty

Small Print: What You Need to Know About Facebook Pages

•You need to have an account on Facebook in order to create a Facebook page.•Your Facebook page will be tied to your personal profile as the admin of your Facebook page; however, only you and Facebook know the connection exists.•You can have an unlimited number of Facebook pages.•You can have an unlimited number of fans (Facebook users who “Like” your page).•Facebook Pages are public—anyone can find and view your page whether they are logged into Facebook or not.•All content posted on your Facebook page gets indexed on Google.•You can target your posts by location and language.•You can add applications to your page, including your own custom content—video, rich text, graphics, opt-in box and more.•You can add additional admins (highly recommended).•All admins have equal rights to administer your page, including adding and removing other admins (choose with care!).

VISIT TOP OF IOWA

FACEBOOK LINKS YOU MIGHT LIKE

How to create a media room for publicity on facebook

Aptly titled Queen of Facebook, Mari Smith

Blogging Basics 101

http://freelancefolder.com/how-to-migrate-your-personal-facebook-profile-to-a-business-page/

www.allfacebook.com

www.mashable.com

HAVE A PLAN.

Create an editorial calendar (it’s easier than it sounds)

IT CAN BE VERY SIMPLE

Start with your events for the year -- list them on a spread sheet (I use Excel)

How do you promote them? Newspaper ads Press releases Newsletter Email Facebook Twitter

BACK INTO YOUR CALENDAR Event ...Activity… Date … Time to do it ... notes When does the local newspaper need press

releases in order to run the article before the event happens? That’s your submission date

Do you have an ad person you work with? Set up a yearly calendar with him/her – often you can save money if you promise to run x amount of ads

Are you using a newsletter? Be sure to get the info to the writer way before they need it

http://www.slideshare.net/Fletcherprince for more ideas on using an editorial calendar

LET’S TALK EMAIL …..

THE CLARION WIRE

Karen Weld sends an email about once a week with events and activities happening in Clarion Iowa

She keeps a document on her word processing program and updates it as people call her or she hears stuff

As dates pass, she deletes them Once a week she sends it out to her list Who do you know that would be a good point

person to do JUST THIS?

CREATE AN EMAIL LIST

Have a sign up sheet EVERYWHERE! Let people know you are creating a enewsletter, facebook page, and/or you may send them an email once and awhile.

Don’t forget places like www.mailchimp.com

10,000 emails a month FOR FREE!!

FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Get a program like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite

Schedule your posts ahead of time Facebook: 2 times a day for several days Twitter: 2-3 times a day, but be sure to post other

comments and share links to cool stuff as well (don’t just shove your info down the throats of your followers)

HOOTSUITE

IT’S NOT ONLY FACEBOOK

There’s a large internet world out there ….

Let’s go exploring!

Find where you fit – and begin with 2 or 3 things that work for you.

There are many tools available to help build a viable marketing plan– whether it’s 60 hours a week or 6 hours a week.

LET’S START WITH GOOGLE

Reader

Alerts

Trends

YouTube

Docs

Google+

Skype

Blogger

We want Google to be the third half of your brain. Sergey Brin 

1st Step: Set up your Google Account – its free

READER

Organize all the blogs you follow and see when they are updating their content – all in one place.

You should be keeping track of what other places are writing about … just copy the address, past it into the subscribe button on your Reader.

www.google.com/reader

Description of how to set up an account – and why

http://thecartdriver.com/an-idiots-guide-to-google-reader-and-why-you-should-use-it/

READER

ALERTS monitoring a

developing news story keeping current on a

competitor or industry getting the latest on a

celebrity or event keeping tabs on your

favorite sports teams See when your town

or location is talked about!

http://www.google.com/alerts

YOUTUBE

Hey baby, wanna make a movie?

You can use video to promote your sites

Don’t miss out here – this is amazingly popular

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=clzl_hCVot4

Interns from UNI developed a video for the Old Stone House

GOOGLE DOCS (NOW KNOWN AS GOOGLE DRIVE)

Use to share info, store data and collaborate online easily and effectively!

https://docs.google.com

BLOGGER – WHY USE IT?

It’s free It’s simple It’s Google It’s reliable You can always

switch to another platform later!

Why blog in the first place?

Set yourself up as the expert

Create an identity people can relate to and get to know you

Share about your product or service

BIGGEST RULE EVER

Remember all that stuff you put on Facebook and the articles you wrote?

It needs to go on your blog/website too!

You OWN the content on your website/blog – you don’t own it on Facebook.

RULES FOR BLOGGING

1. Don’t push your stuff down everyone’s throat.

2. Don’t lie. Check your facts.

3. Credit your sources. Ask first.

4. Disclose professional relationships – if you’ve been given something, tell us.

5. Provide value – make it interesting.

6. Be yourself – and create a conversation

7. Be nice.

TIPS FOR BLOGGERS

Be consistent with your blogging efforts – pick a frequency and stick with it.

Have a great photo with each blog post.  No stealing!  (photodropper.com is a great resource)

Get your stories down on paper – and a blog is a great way to tell them!

You can video record the story teller, and put that right on your blog.

Keep it fun my friends!

WHAT TO AVOID

• Wordy content — Don’t use too many words to communicate basic ideas or facts. Get to the point.

• Keyword stuffing — Don’t over-optimize your content for the keywords you are targeting. Only use keywords that relate to expressing the focus of the page.

• Factual errors — Fact-check all of the content on every page of your website.

• Grammatical errors — Google’s algorithm can easily identify grammatical errors, leading to lower page rankings. Grammatical errors also lead to a poor user experience.

• Spun content — Don’t rewrite information that already exists. Curate content to improve the originality of the content on your site. We discuss content curation and content creation later in this paper.

www.mediawhiz.com

WHERE TO SHARE YOUR POSTS Add in your enewsletters – we use mailchimp.com and

it’s free Groups or forums you belong to Add links to your email signature – use wisestamp.com Your listserve – send to the serve and ask for feedback RSS feed – this will automatically push your post to the

people who sign up to receive it Comment on relevant blogs – and leave a link to yours,

but don’t be spammy Submit it as a guest post to other blogs – will require

some rewriting Join a blogging community – exchange links with other

bloggers

SYNDICATION

This allows you to spread your content across many networks.

IFTTT.com – allows you to syndicate to over 50 different sites

Blogcatalog.com connect with other bloggers Demandstudios.com – distributes to

usatoday.com, salon.com, ehow.com Amazon.com – submit blog to

https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com /gp/vendor and get paid when Kindle owners read it

Networkedblogs.com – get found and get more traffic, also links to facebook

Even more …….

Alltop.com – syndicates content in every category Scribnia.com – source for reader reviews of the

webs bloggers and columnists Syndic8.com – syndicates blogs that cover a wide

variety of topics Evancarmichael.com – if you provide business

related content, this is a must Outbrain.com – syndicates your blog posts to sites

like cnn.com and fastcompany.com  Pick 2 or 3 --- having the same content on too

many pages can actually hurt your SEO! Thanks to launchgrowjoy.com for this information!

PINTEREST

WHAT IS PINTEREST?

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

You can also showcase collections on Pinterest!

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Get this free book for your Kindle – available only today! Just click here

MOBILE – A MUST HAVE

Want to reach youth? (18-25)

Talk to them or message them!

SQUARE

Accept credit cards right on your phone

Free hardware at www.squareup.com

http://mashable.com/2011/10/24/square-wal-mart/

TWITTER

Another great way to connect to others that may be your customers, your mentors, your potential customers or your competition!

Twitter Stats 230,000,000 Tweets

per day 100,000,000+ active

users

http://business.twitter.com/

What does Twitter do for businesses?

As a business, you can use Twitter to quickly share information, gather market intelligence and insights, and build relationships with people who care about your company. Often, there is already a conversation about your business happening on Twitter.

TWELLOW

Use Twellow to start finding people you can follow

EBOOKS

Using ePub to publish an ebook

Ditto for Smashwords

Finally – Angela England is an Iowan mom who ‘gets it’ – I really recommend her book http://30dayebook.com/ (I just bought it myself!)

CONFUSED? Don’t give up,

Try a few things until they feel right

Then try something else

Start with a plan!

THANK YOU!Deb Brown

641-580-0103

[email protected]

www.debworks.com

www.facebook.com/debworks

www.twitter.com/debworks

www.linkedin.com/debworks

(notice the consistency with Debworks? )