Tag : Marketing
Ignite Opens New Business Development Office In Dubai
Following recent successes with our wonderful clients in Dubai - WAFI Restaurants, Agha and Niche, we've opened a new business development office in the Business District.
Responsive Design for Restaurant & Hotel Websites - Resource Guide
Responsive website design has revolutionized the way websites are build. Great resources for hotel & restaurant websites here.
What TYPE of Hotel or Restaurant are you?
It has become an ongoing joke between myself and my husband that I choose not to stay at a hotel or eat at a restaurant because I don't like their logo typeface. Whilst this is just a bit of banter between us it is actually a serious unconscious influence that your customer/lost customer will have knowingly or unknowingly registered.
La Pizzica - What A Difference A Blog Would Make...
This is La Pizzica an Italian Deli come Apertivo Bar at night, which has got the basics and more right.
Anchor Text Linking for Hotel SEO
Most regular readers of Brightbox will know by now that links to your website help with your search engine optimisation. This article provides a little tip to help maximise the benefit of links that you develop.
Tip 2: Online Advertising For Hotels: Banner Ads
Banner advertising has taken a lot of stick in recent years, with the advent of social media, integrated content and general progression of two-way marketing taking precedent.
Tip 1: Email Marketing For Hotels
Test. Analyse. Learn. Digital Marketing Tips For Hotels #HotelMarketingTips
Ignite At Hotelympia!
Ignite Hospitality Consultants will be exhibiting at Hotelympia from Sunday Feb 26th - Thursday 1st March.
Restaurant Marketing Ideas - Bodean's BBQ Restaurant
Visited the BBQ Rib sensation Bodean's at the weekend, great food and enjoyed settling into a classic New York environment.
Facebook Advertising for Hotels & Restaurants Poses Interesting Question
Recent findings from TBG show that Facebook provide a 50% discount on Facebook Ads if users are kept in-site.
What are QR codes? QR code marketing for restaurants; a case study
QR codes are all the buzz in agency land at the moment - but its amazing how few people on the street really know what they are or how they work. We recently trialled a QR code on a construction hoarding board tease campaign for one of our restaurants - inviting passers by to a week of preview dinners. Thought we would share some of our key learnings.
Ace Hotel Interior Design - A Unique Hotel Concept
We met with Dieter Cartwright from Warren Red for a Sunday afternoon beer at the Ace Hotel in New York and were impressed. Made by creatives for creatives, they’ve developed a unique hotel that cuts through the crowd in a competitive market place. A few things that caught our attention...
Interactive Digital Marketing in Times Square New York
Times Square is an attraction because of advertisements, so much so there is dedicated terrace seating for people to sit and behold the spectacle:
Naked Cowboy Times Square - Best Publicity Stunts
I came across the infamous Naked Cowboy in Times Square today, quite a sight:
Double Bookings Through Your Website: Restaurant Show Presentation
Our Managing Director Paul West will be presenting with myself at The Restaurant Show next Tuesday 11th October.
The Next Generation? Take Advantage of Technology!
I popped down to the New Designers exhibition last week to see the new graduate talent. Some beautiful design work - I came away feeling inspired with a handful of business cards in hand.
Organically Grow Restaurant Facebook Fans: Utilise Facebook's Viral Power
Multi-channel campaigns get you major increases in Facebook Fans, but there are many ways to keep the Fan count ticking with people who are actually interested in your restaurant, without spending the big bucks.
Google+ Profile for Hotels & Restaurants?
Should your hotel or restaurant set up a Google+ account? Not yet according to Google. They are currently working on Google+ business accounts that will be much more suitable. Ignite's advice is to hold off setting up an account for your business until Google have done this.
Local PR & Internet Advertising For Small Hotels & Restaurants
Let's say you're no larger than 50 rooms or a single restaurant that wants to ultimately become well known in you local area and surrounding counties. What Internet marketing channels and offline marketing opportunities are at your disposal to get your hotel and restaurant out there?
The Mobile Revolution
It's official. We are now in the era of the mobile phone. Smartphones, iPhones, Androids, Blackberries and the like. We all treasure our gadgets and love what we can do with them. They are just so handy aren't they? Information on travel, news, cinemas, weather and anything else you can think of is right at our fingertips. It's even there for you when all you want to do is relax a game or funny video.
Pop Up Power
Pop-Up restaurants are quite literally springing up all over the place at the moment and as Christmas approaches this phenomena is no doubt going to become more intense. These temporary restaurants are usually found in unusual or vacant public spaces and recent examples have included the open top floor of a Westfield shopping centre building site in Stratford and the London Eye Pop-Up Restaurant, part of the recent London Restaurant Festival that turned each Eye capsule into a dining room with the best views in town.
Google Adwords Advantage
I've recently been working on a new Adwords account that we've inherited from somebody else. It's amazing how many people waste money on Google Adwords by not setting the system up properly. Inefficient PPC accounts are a great way to throw money away!
Crowd Force
At its soul the internet is a network of connections and this network is incredibly powerful. The speed and scope of the distribution of information in the dot-com world ensures that news spreads far and wide as quickly as it can be typed. Though this ability to distribute information can open the world's eyes to oppressive regimes and influence change for the good of humankind, it can sometimes be problematic for the hospitality operator. On the other hand, it can also be tremendously helpful and beneficial if harnessed in the right way.
Power Of Now
Marketing campaigns utilise a variety of techniques to encourage activity and to make people perform a desired action. The use of Urgency to make people act immediately is one technique that works especially well in the world of digital marketing.
Hotel Consulting In The Bahamas - Week 2
Well we have been here for nearly 2 weeks now and I think we know most of the Island! It does not take long for news to travel - I am sure that even if you just say something out loud the Island knows about it!
Hotel Consulting In The Bahamas
Paul and I are working in The Bahamas for 5 weeks consulting for Swains Cay Lodge based on a remote island called Andros. We will be working on all aspects of the hotel, marketing, operations, design, online, everything you can think of! We will be very busy, but what a place to be busy, it is stunning and I have never been to somewhere quite so peaceful!! I am a digging this Bahamian vibe but I think after 5 weeks London is going to be a real shock to the system!
Position To Win : Play It Smart To Beat The Big Boys Online
As a small hospitality business with a handful of employees and a tight budget the world of internet marketing may seem more of a challenge than an opportunity.
Paul West MIH
We're extremely proud to announce that our Managing Director, Paul West MIH, has been awarded Member level of the Institute Of Hospitality. Paul's expertise in internet marketing for hotels and restaurants is unrivalled in the UK and this award again demonstrates our standing in the hospitality industry.
QR Codes: Entering The Mainstream
After having recently seen an old episode on CSI: NY the other day I have finally discovered the QR Code (short of Quick Response Code). I would never have thought that anything would come from my addiction but since watching that episode (it was series five, episode seven entitled 'Dead Inside', in case you were wondering) I have uncovered what seems like a whole new world of communication.
Start Tweeting!
I first created an account with twitter about a year ago just to see what all the hype was about and immediately didn't get it. In fact I had my account for a full five months before I decided to give it another go. This time I did a search for web design and development, as it's of great interest to me and started following a few people. By initiating this relationship I realised people weren't only tweeting what they had for breakfast (as were my first impressions) but in fact sharing links to other interesting stuff they had found or had written themselves, namely blog articles, design resources, tutorials and the like.
Nothing Works in Isolation
Over the last few months I have been writing in this column about the various online marketing tools available to hospitality businesses and discussing how you can use these tools to drive business. In this final article in the series specific to internet marketing techniques I'll be bringing everything together to illustrate how the different communication tools interact and compliment each other.
Social Branding - Friends, Tweets & Check Ins
The world of social media has not long been with us but already it is a powerful marketing force. Word of Mouse cannot be ignored and clever hospitality operators know that this relatively new technology must be harnessed and nurtured. Social media channels can become highly useful marketing tools if you know how to use them. As with all marketing communications there are techniques you can employ to ensure they benefit your business rather than hinder it and it pays to understand how each of them work and how they interact.
E's Are Good
Hopefully that's caught your attention, because the E's I'm talking about are Email, the key communication tool that every hospitality business should be utilising on a regular basis.
You Get What You Pay For
In last month's Eat Out I discussed the art of Search Engine Optimisation and how to ensure your website is built in such a way that it is highly visible to Google. These techniques are free in the sense that once your site appears in the search results for your important keywords it doesn't cost you anything for people to find your website.
Be Seen to Be Successful
Following on from last month's article on website design for booking conversions, this month I'll be explaining how to ensure your website is as visible as possible to search engines. Marketing has evolved over the last decade as Search Engines such as Google enable you to place your business directly in front of people who are actively looking for what you provide. This is a very direct approach and is a highly cost effective way to communicate with your potential customers.
Internet Marketing for Hospitality
Regular readers of GS Magazine may remember an article about website design and the development of the gsmagazine.co.uk website. The GS site has continued to develop and now offers the GS Suppliers' Directory, a searchable online buyers' guide, and an online subscription facility for the magazine. Of course building a website is only really the first step in implementing online marketing communications. Once you have your website built you then need to ensure it is as visible as possible and drive visitors to it. This article will look at the tools available to you to ensure you reap the rewards, and the potential high return on investment, of your online presence.
Web Aware
I spend a great deal of my time on restaurant and hotel websites, assessing clients' online needs, analysing websites and implementing internet marketing techniques, and it never ceases to amaze me how many ineffective hospitality business websites there are! So over the next few editions of Eat Out Magazine I'm on a personal mission to help hospitality business owners better harness the power of internet marketing and will be providing you with a whole host of useful tips, approaches and insights on a range of internet marketing techniques.
Is brunch too exclusive in London?
Whilst living in Greenwich Village last year, I would get my weekly brunch either from the local diner, where their $3 French toast was to die for, or high-end Sex And The City style restaurants, where the poached eggs and smoked salmon were exceptional. These experiences highlighted the difference between American and British eating habits - their devotion to brunch and our lack thereof.
Best Independent Restaurant Website Award 2009
We're thrilled to say the site we designed and built for YumYum Thai Restaurant has been crowned best Independent Website of the year in the annual Catersearch awards.
Noodle Fun In Pop-Up London
There is something innately cool about the concept of pop-up bars, restaurants and clubs. One minute they're there, the next minute they're gone. They feel like they've been thrown together with the type of effortless style that so many crave.
Don't 'Takeaway' An Opportunity
Takeaway menu re-prints are a pretty regular occurrence for some restaurants.
Don't Dilute Your Brand
Sam's recent blog 'Marketing on a Shoestring' has some great ideas for getting your brand out to people. It is really important however to make sure that you take good care of your brand and don't dilute it. Having brand guidelines and sticking to them is important especially when designing in-house.
Marketing on a Shoestring
So it feels like we're starting to head out of the recession, cross fingers the recent optimism is for a reason and here at Ignite we're definitely witnessing a changing landscape.
Beat the recession online, your guide to email newsletters
Whilst some are still dragging their feet, most in the hospitality sector are starting to see the benefits of engaging with customers online. Just like in the physical world, there are a multitude of channels, which tend to work better when working in tandem. For example, Cost Per Click (CPC) marketing is particularly effective and provides a great return on investment when your website allows you to close the sale.
Spending a penny
Your exterior is welcoming, your light features amazing and your furniture stylish yet comfortable. You have ticked all the boxes and thought of every last detail, or have you? Too many restaurants spend a fortune on their interiors and then forget a place that you are pretty much guaranteed all of your customers will visit and interact with... your toilets.
Cracking Christmas
Few operators this year will be dreaming of a white Christmas, but plenty will be dreaming of making a profit. So how can you make sure that your Christmas and New Year is a cracker? (These puns are beyond my control!)
How cafes can use online mediums to drive marketing & communication efforts
Do you talk and listen to your customers effectively? The answer, an obvious yes. The internet enables you to do both of these - and more - 24 hours a day, whilst running your business. It has changed the platform from which businesses can operate, but why have cafes have been slower engaging online than their counterparts?
Twitter - 21 tips on getting it right
So you've read the news (twitter, twitter, twitter), listened to the hype (twitter, twitter, twitter) and you've set yourself up an account. Now what? Let your account sit dormant and wonder what all the fuss is about? You could, but Twitter has the potential to be very powerful to the hospitality industry and in my opinion its here to stay. Not to sound cliched but the sooner you get involved with medium such as twitter the less likely you are to get left behind!
How to set up a Twitter account
It's relatively simple to set up a twitter account, but it's not always clear what you should do to get going properly. We've given a step by step guide to get you to this point. Happy twittering!
Telling, not selling
I was reading up on email newsletters today to see what works and what doesn't and something popped up that I found really interesting - partly because it's something I've always believed in but also because it's something I've reacted to in the same way.
Review : Caffe Cucina, Euston Station, London
I was taken aback this morning by the team at Caffe Cucina at London's Euston Station.
Achieving your objectives online
Audits are useful to businesses in various ways. There's financial audits, operational audits, stock audits etc. All of them have one thing in common: they help a business run smoother, be more confident, reduce costs and maximise profits.
Online Marketing - Tools and tips no brand can be without
Having a website gives you direct access to a sizeable 1.5 billion internet users worldwide. The trouble is that simply having a site, doesn't mean you're reaching the masses, or more importantly your target market.
The Perfect Feedback Card
As a rule, you should only ask someone for their opinion if you're prepared for what they might say. And although honesty is (nearly) always the best policy, the truth can hurt!
Go on, be a good egg!
Banish the battery egg in your kitchen and you could get an award thrown in!
Top Ten Table Tips!
For smart ways to market your restaurant, bar or gastro pub look no further than your tables
No quick fix for marketing. Planning is the key
Making sure that your promotional pound is returned by more bums on seats requires good foresight. Without thinking 'right person, right media, right message and right time', you could be wasting precious resources.
Making an agency work for you
It's widely reported that the current recession is unlike any recession before it. So in unprecedented times it makes sense to look for smarter ways to cut costs.
Market your way through the recession
When times are hard the natural reaction is to rein in spending and cut back on non-essential expenses. It's a very sensible way to operate. However, what would you consider to be non-essential? That office refurb? New technology? Marketing?
5 Tips to survive the recession
It's not all doom and gloom for the hospitality industry. Here are Ignite's top 5 tips for a successful recession.
Writing good web copy
'Content is King!' - a phrase well used when it comes to websites; rightly so too. However, there's also the issue of how to present that royal content and I aim to look at a few methods of rolling out the red carpet for your content.
The Death of the Age Of Bling - The Birth of the Age Of Thrift
As Bob D. once sang, the times they are a changin! And quickly. One minute it's all diamond bling, 10 grand bar tabs at Mahiki and eight course tasting menus for 200 quid a pop. The next it's queues out the door at Pizza Express with everyone clutching their 50% vouchers downloaded from moneysavingexpert.com. As Anthony Worrall Thompson goes bust, Alan Yau plans to roll-out Cha Cha Moon.
Brightbox - the Ignite blog
Marketing
Following recent successes with our wonderful clients in Dub...
Responsive website design has revolutionized the way website...
It has become an ongoing joke between myself and my husband ...
This is La Pizzica an Italian Deli come Apertivo Bar at nigh...
