Dear Reader,
Happy Mardi Gras! (aka: Fat Tuesday).
It’s the day before Lent, when people promise to give up indulgences.
The holiday theme is “Laissez les bons temps roulez!” – or, “Let the good times roll!”
And people head to the cities best known for Mardi Gras Carnival partying.
For New Orleans, Mardi Gras translates to more than colored beads:
- Mardi Gras brings in $1+ billion in revenue or 2% of New Orleans’s GDP.
- The average Mardi Gras tourist spends $2,600. And that doesn’t include travelers who opt for high-end hotels and parties!
- Even the traditional holiday treat, King Cakes, contributes more than calories! With 500,000+ cakes sold at $38 per cake that’s roughly $2 million in sales.
From a marketing perspective:
New Orleans doesn’t need to advertise Mardi Gras. It’s an established go-to holiday celebration spot. Rather, they do need an operational plan to handle the short-term tourist influx.
Despite this:
local businesses need a marketing plan to get the maximum value from travelers willing to spend big to bring home memories.
Actionable Holiday Marketing Tip:
- Take advantage of local and community events. This helps your business to build relationships with your neighbors.
BUT REALIZE:
Once a holiday is part of your marketing plans, the results become part of your annual performance. Therefore you must include it every year to keep your revenues flat.
Beyond Mardi Gras celebrations, there’s another marketing lesson:
Marketers and other employees need reasons to get together IRL and have fun!
Like Mardi Gras, marketing events and conferences plan and build excitement among attendees.
When it comes to the best conferences, like Social Media Marketing World or SMMW for short, the fun begins before the conference officially starts and continues long after the last speaker has left the main stage.
BTW—If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, you can still attend virtually. (And you save on the travel expenses and avoid the potential for travel-related illness!)
[ FYI: Unfortunately my schedule is keeping me from attending SMMW IRL this year. Despite that, I’m attending via social media. ]
RECOMMENDED READING:
Face it—conferences involve a major investment. In addition to your time away from the office, expenses include the cost of the conference and travel.
To get the maximum return on your conference investment, use these pre-conference tips. (BTW—Tag me on Facebook or Twitter if you’re attending SMMW20!
- Set goals for your conference attendance. Whether it’s your dime or your company’s, make sure you get the most return on your investment of time and money!
- Review the agenda to select your “Must Attend” sessions. Don’t waste precious conference time trying to decide.
- Decide which speakers you want to connect with. Follow them on social media and share their content before the event to get their attention. Key point: Have a good reason to connect with them!
- Join conference party on social media. Join their Facebook Group and other online communities. Learn who else is attending and to make connections before you arrive. If you’re shy or flying solo this is especially important.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Want to increase your knowledge, get new business and/or expand your network?
Then attend both local events and major conferences.
► Get the latest on Facebook’s 2020 Algorithm?
Meet Dennis Yu, the CEO of BlitzMetrics and Facebook Advertising expert, at CMO on Tuesday, February 25th, in New York City. (Yes—You can meet me there too!) Grab one of the last tickets here. This event is run by the New York Marketing Association.
► Social Media Marketing World. Attend either live or virtually. While I won’t be attending this fun and information packed event this year, you should put this conference on your calendar if you use social media.
► I am keynoting the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference in St. Louis (April 8th to 10th). This conference has a special place in my heart since it’s organized and run by my friend, Professor Perry Drake.
► Join me at the Hello Conference run by marketing smartie, Brooke Sellas. This digital marketing conference takes place at a 220 year-old inn in New Jersey. Even better, it’s gentle on your pocket book. You can save $100 by getting your ticket by 2/29/2020.
Lastly, if you’d like to see how a content marketer can make the transition to fiction writing, please get a copy of Joe Pulizzi’s The Will To Die.
By doing so you’ll be part of something bigger: a test to see if a newbie fiction writer can hit the bestseller list. This book is Joe Pulizzi’s first fictional work, The Will To Die, and it comes out on March 2nd, 2020.
Yes—Joe Pulizzi, the godfather of content marketing and founder of Content Marketing Institute.
To gamify his content cross-over launch, Joe want to sell 6,000 books between March 2nd and March 8th.
Click this link to buy the book.
Even better if you prefer audiobooks, it’s only $2.99 through March 8th.
Having sold thousands of books for Bertelsmann, I want to see the results. Because, in my experience, author name recognition made a HUGE difference in mystery book sales!
So help prove conventional book marketing wrong!
Shoutout to new readers: Wagner, Jen, James, Tom, Alvin and Tim.
Welcome and thank you for joining our community.
Happy Marketing,
Heidi
FEATURED ARTICLE: How To Create Stellar Conference Content
Are you attending SMMW or another event or conference?
Then use this guide to create related content.
The benefit: All the extra conferencing will help your traffic.
RELATED ARTICLE:
FEATURED ARTICLE: Audio Content
Is audio content part of your marketing strategy and editorial calendar?
If not, you’re missing an opportunity to break-through and grab audience attention.
Even better, you don’t need a full blown voice-first strategy to add audio to your content marketing.
Translation:
Audio content provides a window of opportunity for your marketing to break-through!
RELATED ARTICLE:
FEATURED ARTICLE: Blogging: How To Make Your Social Media Hero
Tired getting almost no response to your social media efforts?
Instead change your social media marketing focus to your blog.
Used these marketing tactics based on the latest blogging research to improve your results.
RELATED ARTICLE:
The fine print:
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