User-generated content is hugely powerful. It's when customers share photos and their experience about your business on social media. It's 'word-of-mouth marketing' and it's free! It works because it's much more credible when your customers say nice things about you than when you do it yourself.

So how can you make it easy for customers to share positive photos about your business or experience?

It's simple. Create a photo opportunity at your business location that people can't resist. It can be a funny board with a hole for their face (cheesy, I know, but people love them!). If you do this, ensure it has your business name, website address and hashtag so it's easy to share.

Another idea for a photo opportunity is a large 'prop' of some sort, something unique, cute, funny beautiful etc. I was at Houston, Texas yesterday and just had to take a pic of these huge cowboy boots (about 2m tall). What could you come up with for your business that people would want to take photos of?

Generate a simple, short hashtag that relates to your business. To encourage people to use your hashtag, you could start a competition and offer a prize for the best photo with that hashtag.

PS, have you checked out the new Tourism Business Success Programme yet? Click here for information about this exciting 9-month programme that will help you take your business from where you are now to where you want it to be! Only 10 spaces per location - registrations are now open!

Till next week, Marijke

Below is an excellent infographic with some great tips to help you design the perfect logo. 
Also, don't forget to research your competition so your logo doesn't resemble theirs! I see a lot of logos looking very similar, so do ensure yours is unique and different.

Innovative marketing ideas for your business
2017 is well underway and I hope you've had a chance to set some time aside to work on your business, or at least plan when you're going to do this.
Below is an infographic with some  innovative marketing ideas for 2017. Note the ones that apply to you in your marketing plan!

Till next week, Marijke

I found this interesting piece of research by AC Nielsen (a large global marketing research firm). They surveyed 30,000 millennials (age 21-34) and baby boomers (age 50-64) on their consumption behaviours.

If your clients fall in either the millennial or baby boomer category, then the infographic below will be of interest! Click on it to enlarge it, print it off and circle the information that applies to your business. Then decide how you can better serve these customers.

Till next week, Marijke

A video on your home page or landing page will increase conversion to sales. You can get a video professionally produced, but you can easily produce your own videos too.

My intention is to produce more videos as people process images and video thousands time faster as text. It's one of the major trends in marketing and if you want to develop content for your website, learning to produce simple videos will greatly enhance your website.

The little video slideshow above only took me 10 minutes. I take my lovely black lab Jessi for a walk to the lake daily. Last week, I decided to take photos of her coming out of the the lake shaking off the water after fetching a stick.
Here's how I put together the little video above in less than 10 minutes.

1. Back in my office, I first transferred the photos from my phone (a Samsung Galaxy s6 - takes great photos!) to my laptop by simply emailing them.

2. Open www.youtube.com. If you haven't set up your own Youtube channel, click here to learn how to set one up.

3. In the top right corner, click: Upload. In the right hand column, click 'Photo Slideshow - Create'.

4. Select the photos you want to use for your slideshow. Click Next.

5. You can now edit your slideshow, add music, change the transition, add text etc. You can also click the Advanced Settings buttons for more features.
Once you're done, just click save and your video gets uploaded to Youtube. You can give it a name and add a description.

6. Now that the video is on Youtube, you can easily put it on your website. Most good content management systems will allow you to insert a Youtube video on your website.
Voila! You've done it!

PS My dog is NOT for sale!

Have a great week, Marijke