marketing

Apr

2019

The Fyre Festival Fiasco | Who cleaned up when the party (that never happened) was over?

In the beginning, there was an app. It was built to connect people who need music with people who provide music. Throwing a big ole party in the form of a music festival to promote the launch of this app sounded like the perfect way to introduce the industry to a great product. Score for the marketing team.

But then, it couldn’t just be a music festival, it needed to be a luxury music festival… a luxury destination music festival… where famous rappers and beautiful models frolic with other festival goers in the white sand and crystal clear water… and the pigs! Everyone gets to swim with pigs, and cruise on yachts, and lounge around in villas, and drink cocktails all day, and have the event catered by world-renowned chefs using premium imported ingredients.

All this would be carried out by people who never put on a festival of any sort before, on an island not equipped to handle a crowd of more than 6,000 people. We know how it all turned out for Fyre festival. It was a foolish, beautiful illusion.

VICTIM 1: THE ENVIRONMENT

Now, try to figure out what happened to everything they left behind. It looked like a hurricane hit Great Exuma in April 2017.

It looked like a hurricane hit because festival organizers used hurricane relief shelters as the “luxury tent” accommodations for festival attendees. There were blow up mattresses, bedding, and pillows left behind. School style metal lockers that were never used lay in heaps. A stage was erected for musicians who never played.

Organizers never had to worry about lack of showers and toilets, or running water not being available in the area where they were holding the event because everyone got off the island as soon as they could. There were used portable toilets left behind, food and drinks containers from the hundreds of people who did come. Roker’s Point sits on bluffs overlooking the ocean, what was the environmental damage of all the waste left behind?

According to the United Nations Environment Programme:

“If it is to be sustainable in the long run, tourism must incorporate the principles and practices of sustainable consumption. Sustainable consumption includes building consumer demand for products that have been made using cleaner production techniques, and for services – including tourism services – that are provided in a way that minimizes environmental impacts. The tourism industry can play a key role in providing environmental information and raising awareness among tourists of the environmental consequences of their actions. Tourists and tourism-related businesses consume an enormous quantity of goods and services; moving them toward using those that are produced and provided in an environmentally sustainable way, from cradle to grave, could have an enormous positive impact on the planet’s environment.”

Tourism can have a disastrous environmental impact if not properly managed. The Fyre Festival is a perfect example of monumental mishandling of an event. We looked, but we couldn’t find the answer to what seemed like a simple question: who cleaned up after the Fyre Festival?

VICTIM 2: LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS

Maryann Rolle, now famous from Netflix’s documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, is the owner of Exuma Point Bar and Grill. With little time to prepare, she was tasked with providing sustenance to festival goers after Fyre organizer Billy McFarland fired the catering company originally slated. Rolle was never paid by Fyre. A GoFundMe page was set up to help reimburse her and others on Great Exuma for out-of-pocket expenses including hotel stays, product, and wages.

Wage theft was another heap of garbage Fyre Fest left behind. People on the island worked for weeks to erect the tent city of Fyre Fest and they were never paid. Damages have been awarded in American courts to Americans defrauded by Billy McFarland. Damages need to be awarded to the Bahamians who provided goods and services of which McFarland and all the other Fyre employees and attendees on the island took full advantage.

VICTIM 3: A NATION’S REPUTATION

Instead of seeking legal retribution, the Bahamians are trying to reassure the world that this disaster was not theirs.

Tourism is an extremely important component of the GDP of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Made up of approximately 700 cays (pronounce KEYS), islands, and islets atop an ancient coral reef, the Bahamas are well known as a private place for a luxury vacation. Most of the area is uninhabited or privately owned, but the tourism industry employs many of the inhabitants on the rest of the islands directly and indirectly. Weeks went by and the Bahamians working for Fyre didn’t get paid for labor they already provided. How do they make that money back?

VICTIM 4: THE APRIL FOOLS

In April of 2017, a small group of people convinced themselves and others that throwing a bunch of money around would magically manifest one of the most amazing product launches the world had ever seen. It didn’t work.

Island residents worked hard, opened their homes to strangers, fed them, gave them drinks– all in good faith that they would be repaid. They are still waiting.

Fyre Festival goers were promised a beautiful illusion, but that’s all it ever was. They paid handsomely for quite an experience. They didn’t get what they expected, and plenty of people laughed at them for believing any of it existed in the first place.

Resources:

http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/four.html

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/fyre-festival-great-exuma-bahamas-tourism

http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/may/23/bahamian-vendor-outrage-100k-fyre-festival-debts/

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/fyre-festival-documentary-review-capitalism

https://sustainabletourism.net/?sustainable-tourism/islands/

https://traveltips.usatoday.com/effects-tourism-caribbean-63368.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055478/

https://www.sandals.com/emerald-bay/

Sep

2018

Google Demystified: Here’s How A.R. Marketing House Creates Content that Aligns with Google’s Mission

Great Content = Great Google Ranking

Just as the caliber of your character matters for customer relationships, it matters to Google and here’s why… Google is continually evaluating website content based on relevance and quality, so too are the people using Google. What does that mean? It means that as we move closer and closer to a marketing structure that really caters to people’s needs, we train Google how to register those met needs, just the same. It’s safer to assume quality means EVERYTHING and increasingly so. However, here’s a quick reference guide to give you a better idea of what that looks like.

Key Points for Q.A. based on Google’s Mission

High-quality, high-value content
Great content formatting that is easy to interact with
Superb user experience (UX)
Eliminating any aggressive and/or deceptive advertising
Fixing any and all on-site SEO issues

How does Google Judge Content?

A good rule of thumb is to improve quality content across the board and over the long run for your efforts to be realized by Google. You will want to have marketing staff and content professionals conduct a full content audit then update old blogs using your new high-quality, no more excuses rubric.

1.Content Formatting

According to Google, the best general formatting for your blog as well as other website content needs to include:

Superb headlines and meaningful subheadlines
Readable, well-formatted text (both for Google and your readers)
Catchy and honest introduction with a lead-in question
A body with rich information that is unique and valuable to viewers
A bold, actionable, and helpful conclusion that empowers the reader with a propelled sense of knowledge toward a particular action.
A place for leaving feedback to allow for extended discussions, unanswered questions, or handling rebuttals of your process or logic
But wait! Don’t forget images, video, and gifs. You will need to make sure each has a purpose, place, and presence that matches the intention of your content and is correctly formatted

2.Length of Content

Not too short when it should be longer, not too long when the answer should be short and direct. In other words, maintaining integrity in the length of your content. When developing your content, treat it as if you are sharing the information with someone famous that you’ve always admired, just pick someone, whether dead or alive. Think about the conversation you would have with that ultra-important person. Would you overindulge on a topic that only requires direct answers? Would you be too brief on a matter that needs a little legwork to explain and get the breadth of your point across?

The point is, if you’re maintaining integrity with the length of your content, you will be maintaining integrity with people and with Google. When you do this, you won’t need to reassess your content every time there is an algorithmic change.

3.Duplicate Content

There are rules to the content game, my friends. Those rules include not making multiple copies of the same content and spreading it across various channels for the sole sake of increasing your presence. With that said, it’s also not sufficient to change up a bit of the headline, text, or a little unimportant something just to say it’s different. There are ways to funnel your content to various channels like LinkedIn or Medium without raising red flags, however, you will need a conscientious team to know how and when to execute this. Heed the correct methods for sharing content on multiple platforms according to Google standards, using the tools available on each of those platforms.

4.Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent

Does your content team have the journalism chops to compete with Forbes and The New Yorker? This may seem like the standards of a heaven-sent content creator but if you want to be competitive in the future online market, this will need to be the trajectory for the intellectual and creative output of your team. Are they savvy, well-read, up-to-date on a variety of topics that will influence your content like industry history, nuances, and public opinion?

Figuring out if you have the right content team will require that CMOs and Directors, 1) find the curious team with the intellectual capacity to think of topics in a newsworthy way, a group they can trust that will keep all company goals in mind while developing a creative edge for company content and 2) give your team the creative flexibility they will need to find new and innovative ways to make your brand shine with your content.

5. Bonus…

Involve Lobbyists in your Educational Content tactics!

One huge way to leap over the competition and help your industry as a whole is to connect with lobbyists in your field. Become the go-to source and deliver content in the form of presentations, graphs, data-to-content, reports, and other helpful evidence. This can be used for lobbyists to do their job better while illustrating their key points for proliferation and protection of your industry in Congress.

It’s not enough to offer solutions, sometimes you have to realize the historical underpinnings of your industry in order to deliver relevant insight to people. Then, you have to apply your efforts collectively to push the movement in your industry, forward. Double down on educational content and political action for a winning combination that addresses both the long-term and short-term goals of your company as well as your industry as a whole.

Learn more about how we use High-Quality Content to solve the educational & Google Ranking needs of our clients. [su_button url=”https://armarketinghouse.com/contact-us/request-a-quote/” background=”#dcae1d” size=”5″]GET RANKED[/su_button]

Mar

2018

What is Edu-Marketing?

What is Edu-Marketing for Environmental Products & Services?

True Edu-marketing vs. White or Greenwashing

Edu-Marketing, or educational-based marketing, is the concept of creating an educational curriculum and transforming it into digestible marketing content for the masses in various forms (articles, videos, magazines, infographics, interactive quizzes, email updates, online courses, etc.) thus helping people better understand your area of expertise and positioning yourself and/or your organization as an Industry Leader. As opposed to whitewashing and greenwashing, which are the deceitful practices of covering incriminating or unpleasant facts about an organization with inaccurate niceties. In this blog we’ll dive into the importance of edu-marketing and take a look at some examples and contrasts to whitewashing and greenwashing. Let’s jump in!

[bctt tweet=”Edu-Marketing, or educational-based marketing, is the concept of creating an educational curriculum and transforming it into digestible marketing content for the masses in various forms, thus positioning yourself as an Industry Leader.” username=”@armarketinghse”]

While nearly any industry and any topic can technically employ the edu-marketing strategy, it is especially necessary for industries that are making a positive impact on society and the planet; those leaders and individuals that take the lead and enlighten the masses on the topics that have the potential to truly benefit humanity. It’s so important that we begin to shift the focus from marketing tactics that take advantage of society and manipulate truths to benefit the few.

Why is this? Well, it seems that we have experienced a massive amount of miseducation and frankly, lies for the sole sake of profits. For example, in the book Trust Us We’re Experts, journalists Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber dive deep into the ways that big industries have paid off “experts” and created front groups of fake scientists to lead false movements and misguide people.

Like the time SmithKline Beecham paid the American Cancer Society $1 million to use its logo on products + in ads for the smoking cessation product NicoDermCQ and other Nicorette anti-smoking aids.

This is a perfect example of how edu-marketing for natural herbs that help with smoking cessation like Catnip, Coltsfoot, or Horsetail plant, would be a better benefit to humanity. However, big pharma and willing-to-be-bought non-profit organizations, have teamed up to misguide the public with false reasoning to push their products.

Unfortunately, the reality remains that we’re more likely to recognize and have access to Nicorette, a $60/box pharmaceutical drug when it comes to quitting smoking rather than Catnip, a $10/high quality organic tincture bottle, or any other herb that we are probably more willing to take than a pharmaceutically synthesized product.

Edu-Marketing with integrity is so clearly needed now. We have been inundated with sellouts and front groups, whitewashing and greenwashing so much so that we likely have beliefs skewed in their favor, whether we know it consciously or subconsciously. And this has mostly been successful because less than honest companies with substantial financial backing can easily justify the cost for fraudulent “experts,” creating front groups, funding lobbyists, and creating corporate spin that act like real causes and sound logical on the surface. Take for example the front group People of Color United, that was established in 2004 by the (anything but color) conservative group Bradley Foundation whose aim was to diminish John Kerry’s perception during the 2004 Presidential Election via personal attack radio ads aired in swing states on primarily black radio stations.

You see, we are in dire need for education-based content marketing with integrity to uplift the well-intentioned and honest companies and movements that need to happen in our soceity. This is especially true for industries like cannabis and energy where major players can either side with greed and harm public good or greatly serve humanity with things like broad-spectrum medical cannabis and sustainable energy. These things when conceived of solely on logic shouldn’t technically need marketing. Clean water, natural health, sustainability, renewable energy, decentralized economy, these are things we all want for ourselves and when we set corrupt politics aside, our neighbors as well. Unfortunately, though, we have come to a juncture in our society where these things do need marketing. MASSIVELY smart marketing at that, to combat the missing or false information that has created mass self-sabotaging, false belief systems that have been implanted in us all at some level.

[bctt tweet=”There is a dire need for education based content marketing that uplifts sustainable products and renewable energy over the barrage of bad choices that we’ve become so accustomed to accepting.” username=”@armarketinghse”]

It’s time to start disrupting the status quo of industries that have taken advantage of the dumbing down of society in order to tell lies or at the very least cover up truths, solely for profits-sake. It’s an era for NEW Industry Leaders, and if you are like me, you don’t care where the solutions to the big issues of today come from. You just care that they happen at the highest integrity, highest efficiency levels, and are the longest-term solutions that get to the heart of the issues we face.

Arguably this can be accomplished in many ways from many organizational standpoints. Yes, of course, our government should be ensuring that its citizens get their basic human needs met like clean food, clean water, and housing. As we move forward, we will need all hands on deck. This includes every type of organization, non-profit, small business, church, enterprise corporation, and local community be involved with educating about the truths which affect humanity and the planet.

How do we do this?

By holding to integrity. By educating. By incorporating edu-marketing.

It’s with great hope that we see more of these earnest edu-marketing tactics that serve to win back the minds and the reasoning of people.

Below are some contrasting white/greenwashing vs. true edu-marketing strategies.

Fake vs. Real Edu-Marketing

The Cannabis Industry

Cannabis Propaganda + Fear by Above the Influence

VS.

Cannabis Edu-Marketing from Jenasis Medical Group

Sustainable Laundry

The health of our laundry is a very overlooked topic in most people’s lives. Yet, laundry is a very intimate thing when we really think about.Both household laundry and dry cleaning have the potential to be extremely toxic when using traditional detergents and traditional methods of dry cleaning. The 4 top toxic ingredients in common laundry detergents are 1) Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)/sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) 2) 1,4-dioxane 3)NPE (nonylphenol ethoxylate) and 4) Phosphates. Likewise, the singular most toxic method for dry cleaning clothes is PERC, a chemical known to induce spontaneous abortions in women who are pregnant and work near the chemical, among a long host of other violent afflictions. Below is an example of a laundry detergent who calls itself green but hasn’t quite quit all toxic junk and a dry cleaning company that uses truly non-toxic methods that believes in educating on dangers of the mainstream dry cleaning toxin, PERC.

Planet Laundry Detergent, though better than most still contains 6.1 ppm of 1,4-dioxane not listed.

The Eco Laundry Company Educates by sharing data on the health effects of chemical exposure to PERC .

Renewable Energy

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy vs. Education of Solar Energy

Nuclear energy is entirely greenwashed now. Some try to defend nuclear energy as renewable energy but uranium deposits are a finite resource on this planet, so the designation should not include this option. Read this to learn more about the debate.

However, the Nuclear Sector has done a fine job explaining away the problems of toxic nuclear waste and letting us forget about the radiation still wreaking havoc from the long list of nuclear disasters that occurred around the world. Most recently the Fukushima Disaster and the radioactive materials that now spread across the pacific ocean and U.S. Coast poisoning our oceans, wildlife, and seafood.

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy via NEI

Edu-Marketing on Solar Energy via the Union of Concerned Scientist

These are just a handful of examples that display the importance of integrity based educational marketing, or edu-marketing. When dealing with truth, there is no wiggle room. When it comes to integrity and becoming the master of your content, true edu-marketing is the cornerstone for leading a movement and leaving a legacy.

Join the movement to educate by working with us! Contact our environmental edu-marketing team.

Want to push environmental agendas and help well-intentioned companies and organizations find their educational voice? Become an affiliate!

Nov

2017

Marketing: For the Discouraged Social Entrepreneur

You’ve come up with countless ideas, created brilliant products, useful services, and are eager to elevate your company and community to levels far beyond what you’ve ever seen.

The thing is, you’re not alone.

So many business owners like yourself have wanted to do the same, but lack the knowledge, the time, and the strategy.

At A.R. Marketing House, we have noticed a consistent pattern amongst the socially conscious clients we have worked with as well as businesses we have come across. That is, when it comes to developing and implementing a marketing strategy, many business owners struggle because they either 1) lack a strategy with objectives and subjective goals 2) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their personality +brand 3) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their long-term marketing budget 4) do not stick to their plan long enough to see expected results.

But we see your success, we support your amazing ideas, and we want to help you launch your potential to new heights and bring your dreams into reality. So, we’ve come up with this little cheat sheet for you to wash away your discouragement and get back on the marketing horse. Here are 6 ways to amplify your business and bring to life those brilliant ideas toward making a positive impact while achieving great long-term success.

Imagine the Greatest End-Goal First, THEN reverse engineer it

One trait we see often is leaders seeing an end result without really taking the time to understand the methods of getting there. It is so important to set goals, work on a strategy, come up with clear objectives, and understand what tactics you need to take to ensure you are reaching these milestones. You need a plan, a CLEAR plan with measurable results. But sometimes this is easier done in REVERSE. Yes, seeing the end result and working your way back from that vision has proven to be the method that some of the most successful entrepreneurs and change makers actively use.

What do you need to get there? Visualize the end, then close your eyes and walk backward from that goal to narrow down the steps it took to get you there. You might find that you need to do some additional research. Have others achieved similar results to those you hope to achieve? How can you be different? Greater? More creative? Help others? More than just wanting to get to that point of success, you need to plan for it strategically and cleverly. Understand the possible repercussions of steps that can go awry and mitigate your risks by having options within your plan, like a roadmap with alternative routes.

Strategize and Re-strategize

Often times, it is easy to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results. The important thing to understand is immediate success rarely means long-term success. Sure, maybe some businesses start off with a bang, but this is not the norm, especially if you are in a field that is either not widely understood or is shrouded with miseducation. Sometimes your brilliant ideas will have to be introduced and reintroduced many times over before even the brainiest of people begin to grasp what you are truly trying to do. Whether you are introducing a politically controversial product or educating on a spiritually profound message, you will not only need to give yourself some time to find your voice within your message, you will also have to give your audience some time to become educated, by you, of course. However, after about a year of solidly sticking to your plan, assess what worked best and look to see what new methods are currently out, then…re-strategize! Trust your analytics and your instincts, then move forward with the knowledge you have gained. In what ways did your strategy lack? Did your audience grow? Were you able to convert leads into sales? You already have a plan in place, just look for gaps and focus on what can be done to improve going forward. It won’t happen overnight. If you don’t believe us, check out how long these “overnight successes” ACTUALLY took. *Hint: It definitely wasn’t overnight. Of course these are larger companies but the reasoning and logic also applies to small and midsize businesses.

Timing is Everything

Marketing is more than just posting on social media here and there. You need to be strategic. Create a calendar. Know when you should be posting your original content, how frequently, and know why this all relates back to your overall marketing goal. More than just posting on social media, you need to create conversation on more than just one platform. Start a blog, newsletter, social media strategy, and more than that, focus on collaborations with influencers.

Digital technology allows numerous avenues to educate based on your business or practice. But it’s key to narrow down the focus on how each platform leverages your strategy best. When do you want to reach your goal? Is this plan going to do anything for you in the short-term? If not, is it worth what it will do for your goals in the long-term? Now, I know this sounds like a lot of work, but creating a marketing calendar will greatly help you along the way. Creating a calendar will allow you to improve your time management and ensure you are relaying a consistent message across various platforms to the right people.

Remember WHY you started and tell people

When you first decided you wanted to start this business, you knew what you wanted to accomplish. You knew your skill, gift, or wonderful product was worth a formal delivery to the world. Keep this in mind as you continue on this rollercoaster to success. It won’t be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The important thing is to remember why you did this and why you want to continue to do it. Constantly remind yourself of the WHY and work on achieving small milestones that will set you up for long-term success. Add the WHY into your messaging, make sure that you are storytelling and capture your audience with your true motivations, they will appreciate and relate to you more for it. What’s more, you will hit some emotional health markers with your vulnerability, see Brene Brown.

SMARKET yourself

It is so easy to put your marketing strategy on the back-burner when you don’t see results right away. But doing this before you’ve accessed the intelligence of your content and the strategy of your delivery, is not fair. When you find yourself on the slippery slope of doing nothing and re-sharing other people’s content, STOP and focus on the various ways you can contribute to your own smart content creation. With smart content creation, your success is dependent on following an educational purpose, an audience generating data collection format, utilizing various and specific avenues for delivery, consistent implementation, tracking, adjusting based on analytics, patience, and spiritual alignment. Actually, you might want to start with the latter.

You can’t expect your audience will show up without knowing who you are and why you’re special. By creating smart content, you are allowing your readers, followers, and clients the chance not only to get to know you but to develop and understand and be educated by you; a relationship built on trust developed by you.

The modern marketing plan, or as we call it, smart content creation, is more than just posting ads online or in the local paper, but more about nurturing a relationship and moving from tangential to tangible continuing past the sell, into the long-term.

In the digital arena, smart content creation relies heavily on making yourself known and leveraging yourself to your best-suited audience, then demonstrating leadership with your unique expertise.

6. Hire a Pro.

If you’ve made it to this point of the blog you’re either struggling pretty hard or you’re eager to apply the best tactics to your marketing strategy. Under both circumstances, tip 6 can easily get you where you want to be. There are professional marketers whose job is to put you and your business out there. They already know how to discover the intricacies and the methods that would work best for your goals and are dedicated to meeting your needs while you are out there perfecting your craft, improving your product, and working on sustaining your business. At A.R. Marketing House our goal is to learn the ins and outs of what it is you offer so we can reach the right people with the right message to get them to invest in what you have to offer. We have done this for a variety of industry leaders and are eager to elevate you to unsurpassed levels.

With these tips, we are confident that your business will flourish! Whether you’ve just decided to market your business or have been working at this for some time, but need a little help, we are eager to help you and encourage you to seek help from pro’s, like the A.R. team.

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Apr

2017

5 Trends In Marketing Your Holistic Health Care Practice

Holistic Health Care: 5 Marketing Tactics

Increasingly, more and more people are opening up to the idea of holistic health treatments to accompany and sometimes replace their current conventional health care treatments. People are becoming more skeptical of modern medicine, whether it’s because they feel it has failed them, the surging prices for care and prescriptions, or the alarming side effects, risks, and dangers associated with current pharmaceutical drugs. Many people are questioning whether to trust their general physician and the choices of treatment being prescribed to them. Individuals and groups are noticing skyrocketing rates of cancer and other new and alarming ailments, which is creating a shift toward concerted investigative efforts for finding the right care for themselves and their families through holistic care. This is an exciting time for practitioners, teachers, herbalists, growers, and anyone in this emerging holistic health care field.

Education is needed more than ever for the many who are exploring their options for alternative medicine. The stigmas attached to holistic care and medicines are disappearing, and quickly! Holistic health businesses, small and large, are learning to keep up with the inbound style of how people are getting their information as well as how they shop for services. Keeping your audience educated will motivate this growing industry to seek you out as the expert for their very precious health care.

Here are 5 ideas and trends to keep up with this 2017 to take your marketing and practice to the next level:

1.Niche companies will find success. There is a rising audience for natural medicine and care so creating your content to educate this rising audience will put your practice at the forefront of your industry. Focusing on marketing the specific specialized care that your practice provides and medicines you have handcrafted will allow you to target and grab that audience that needs your services and products. Customizing your messaging for specialized platforms will give your business high receptivity and retain loyal customers and audiences. No more spending your money on targeting everyone and anyone. Focus more on narrowing your approach to the specific clients that want and need your help. Focus on marketing your content for community building, experiences, and lifestyle over the old product-specific messaging.

2.Building your Targeted Content. Having educational content is key this year and will be in the years ahead. Increased education on the myths of cannabis and the intake of natural foods and herbs is much needed. Not only should more professionals be creating their specialized content, it is so important to distribute this content to the correct groups and people who will also share it profusely. The fact is you hold data that begs to be shared. Educate your audience on the story that your data tells, inform them with it on an educational blog, write newsletters to stay connected to your audience and keep your clients up to date on new insights and innovations. The success stories you hear every week in your office is content enough, so why not create amazing content with these success stories. Whether through validated statistics or testimonials, these stories need to be told. Testimonials, eBooks, and data-centric content are just some of the ways people are gathering their information, so share your educational content on twitter, create blogs, video blogs, share it on social media. You want to create content that provides so much value to your audience that they always turn to you first for their health questions and research. Your audience is begging for alternatives to the status quo treatments they have been receiving from traditional medicine.

3.Video Marketing is increasingly on the rise. People are spending more time watching videos on their mobile devices on every social media platform. Between shorter attention spans and busy schedules, videos are a major way people are getting content. If you are not creating video content you are losing out on a huge audience.

You can use video to educate your peers, students, or other professionals for your next conference. Use videos to educate your patients on research, news, your new products, as well as experiences and successes of some of your patients who have consented to tell their story. Record all of your talks and share it on social media and your website.

4.The Future of Mobile. Traffic coming from mobile devices is continuously higher than desktops, which means that you should cater your content accordingly. People are on the go, so catering your content to the mobile user lifestyle will ensure you reach a wider audience. These numbers are continuing to rise and show no signs of decreasing anytime soon. So make sure you are tailoring your content to mobile users searching for their holistic health questions.

5.Personalization. Concentrating on personalizing your content to specific audiences will keep you on the field running with your competition. Start segmenting your audience by demographics, health care concerns, and advice, while still respecting HIPPA compliance. Separating content by age, gender, ailments, and tailoring content accordingly will create successful leads and clients. Come up with a website sign up page where you can send segmented newsletters of specialized content tailored to specific groups.

There are many successful ways to leverage your unique content and data to keep up with the growing trends in 2017. Holistic Health Care is on the rise, so being a part of delivering health literacy to the American population will set you apart and also contribute to a higher calling of much-needed education.

Have questions about what you can do?

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Apr

2017

Ecotourism: Marketing to the Environmental Traveler

Vacations have long been known as a time for retreat and relaxation. Today, many environmental concerns are encouraging people to immerse themselves into new settings to make a big difference in the world with their traveling dollars via sustainable travel, ecotourism.

Ecotourism: Environmentally responsible travel to natural areas, to enjoy and appreciate the physical and accompanying cultural features (both past and present) that promote conservation, have a low visitor footprint and provide socio-economic benefits to local people. (IUCN)

Whether you are thinking of offering ecotourism services or growing your already established travel company, we have some tips to help you boost your marketing efforts to promote your ecotourism company.

Burgeoning Ecotourism Market

Rules of ecotourism engagement:

Set by the International Ecotourism Society

Minimize the impact of visiting the location (i.e., the use of roads)
Build respect and awareness for the environment and cultural practices
Ensure that tourism provides positive experiences for both the visitors and the hosts
Provide direct financial aid for conservation
Provide jobs, financial assistance, empowerment and other benefits for local peoples
Raise the traveler’s awareness of the host country’s political, environmental and social climate

Learn from the Leaders

Although there are numerous ways to market your travel business successfully, what are people in ecotourism doing? Let’s take lessons from a remarkable ecotourism marketing leader: Journey Beyond Travel (JBT). The JBT team focuses on creating connections and providing content for the consumer at all stages of their ecotourism vacation buying journey.

The JBT team is comprised of former Peace Corps Volunteers and Staff that are eager to educate and transform the lives of people traveling to Morocco. They provide meaningful content through their blogs, eBooks, videos, online events, and social media. Their site serves as a platform for community building through a forum aimed at connecting “alumni travelers.” But it doesn’t stop there. A portion of the proceeds from each trip goes towards supporting foundations that benefit local Moroccans, including a Fair Trade Program in Morocco, High Atlas Foundation, Education for All, and the Village of Khemlia. This creates life-long connections and benefits far beyond the actual trip.

4 Major Things Niche Travel Agencies are Doing to Become Established Ecotourism Leaders

1.Starting the Conversation

Travel blogs have increasingly played a significant role in where people have decided to travel. Travel bloggers discuss their trips, experience, advice, and open the door to new ideas and adventures for their followers. People seek travel blogs to get a better grasp of what to expect on their vacations. The JBT team does a great job at this! Their blogs are comprised of content that supports a Moroccan trip including things to see, things to eat, things to know and why you should visit. With your knowledge and experience, you could be setting the bar high and developing the trust of your customers before you even meet them by hiring a team of bloggers dedicated to starting the conversation around the trips that your travel agency offers.

2. Sharing Their Ideas on Pinterest

Pinterest is another key platform for reaching prospective eco-travelers. People use Pinterest to map out vacation ideas and learn what to expect. The JBT team is active on Pinterest with 25 boards. Their Pinterest page drives vacation searches for anyone considering a trip to Morocco. Pinterest helps JBT to leverage education with and market their visual message. Join the conversation. Or better yet, start your own discussion, harness your existing ideas, and share why your eco-travel services are such a value to people considering an enlightened vacation.

3. Building a Community Based on a Love for Ecotourism

Community building is an excellent marketing tool for most businesses, especially when it comes to travel, and exponentially so with eco-travel. We can learn from the JBT team about the power of establishing and nurturing a community platform for future travelers, current travelers, and former travelers. By creating a travel forum, the JBT team inspires a feeling of unity, establishes trust, and allows for an opportunity to maintain a connection and offer future travel packages. Building a forum will give your audience a platform where they can share, suggest, advise each other while also giving you an opportunity to listen to your previous travelers and make future marketing decisions based on the information you gather. The people on your forum are your biggest promoters, they’ve booked, they’ve enjoyed, and now they are sharing amazing memories, videos, and pictures.

4. Creating a Unique Content Strategy

You already know what makes your company great, but does your audience? Like JBT, develop a content strategy that sets you, your travel destination, and your team apart! What is your team’s background? Why are you so passionate about eco-tourism? Did you stumble upon an “ah-ha!” moment of your own? JBT creates e-books, articles, videos, brochures, newsletters and so much more. They know they’re amazing at their specialty and are utilizing multiple channels to make sure their audience has access to them.

Need Help?

We’re a team of environmental professionals and educators who believe in a sustainable future for traveling. Just like you, we understand the power of effective marketing. We offer educational content marketing and specialize in environmental education. For more information on creating an effective marketing strategy for your unique company, contact us below!

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Mar

2017

5 Marketing Techniques To Grow Your Law Firm

5 Steps To Grow Your Law Firm By Leveraging Your Unique Content

What Niche Marketing Means for Law Firms. Before spending thousands and thousands of dollars on Ads and SEO, consider focusing on your niche first. I know, I know, you see the word marketing and you think dollars signs and lots of them, but this does not have to be the case. My goal is to give you 5 wonderful ideas you can start today, to get yourself and your practice noticed beyond standard ads. Focusing on your niche, brand, and content can be a very inspiring and creative process for yourself and the amazing people you serve. This is how you become a known and trusted attorney in your field of law.

Niche Marketing. Setting your sights on specific types of clients sets you apart from your competition. The days of attorneys handling many areas of law are quickly fading. In order to thrive in this saturated field, you want to focus all your efforts on a targeted area of practice. You want the right followers, readers, clients, and quality referrals. Executing a niche marketing plan will allow you to attract the best-suited audience every time.

Why Niche Marketing is Different. Your audience has already searched for general information on their issues or concerns, so there is no need to provide general content. Having a niche gives clarity in exactly what you do, so it saves the clients time in figuring out if you are even able to take on their type of case. It saves you time from getting those referrals that you send to the other attorneys in your contacts. Thanks to Google, by the time they have contacted you, they already know what you do. They found you because you provided the right content they needed. They read your blog and watched your short video, and that was enough to convince them that they want to work with you.

Here are 5 Key Ways to Showcase your Practice:

1. Brand yourself as an Expert. Now that you have developed your niche, the ‘coming of age’ so to speak of developing your brand has arrived. Work with your content strategist to develop your fonts, colors, and a logo that represents your focus, and always be sure to maintain a consistent voice and tone. Brand yourself as an expert and industry leader through your content. The resources that you produce and share will be useful and answer the questions that your audience is researching.

There are not many attorneys with a slogan, so this is all the more reason to have one. Slogans are creative, fun, and designed to make you memorable. This may seem trivial but slogans are inspiring and stand out, so why not add this to your brand?

2. Niche Content. Creating your content around your niche means everything when marketing your firm, as content is a crucial ingredient for attracting new clients. Creating effective, highly targeted content will always attract the right leads, clients, and referrals.

Content is the most important marketing factor for the successful and stable growth of your law firm. The content you create and share is how people educate themselves before deciding to contact you to be their attorney. Creating resources, data, and education such as videos, infographics, white papers, articles, and blogs consistently is the way to engage your audience and support your audience’s research process. Blogs are an excellent way to brand yourself as an industry expert while informing your potential clients.

Have fun creating that amazing content focused on your niche. You have so much to give, so put it out there to drive the right audience to your website. Don’t underestimate Newsletters, it is a nice way to stay in touch with past clients, current clients, and gives readers the option to stay informed about news in your field of law and the amazing work you are doing within it. It also helps generate more leads and referrals as useful and informative newsletters are shared and forwarded often.

3. Leverage Your Website. Your website should not be a stagnant place. Having a website site that isn’t constantly updated with useful material, is like purchasing investment property but having no renters. Creating a specialized and well-organized website will drive traffic and increase your overall web ranking. Strategically placing clear, useful and helpful content that is niche focused will create more conversions on your website. Remember this is the first impression for people looking for services, so make it memorable! Here are some tips:

Landing Pages with targeted keywords attracts the right clients. Landing pages are also an excellent way to measure what content is working.

Create a virtual space for your audience to seek refuge. Come up with a list of therapists and support groups to help your clients get through those difficult situations.

Create a Data Dashboard! Create a dashboard on your website that informs your audience of live updates about interesting and relevant data like this data dashboarded created by Al Jazeera. This keeps your website interactive, unique, constantly updated with important and live information and proves your dedication.

4. Where to market your niche content? In a niche place! Where you deliver your content needs to be niche focused to attract the right audience. Carefully build trust with your readership and clients with your specialized content.

Choose carefully:

What channels are you showcasing your content on?

Who are you distributing your content to?

Who are you sharing your content with, and in what groups?

Could you be offering legal analysis to local reporters to become an authority on a specific topic?

What are some choice platforms you could lend your expert voice to?

5. Go Full Circle. Philanthropic work is great marketing. Pro-bono work is great PR. You can show visible case history and position yourself as a leader in your field of law.

Join the boards and associations that your clients are a part of. Ask your clients what groups and organizations they belong to. Get on the board of these groups; volunteer with offering your specialized skill set. Pick one organization or group and spend some time being helpful.

There are so many exciting ways to start or add to your marketing ventures. Start small if your budget is small. Ask me for advice. Follow our blogs, our posts, and sign up for our newsletter. I want to see you succeed and make this world a more wonderful place.

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Grow Your Audience! Grow Your Practice! Your practice is amazing and is making the world a better place. Why not spread your need for justice to the right people who need your help and support?

Feb

2017

5 Proven Strategies for Growing Your Eco-Friendly Business with Education-Based Marketing

The field of marketing has evolved significantly in recent years, and one of the most effective strategies is education-based marketing. Also known as inbound marketing, this approach focuses on attracting customers to your business rather than trying to reach as many people as possible with one-way communication.

Be the educator

Before inbound marketing became mainstream; the goal was to cast a wide net, getting a message in front of as many people as possible to finally turn them into customers. Now is the time to put yourself in your consumers’ shoes. Do you enjoy commercials? Do you love telemarketing calls? These practices are called “outbound marketing.” Sometimes these methods are necessary; often, they can cause overload; we want to meet customers where they’re at by delivering the content they want. We have officially moved into the day of practical education in the form of helpful content.

Taking the role of educator to engage and empower your audiences is far more beneficial to society than just converting. Get excited; this method of marketing is not only empowering for your audience but also elevates your business and your brand.

Use an Inbound Marketing Strategy

Adopting an inbound marketing strategy can be a highly effective and cost-efficient way to reach and engage with your audience. Instead of interrupting people with outbound marketing techniques like commercials and telemarketing calls, inbound marketing draws customers to your business by providing valuable information about your industry and sharing relevant experiences. This approach is preferred by many modern B2B and B2C customers. It can help your company stand out among competitors by offering a range of resources and options that benefit those seeking your services. Say goodbye to traditional marketing methods and hello to infographics, educational videos, and other engaging content that helps you attract and retain customers.

Attracting your customers to your business instead of trying to reach massive amounts of people with a one-way conversation is the preferred way to approach your potential customer base in a more effective, impactful way. Say bye to commercials and hello to infographics & educational videos. Providing your target audience with a range of resources and options will allow your company to shine amongst competitors and benefit those needing your services to improve their lives and communities.

Lead your customers to educated decisions

In today’s digital age, consumers have access to a vast array of options and information. To stand out in a crowded market, it’s essential to establish trust and provide value to your customers. This can be achieved through educational marketing, which helps lead your customers to make informed decisions that benefit their health, community, or environment. By sharing your expertise and providing valuable knowledge, you can differentiate your business and build a loyal customer base. Use educational marketing as an opportunity to enrich people’s lives and improve the world around us.

What consumers yearn for is knowledge, education, and wisdom. So, be the leader that delivers your specialty knowledge to them. Educational marketing is an opportunity to lead your consumers to make educated decisions, whether it’s for their health, community, or the environment. Realize how you can incorporate these ideas to enlighten people and improve lives.

How much to share? Using the 80/20 Rule

When it comes to sharing information with your audience, it’s important to follow the 80/20 rule. This means focusing on what your audience wants to know and delivering value to them rather than constantly promoting your products or services. For example, instead of discussing how you built your first product with a small budget, focus on how your product meets your customers’ needs and addresses their specific concerns or interests.

To effectively deliver value to your audience, provide them with useful and relevant content about your industry. This might include addressing common misconceptions, highlighting important issues, or simplifying technical information for beginners. By becoming a trusted source of valuable information, you’ll encourage your audience to continue seeking you out and, eventually, consider your products or services.

Of course, you want to generate publicity for your company, but balancing that with a focus on delivering value is essential. Use your content to encourage your audience to visit your site, attend an event, download an e-book, or schedule a consultation. By continuing to add value to their lives, you’ll build trust and create a deeper, more meaningful connection with your audience.

Be consistent with content

Implementing an effective educational marketing strategy requires dedication and consistency. At A.R. Marketing House, we specialize in creating compelling content for environmental companies that helps to expand their reach and drive business growth. We understand the power of education and are committed to providing valuable information to our clients and their audiences.

If you’re ready to see your company thrive through inbound marketing, we’re here to help. Our team of experts can research, create, and share content that engages and empowers your audience. Contact us to learn more about how we can support your success, or check out our other resources for additional insights and inspiration. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”