Customer contact

Social Media allows customers to interact a lot more closely, interacting with customers can only bring a positive impact, there’s nothing worse than a company that ignores customer interactions it makes them look false and rude – in ‘real life’ you wouldn’t walk into a shop and expect to be ignored after saying hello to the shop assistant, the same analogy applies to ignoring social engagement.

It’s important for brands, especially consumer driven firms such as travel agencies to address customer interactions, even if they are negative to show that they value customer feedback. Those that show your values through social media and nurture those relationships through a customer centric approach are the winning companies online.

Social Media and user-generated content are an essential part of marketing to the modern affluent travellers. By leveraging the millions of authentic travel photos and stories that people post online everyday, luxury travel brands can create engaging digital experiences that move travellers along the path to purchase.

Unlike low price driven online platforms, high-end hotels and travel agents don’t want to reach everyone on Facebook and Twitter. That would be a waste of time, given that not everyone can afford your services (we talk a lot about buyer personas and the importance of refining your core audiences in other blogs). Utilising the likes of social analytics can help brands understand their customers better and provide valuable insights that drive stronger content strategies in the future.

Buyer personas

Buyer personas, or audience segments provide a deeper understanding of the target audience. Professions, ages and what they like/dislike are absolutely critical to successful online marketing. With the opportunity some hotel groups are now using, such as rewarding guests who have checked in via Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare with exquisite bonus services like complimentary spa treatments or a welcome bottle – these additional tactics drive the personal experience for the customer and help them to remember their experience with you, and in turn drive sales in the future. Another way to drive your audience interaction and engagement is encouraging holiday-makers to share their holiday photos via creative services and facilities.

Key takeaways

• Know your consumers, create a buyer profile (if you are struggling with this, we can help!)
• Keep it exclusive and relevant; tailor your content to a great customer experience
• Gain deeper insights into your consumers, and refine your activities based on THEIR needs and desires, not what you want to show…travel brands should then focus on creating tailor made, personalised content online.

Are you a luxury travel brand that is looking to excel your social experience for your audiences and drive sales? Contact us for more information and don’t forget to follow our page @brighterdirections on Facebook or LinkedIn for more insights.

The post How social media can drive luxury travel appeared first on Brighter Directions.

This term has been used to describe the media trend which has seen content creators such as writers, YouTube influencers and TikTok stars build their own successful businesses independently without the help of media companies.

The Content Economy has given creators the chance to monetise their following and looks set to revolutionise the way content engages with audiences over the next decade.

Reflecting on the last year, two technological forces have made it much easier for content creators to build their own independent businesses: monetisation platforms and no-code tools.

Subscriptions have proved to be more effective than traditional ad revenue with platforms such as Substack, Patreon and Revue making it simple for people to subscribe directly to a creator’s work. Alternative platforms such as Teachable and LinkedIn Learning also allow creators to make paid courses for potential consumers to sign up to.

The rise of no-code tools has allowed content creators to break away from media companies which would typically design and develop professional content. Platform apps allow people to create their own websites, produce high quality graphics and edit videos in a way which were not possible in the past. These include Squarespace (website design app), Canva (visual design app) and TikTok.

As the content industry changes, here’s how businesses can adapt to build a larger, and more engaged audience:

Know your audience

As a marketing leader you need to know your audience inside out by making sure you understand what your audience wants from you.

Platforms such as Substack can help you in this aspect as it allows creators to focus on a smaller niche audience of people that are interested in specific work rather than a broader audience which a media company would cater for. These people are willing to pay for that work as the creators know exactly what interests them.

Embrace internal influencer talent

Credibility and affinity mostly come from individual influencers rather than traditional media brands if they consider creating thoughtful content that engages and identifies with the people they are targeting.

Your own internal influencers don’t need to be full-time and can be freelancers who write regularly for your brand. Creating efficient bylines for blogs and earning the trust of your audience. Having an excellent freelance writer is more likely to stay producing content for your brand than the average employee would typically do.

Allowing creative freedom

The tools that are available for people to use means that we can create content at a faster rate than ever before. Allowing your own team to implement their own ideas can prove beneficial to both your brand and themselves.

Make sure there is a strategy and guidelines to follow but allow creativity to come from your individual team members rather than collectively brainstorming for ideas.

If you are looking to develop your content marketing strategy in 2022, we would love the opportunity to support your business, please do reach out to us here at Brighter Directions!

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Employee appreciation has been around forever in reality, (as some of us older ones will recall), we grew up in an environment of work where we compliment those who have done well, recognise hard-work with a social pint after work, and local businesses give out bonuses for company growth – but has this methodology changed over the years?

Global brand Apple recently announced the biggest trend of 2018 was self-care, and this trend is expected to follow into 2019. Self-care is now seen as an essential part of life and not just a luxury; studies also show the link between mental wellbeing and job performance. This is this is why corporate wellness is such a fast-growing industry with HR and wellness professionals have put together strategies to keep employees happy and healthy.

But are they a minority nowadays, and something that only corporates and larger brands are committed to? We think not…and nor should it be.

To us, who proudly boast our ‘family ethos, ‘caring nature’ and ‘team at the heart of everything we do’, these terms aren’t simply marketing gimmicks and words on a website – they are the values in which we operate.

Well-being of a team isn’t as simple as it was back in the day. Additional thought should be put into new challenges affecting our population, such as financial constraints on a difficult economy, family frustrations as work is both harder to come by, and more necessary, and burnout and stress have become much more apparent in the world of work, at least since I started my career. I’m not saying there weren’t stressful situations when I was c-suite management, because of cause there was, however, I notice that my team also carry ownership and a much stronger investment in how we do business, nurture clients and do the best job that they and we can, and that in turn is obviously going to impact stress levels.

It’s important to let staff take time out to relax and recharge.

Personally, I couldn’t run a  business where I didn’t care about my team, and their well-being, both personally and at work.

There are several ways to do this, depending on your business model, and the people you have within your team. There isn’t a right way to be conscious or implement well-being structures in an organisation, it can be as simple as celebrating pancake day and cooking/ sitting together eating and catching up, NOT about work (as we most certainly will be next week!), through to profit bonus and creating better work environments and cultures, which undoubtedly, all contribute towards a nicer place to work.

Today is a great day to assess your current culture, and how you support your team on the whole. This day shouldn’t just be a day to celebrate; it should be an ongoing methodology of progress to do better.

Lastly, thank you to all my amazing team who every-day does such a tremendous job supporting our clients, and each other – you are awesome!

Claire Curzon – MD, Brighter Directions

The post Employee Appreciation Day – Is caring about staff a backwards business model? appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Our men may be small in numbers, but they make up for it in skill, talent, and daily enthusiasm – let’s be honest, the boys have a hard time (boo for them), working with us crazy ladies day in and day out, but they take it with elegance and in all honesty, we think they wouldn’t have it any other way!

When our men are not dealing with the daily trauma of working with us, they are absolutely dedicated within their own roles, sitting across PR & Media comms, Content and Website digital management, the boys support a range of our clients, delivering effective ongoing retainer solutions and project campaigns.

Say hello to our amazing male team members, Ryan, Mark & Dan who let’s face it, deserve a little credit…

The post Celebrating our men (for a change) appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Meet Angie…

Angie first started working with Brighter Directions on a freelance/ contracted role back in 2013 where she provided creative expertise to a range of our clients, and our love for her has grown from there – we simply will not let her away from our little claws now!

Angie is a true creative Queen, she is not only graphic and creatively design experienced and trained, but she’s also a fabulous qualified and experience illustration, fine art and is also a painter and photographer too – a very rare quality in design she bridges the gap between modern creatives and traditional standards!

Her role;

Angie runs the creative division for Brighter Directions, she not only manages hundreds of our client creative and visual brand campaigns, but also supervises and mentors our newest designer Diana, who loves working with Angie under her creative leadership and skill.

About Angie;

Angie is a very sweet, nurturing and genuine person with a ‘wicked’ sense of humor and a laugh that makes the office stop dead. She is always the first to offer out hugs when needed and often makes us laugh with her little giggles from the creative corner of the office!

Outside of work, she now resides between our offices in Chesterfield and Scotland… (you read right, she moved for love!), in her beautiful country home with Stephen and her kitties who often plaque her life with fun (ruined carpets) and laughter.

Some things you may not know…

Angie is a genuine and incredibly creative person who often surprises us all with how she takes our scraps of drawings and notes and turns them into branded perfection!

As well as keeping busy with work, Angie is also incredibly passionate about charity, Cancer Research who she works with all over the country with her partner to create fundraising inclusive events such as Halloween walks, fun-runs and more. (She’s also amazing at baking cakes!)

In her spare time she is often found out enjoying the countryside or with a hot cup of chocolate (or coffee, crikey this girl loves her coffee!) in front of a warm fire…. bliss!

You can read more about Angie on our MEET THE TEAM PAGE – as well as learning about our other incredible team.

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Meet Sahara…

Sahara is one of our most established employees, having joined the company back in 2008 on a Marketing Apprenticeship program – little did we know then that this would be the start of her amazing career with Brighter Directions, she has blossomed into an integral part of our team, leading by example on some of the largest marketing campaigns globally, she now holds a ‘Marketing Manager’ position and manages the digital and social teams directly, as well as providing overall support to the PR & Marketing teams.

Her role;

Sahara directly manages our digital and social media manager teams, consisting of six highly trained and experienced ladies (Natasha, Danielle, Lisa, Melanie, Alicia and Mel), which includes all the strategic management and leadership of all client accounts across our organisation, managing the team directly through motivational management and inspirational team meetings – this is in addition to her day-to-day activities running of her own larger social media accounts across a range of sectors from B2C care through to professional sales alignment and B2B technical campaigns.

Sahara has definitely ‘paid her dues’ in terms of her role, she started with the company and has worked from the ground up, developing and honing her skills, experience and outside of personal social networks has an exceptional understanding of commercial social media she now uses to pass onto client accounts and developing her own teams skills through CPD.

About Sahara;

Sahara is one of the most sociable and hard-working people anyone could ever meet! She is an incredible asset to our company and that of our growing client base, she treats every single one of her clients strategies like it was her own money – and that makes her pretty special.

In the office she is always one of the loudest and honest of our little family, she is the first to encourage people to do their best and expects nothing less in all situations because ‘if she can, why cant you’ is her ethic.

Outside of work, she is a very proud mummy to three loving doggies, Poppy, Bear and Lady as well as an array of other ‘animals’ she loves and cherishes, including a tortoise (who was a boy and now lives as a girl… long story!) and various house spiders and rescued pets like birds and hedgehogs – she welcomes them all in. A ongoing joke in the office is that she actually loves animals more than people and would happily live on a farm in the middle of nowhere with her herd of animals following her around all day!

Some things you may not know…

Sahara is passionate about charity, one particular one that holds her heart dear, #IBDSuperheroes which she founded in 2015 with a group of other volunteers across the country and has been awarded the ‘Pride of Britain’ award in 2016 for raising over £1m pound for Crohns and Colitis charity. She suffers from IBD (Colitis) which has seen her undergo several life-threatening surgeries over the years and loves giving back – but you still won’t see her have a day off work sick!

She is also a massive fan of camping and festivals… the old fashioned ‘tent’ way…

You can read more about Sahara on our MEET THE TEAM PAGE – as well as learning about our other incredible team people.

The post ‘Meet the team’ – Say hello to Sahara appeared first on Brighter Directions.