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Hospitality brands are set to leverage voice technology
Bambi Majumdar Travel, Hospitality & Event ManagementA report from last year stated that close to 70 percent of people now use voice search to help research and plan their trips. That number will only rise, and we can expect the trend to grow in 2019 and beyond. For hotels and related businesses, this presents an immense opportunity as voice can open up a whole new era of marketing. Savvy brands have already started investing in voice technology, and we can expect to see innovative customer experiences coming our way soon.
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Surprising strategies to boost consumer happiness
Lisa Mulcahy MarketingAs a marketer, it's your ultimate goal to make every consumer happy with your product once they get it home. But did you know that the specific amount of personal happiness that a consumer feels at the time of potential purchase has a surprising impact not only on whether they buy but how they'll feel about the product down the line? Science has taken a fascinating look at this phenomenon. Use these cutting-edge strategies to build upon their research and ensure that consumer joy has a positive effect on your profit margin.
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The real way social media helps interior design businesses
Catherine Iste Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesMarketing isn't the only thing Pinterest and Instagram can help designers do. The ease of posting amazing images, inspiring design boards and our portfolios makes both sites great tools for sharing more about our work, approach and style. On the flip side, both sites can wreak havoc on our productivity, self-esteem and may not directly help our marketing. There is more to these impactful platforms, and it is time to better understand and take advantage of the real ways social media helps our design businesses.
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IHG to add dynamic pricing to hotel rewards bookings by the end of 2019
Linchi Kwok Travel, Hospitality & Event ManagementThe InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) recently confirmed that it will implement a dynamic pricing model for its rewards programs by the end of this year. This new policy will affect all the brands that IHG owns or manages. In the past, frequent travelers could usually redeem rewards points towards a hotel stay according to the category where a hotel is listed (e.g., more points for a luxury hotel than a midscale hotel). This newly introduced dynamic pricing feature will allow IHG to update the number of points needed to redeem a free room according to changing demand by travelers.
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Stop abbreviating — and 7 other content no-no’s
Mark MacDonald Religious CommunityEffective communication relies on the content more than the channels. But many churches want to talk about their social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) or the CMS system for their website (Wordpress, Joomla, Clover, etc.) rather than what their content should be. Let’s concentrate on the important things! Often, if the content is correct, an audience will endure a subpar channel to discover it. Sure, once you have the content honed for an audience, you should eliminate channel barriers and choose delivery tools that enhance the experience of receiving it. But only after the content is right. To get started on great content, here are eight things to STOP doing; and what you should START.
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Let’s not kid ourselves: The real reason for employee turnover
Roberta Matuson Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementI recently received a call from a CEO who was concerned about the sudden increase in employee turnover in his organization. He couldn't understand why anyone would leave his firm. He then went down a laundry list of perks he recently added. I let him speak and then said, "Tell me something. Is this turnover happening throughout the organization or is there a particular area where you've noticed a spike?" He thought about it and said, "It seems most of the turnover is taking place in Bob's department. There are a few leaders in his operation who can be a bit abrupt at times — maybe even a bit abusive, but they're hitting their numbers." Boom! There you have it.
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5 tips to create blog posts that get shared on social
Emma Fitzpatrick MarketingIf you're already spending the time creating good content on your blog, you want to do everything you can to get more eyes on it. One of the best ways to do that is by creating blog posts that answer the questions you hear most from your customers and leads. Of course, you’ll want to sprinkle a bit of long-tail keyword research in there for good measure! It can be as simple as typing in the phrase you think you want to write about into an incognito browser and seeing what other search terms arise. From there, a few tweaks to how you format your content, write your title or determine your word count could be just what you need to increase the social shares for your blog posts.
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When do you owe too much on your credit cards?
Patrick Gleeson Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementPutting the title of this article another way, how much can you owe on your credit cards before it lowers your quality of life? There's never an absolute number — if you're living on your Social Security, it could be as little as $5,000 on a single high-interest-rate credit card. If you’re Amazon's Jeff Bezos, currently the world's richest person, there is no such number. But for the rest of us, there’s a point of credit card indebtedness that will cause the credit-rating agencies to lower your credit score enough to make your life more difficult.
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5 surprising ways to improve your marketing reputation
Lisa Mulcahy MarketingConsumer trust: it's every company's bread and butter. Yet you may be damaging that profit cornerstone in ways you aren't even aware of, causing unnecessary dips in your bottom line. Subtle mistakes in misreading your audience or larger issues with the way your organization does business can have an unexpected impact on how well you do with the next marketing campaign you launch. Try these surprising strategies to reboot your rep.
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Training is an investment, not a cost
Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementThe race to attract skilled labor is on. Productivity may be slowing but it is still moving in a positive direction, and new unemployment applications are still declining. And according to a recent analysis by The Economist, American manufacturing, particularly among "agile smaller firms using advanced techniques" may be expanding. While this tight labor market may look different than the one before the recession, one thing is consistent: the most challenging staffing shortage is in skilled labor. Because of this, organizations across industries must recognize that training is an investment, not a cost.
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