PRESENTER
Cassie Roberts
Manager, Sales & Partnership
• Received BS Public Relations, & Masters Sport
Management, The University of Texas
• Born in Central City, NE
• United States Olympic Committee
• Rodeo Austin
Our goal is to elevate the rodeo industry by
enhancing its most important virtual front
door –
its online presence.
OUR AGENDA TODAY
Prioritize how to make your website better
The latest online trends and what to do about
them
Maximize your mobile presence
How to make more money with email
Best strategies for social networking
Tools to market your event from your event
3 THINGS TO SELL MORE NOW
1. Make your tickets easy to find.
2. Have minimum clicks to get to the
shopping cart.
3. Integrate the design of your website with
the design of your cart so that the ―look‖
doesn’t change at the buying moment.
WHY MOBILE?
Customers use mobile search to shop.
• 95% of all mobile searches are for local
products and services.
• 61% of all local searches result in a
purchase.
TEXT MARKETING
Your customers are texting.
Consider joining the conversation.
Judiciously text deals and special announcements.
This can of course be done right from your mobile
phone with the right software
Start offering people the opportunity to sign up for text,
even if you don’t know what you’ll do with them.
CONSIDER A PYRAMID
one main
story
TEST
AGAINST
EACH OTHER
two smaller two smaller
features features
WHAT (OR WHAT NOT) TO SAY
Don’t tell the whole story.
Goal: OPENS & CLICKS!
SAMPLE OPEN RATES
Varies by client
• 9-15% on low end
• 30-35% on high end
Who has the highest open rate?
• Good subject line
• Clients who sell online
• Clients with a strong brand
• Sent at right time/day (Tuesday mid-
morning)
SAMPLE CLICK RATES
Around 10-20% (not as much variance)
Depends on call to action, so use action
words
• Get More Info!
• Sign Up!
• Buy Now!
• More Photos!
Again, don’t tell the whole story.
SOCIAL MEDIA?
Not the same!
Social MEDIA is the outlet where you BUILD
your social NETWORK
The media itself has no value unless
you’re using it properly.
WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING?
Traditional Networking Model
Local Radio Ad:
5,000 people/
Local TV Ad commercial
Campaign: 200,000
people/commercial
Print: Varies
based on
Send
*Based on midsized market
WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING?
Social Networking Model
ME: 1 My Friends’
My Friends:
130 - 500+ Friends
250,000+
TRUTH
People like themselves.
Post things that get people to talk about
themselves in relation to your event.
THE POWER OF FACEBOOK
Coca-Cola has reported that Facebook fans
are 2 times as likely to consume & 10 times
more likely to purchase than non-fans.
IDEA: FACEBOOK TAGGING
Take pictures of the crowd at concerts, post
them and encourage them to tag themselves
Your photo appears in
their Facebook feed!
WHY TWEET?
17% of the top 1,000
search terms on Twitter
alternate hourly.
WHY TWEET?
Twitter is current on up-to-the minute
important news and cultural happenings.
Ramp up your publishing frequency, and
make timely content the focus of your
Twitter activities in order to satisfy
information-hungry users.
MAKE PEOPLE FEEL LIKE INSIDERS
• Be the first to know about X via social
media!
• See behind-the-scenes looks at our event!
Your customers feel special,
and they are more likely to be long term
followers.
GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
• Consider funny – tweets from mascot, etc.
• Personal/human interest stories get a lot of
hits
• Posts with photos get more views!
Think about what YOU would want to click!
PINTEREST
Pinterest was the first site to get 10 million
unique visitors in a month.
Pin event photos (and more) and invite your
customers to follow your boards!
YOUTUBE
Customers exposed to videos are 437%
more likely to engage in your brand.
• Engagement = Purchases
Make your videos raw and not too produced to
help customers identify with your brand.
CONCLUSION
Lots of ideas, so little time!
Find out where your customers are and what
gives the highest rate of return if you don’t
have the resources.
Survey your customers, find out how they
found you.
KEEP IN TOUCH—WE CAN HELP!
Leave me your business card, and we’ll
send:
• These slides
• The Editorial Calendar template
• A free subscription to The Dirt
How many of you were here last time?I’ve done a bunch of these presentations; on social media, on online marketing…and I’ve BEEN to a bunch too at other conferences. I’m fairly certain most of you have been to other presentations too, on online marketing at other conferences. (And if not in other places, you probably heard me last year! ) What I don’t want this presentation to be is the same thing that you’ve heard in all those other places. Things have definitely changed since I was here last, but I want this to be different in the CONTENT from all the other online marketing presentations you’ve attended. What else have I done in the past year? Visited rodeos! We all have them…and if you don’t have a group of people to convince, then you can use this information to convince yourself.
Five years ago, most of us probably felt like we were spending a ton of time online. But internet usage has more than DOUBLED since then! The amount of time people spend overall on the Internet has increased 121% over the past five years.In 2010, for the first time ever, Internet usage surpassed television usage.Even if we’re not personally following this trend, our customers are, and they are the ones we most need to reach in order to grow.Are we following this trend?Do we think our customers are?
By 2014, more people will access your website via mobile devices than desktop computers. Based on the trajectory I’ve seen, I believe it!
Saffire Events was founded by Kendra Wright, who has been building websites since 1995, when the internet began.In 2000, she joined forces with Aaron Pederson, Saffire Events’ technical director, and Jeremy Emerson, Saffire Events’ creative director.
Last year 4 clients
Cassie does website, mobile and social networking.
Sometimes, however, your guy isn’t available.
Next month, releasing mobile admin; people can update their sites from their smart phones
This is because information is not easy to find and interactivity is not present: the two reasons
Have PHOTOS that change often on the homepage…nothing sells an event like photos
Want to be interactive in the listing
#1 we all know nothing sells an event like photos. Photos are also an EXTREMELY personal way to share an event, especially if the photo is of them. This is one of the great things about localized eventsAbout half of young Americans find their news through Facebook. Do you make it easy for people to share content and articles?
Whole point Selling advanced tickets to your event is like an insurance policy against all these things. Things happen. People get busy. They use up all the money from their current paycheck. But if they have a ticket to your event, they will probably come. But not all of them will. People will spend incremental revenue.And because redemption won’t be 100%, you can even afford to discount tickets and/or offer free shipping off the gate price, and still make more than you would have.Will your website be a billboard or a business center?Selling advanced tickets to your event is like an insurance policy. Things happen. People get busy. They use up all the money from their current paycheck. But if they have a ticket to your event, they will probably come. But not all of them will. People will spend incremental revenue.And because redemption won’t be 100%, you can even afford to discount tickets and/or offer free shipping off the gate price, and still make more than you would have.
American Royal has a beautiful website. They have a great mobile site too. However, if they didn’t have the mobile site….it would look like this
If you’re doing it, so are your customers. Figure out ways to market that link different forms of technologyTablet/Laptop/Phone/TV: Pick two and link them
Videos account for 50% of all online traffic as of January 2012
Therefore, your emails, just like everything else must be mobile friendly. This produces a unique situation for email marketers because the LINKS in your emails must be mobile friendly to! What’s going to happen if your customer reads an email from you on his smart phone, and the stories in your email link to a site that is not mobile friendly? Right. You’ll lose followers. You may think “well it doesn’t matter because email is dead anyway….and that’s not necessarily the case; in fact, I’d almost argue the opposite from a personal standpoint. I don’t have statistics on it, and I’d challenge you to go find out, but I can almost guarantee people, especially people in their teens and 20s are using email MORE than they used to, due to the mobile factor! I subscribe to way more mailing lists than I used to because it’s easy for me to take 3 minutes and clear them off while I wait for my dinner order or sit in the car etc. Before, you’d have to take a specific time to do that. Since emails not dead, and you may be panicked because all of a sudden you realized you have to come up with an email marketing strategy, let’s go over some steps for what you can do with email.
Kendra – You can get statistics from your tool, so you should test, but Tuesdays mid-morning is the best time historically.Big events can have a monthly newsletter, but especially for smaller events, we don’t recommend a publicized schedule. It’s the kiss of death for not having news at the moment you’re “supposed” to send it. Instead have an internal calendar.
I’m always surprised that events don’t have email lists that they email on a regular basis. Does anyone here not email yet?
The most important place to collect addresses on an ongoing basis is from your website. These people have self-selected that they like receiving information electronically.Don’t:LINK to an email signup (include it on the page)Put it on just the HOMEPAGE (put it on every page)AND on mobile site! *Add slide for this
Just put the dates down the left and the mediums across the top. Then start filling in things from your brainstorming session.
Now you take your ideas you’ve put into your calendar, and pick the one(s) to send, and write your story – but don’t put the whole thing in your email. Put a few sentences, and link to your website or blog, where people might get “sucked in” to learn more. I love including more than one article, so you can test them against each other. Then have an office pool as to which one will get the most clicks – I bet you’re surprised!
Now you take your ideas you’ve put into your calendar, and pick the one(s) to send, and write your story – but don’t put the whole thing in your email. Put a few sentences, and link to your website or blog, where people might get “sucked in” to learn more. I love including more than one article, so you can test them against each other. Then have an office pool as to which one will get the most clicks – I bet you’re surprised!
-Graphic from Mashable.com
Same way as the photos
Crazy right? Those facebook likes that you have actually equal TICKET sales! Think about the groups you know from your rodeo that buy the most tickets. You treat them pretty well right? You have to do the same for your facebook followers!
Videos account for 50% of all online traffic as of January 2012