Spring Tune-Up – Web Development Workshop Series III

Get ready now for the busy season ahead with a basic understanding of the crucial aspects of digital marketing and web development, including UX/UI design, content writing for the web, and SEO strategies applied specifically to the tourism industry. This will be an engaging series where participants will be asked thought-provoking questions.

There are 3 sessions as part of this workshop series. Participants should register for each event they are available to attend.

Web Development Workshop Series III: SEO Strategies for Tourism Websites

Why is SEO critical for your tourism website? What does Local SEO mean, and are you using Google My Business effectively? These and more SEO tools will be explored to help boost your SEO.

Spring Tune-Up – Web Development Workshop Series II

Get ready now for the busy season ahead with a basic understanding of the crucial aspects of digital marketing and web development, including UX/UI design, content writing for the web, and SEO strategies applied specifically to the tourism industry. This will be an engaging series where participants will be asked thought-provoking questions.

There are 3 sessions as part of this workshop series. Participants should register for each event they are available to attend.

Web Development Workshop Series II: Get To The Point – Craft Web Content That Shines

Say more with less. Learn the basics of writing clear, effective web content by understanding how to convey your writing compellingly. Learn tips on how to write for Online Travel Agents (OTA) and review best practices for OTA listings that convert. How to complement your text with visual elements.

Spring Tune-Up – Web Development Workshop Series I

Get ready now for the busy season ahead with a basic understanding of the crucial aspects of digital marketing and web development, including UX/UI design, content writing for the web, and SEO strategies applied specifically to the tourism industry. This will be an engaging series where participants will be asked thought-provoking questions.

There are 3 sessions as part of this workshop series. Participants should register for each event they are available to attend.

Web Development Workshop Series I: What Makes a Nice-Looking Website

This serves as an overview of website design, highlighting essential elements of an aesthetically pleasing website. Grasp effective strategies for audience-oriented design to craft a user-centric website. Learn visual hierarchy and layout techniques to streamline information organization for user convenience.

Chatbot Launchpad

Your Website’s New Best Friend

Overwhelmed by the thought of integrating chatbots into your business? Our workshop, designed for small business owners, simplifies the process into a clear, engaging journey. In just three hours, we’ll guide you through crafting a chatbot tailored to your business needs and customer engagement goals, no tech background needed. Transform your approach to customer service with us.

Chatbots 2.0

Navigating the New Wave of Intelligent Conversations in Small Business Success

Discover the modern approach to helping your small business with Chatbots. Engage in an enlightening session where you can reassess their impact and see firsthand how advanced technology is revolutionizing their future. Chatbots have significantly transformed how small businesses engage with customers, offering a blend of efficiency, scalability, and personalized customer service. Let go of any past frustrations and uncover the transformative potential of Chatbots. It’s a moment to change your perspective and embrace the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

Digital Days

Digital Days are one-day events hosted by Digital Nova Scotia in collaboration with Tourism Nova Scotia. Join us for a day of interactive learning and networking with digital service providers and tourism businesses. You will have the opportunity to explore the latest digital concepts, including social media, demystifying AI, and content creation.

If you are interested in attending the event, please complete the Expression of Interest form, and we will notify you as soon as your seat has been secured. There are limited seats, so please complete this as soon as possible. There is no cost to participate and lunch will be provided.

CHATGPT 101

Getting Started with ChatGPT 3.5

Discover the transformative power of ChatGPT for your business! In this 1-hour webinar, delve into the basics of ChatGPT and explore its potential as a game-changer for small enterprises in Atlantic Canada. Learn how this AI tool can automate customer interactions, streamline operations, and offer unparalleled insights. Whether you are tech-savvy or just starting, this session will equip you with the knowledge to integrate ChatGPT seamlessly. Boost efficiency and scale smarter with AI.

Influencer marketing on a budget

How to collaborate with influencers to grow your business/organization

Working with influencers can be wildly expensive, but there are more organic ways of getting influencers to talk about your business or organization without spending loads of money. Ingrid Deon from word-craft will walk you through the process of working with influencers on a budget.

This is a three-session workshop series across three weeks:

Session 1 – January 11th, 10:00am -11:00am
Creating an influencer strategy
Learn how to identify the right kinds of influencers for your business or organization and make a list of who you’d like to target.

Session 2 – January 18th, 10:00am -11:00am
Engaging with influencers to create warm leads
Learn how to engage with influencers consistently and authentically so they become familiar with your business or organization.

Session 3 – January 25th, 10:00am -11:00am
Collaborating with influencers
Learn how to reach out to influencers and offer them a freebie in exchange for social media content.

User-generated content: Turning customers into advocates

How to get your followers to post about your business

It is one thing to create social media content for your business or organization, but what if you could get your fans and followers to create content for you? Ingrid Deon from word-craft will show you how to inspire your customers to create user-generated content and what to do with it.

Empowering Tourism Businesses: AI for Daily Operations

Leveraging AI in day-to-day operations and enhancing technology learning in tourism businesses.

Join us for an enlightening journey into the realm of tourism strategy, enhanced by the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This webinar will be your opportunity to explore AI-driven data strategies that redefine operational efficiency and customer engagement in the tourism industry.

We will explore the dynamic role of AI in tourism, guiding you through practical applications that will enhance your business offerings. By harnessing the potential of tools like ChatGPT, you will not only boost your operational efficiency but also align your service with the emotional and experiential expectations of your clientele.

Aligning Vision and Values throughout the Customer Journey

Helping the customer see themselves, living the vision they imagined, in the experience you offer. 

This webinar looks at how to capture the customer at the ideation stage of their vacation. Before the planning and booking phase commences, the visitor has already envisioned what their travel experience might be like. There is an emotional response already in formation. If your product or service aligns with that vision, at the ideation stage, and then follows through to the delivery of the experience, then you reap the benefit of a satisfied customer and new ambassador for your business.

Presenting yourself authentically, with strong visual messaging that will engage the customer, is key. The way you describe your business must be aligned with the customer’s vision and values. The picture the customer has created in their mind must align with the picture you are presenting. When your message reinforces the dream or picture the customer has created and they can see themselves immersed in your experience then the synergy begins.

The webinar will explore customer behaviour, emotions and the customer journey and alignment between the customers vision (or expectations) and the experience they are purchasing.

Build your business’ digital marketing strategy with the “Digital Marketing Tree”

Learn how to market your business online step-by-step using the roadmap of the Digital Marketing Tree

The Internet Marketing Tree is a metaphor for the core components of online marketing and how they all fit together to create value in promoting your business online. Identify the “Roots”, “Trunk” & “Branches” of your business to build a coherent and comprehensive Digital Marketing Strategy.

It is a 3-session workshop series, scheduled for three consecutive Thursdays in October.

Session 1 (October 12, 10:00 – 11:00am) – Your Mighty Oak – The “Roots” and “Trunk” of your business
Delve into what your core business is, who your clients are and prepare to create your website. The elements to be covered are: Research, Strategy, Branding and Content, all with a view to creating an efficient and effective website tailored to your customers’ needs.

Session 2 (October 19, 10:00 – 11:00am) – The “Branches” of your business: Search Engine Marketing
Just as a tree’s branches reach out to the sun, so your “branches” must reach out to your clients. In this session we will review what every business needs to have set up to measure its impact online as well as the most effective Branches for your business for Search Engine Marketing, including Search Engine Optimization and Pay per Click.

Session 3 (October 26, 10:00 – 11:00am) – The “Branches” of your business: Engagement: Social Media Marketing, Public Relations, Directories and Email Marketing
A tree’s strength comes from its interaction with the sun, the soil and the air. Your business needs to create the same level of engagement with your clients and this session focusses on the interaction with your clients and how to engage with them to make them lifelong ambassadors of your business.

Better Marketing Content With Audience Research

Discover what your ideal audience actually want to engage with

If you feel like your marketing has been a bit of a grind, or isn’t getting the engagement you’d hope for… Audience Research to the rescue! Join everyone’s favourite hyperactive marketing nerd Alison K as she shows you how to create content and campaigns that your ideal audience will love. No matter the size of your online audience or limitations you have running your business.

TELL YOUR STORY WITH SHORT FORM VIDEO!

This webinar provides a comprehensive journey into creating compelling short-form videos tailored specifically for social platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Here’s what you can expect:

• Filming Short Form Video on Your Phone: Discover the art of capturing attention-grabbing footage using the device in your pocket.
• Creating Ideas and Planning Your Video: Learn effective techniques for brainstorming, conceptualizing, and outlining your video concepts.
• Choosing Music: Understand the role of music in enhancing the mood and impact of your videos and learn how to select the perfect soundtrack.
• Editing Your Videos: Gain practical skills in editing, refining, and polishing your videos to create a seamless and engaging final product.
• Building Audience Engagement: Explore strategies to connect with your audience, foster interactions, and build a dedicated following.
• Video Content Distribution: Master the art of effectively sharing your videos across various platforms to maximize reach and engagement.

How to use Google Ads to promote your Tourism Business

This webinar will give you an overview of how to prepare to launch your first Google Ads Campaign.  It includes:

• Pre-campaign checklist to ensure you are prepared to create a focused campaign.
• How to set up your campaign using Search and Display ads.
• How to monitor and review your ads.

Email Marketing: Best Practices to Grow Your Business

Get ready to take your tourism business on a thrilling ride with our electrifying email marketing workshop! Propel your venture to new heights as we navigate the captivating world of targeted email campaigns designed specifically for the tourism industry.

Transform into a maestro of persuasive copy, eye-catching visuals, and enchanting personalization techniques, all tailored to excite wanderlust in your customers. Venture into the realm of email marketing automation, and craft custom sequences for pre-booking, post-booking, and post-trip experiences.

Spark your creativity, charm your clientele, and create lasting connections with travellers. Don’t miss this opportunity to harness the power of email marketing and skyrocket your tourism business to dazzling new heights!

Where, when and what to post on social media

Not all social media platforms are created equal and you don’t have to post on all of them to be successful. Ingrid Deon from word-craft will help you identify your target audience, figure out which social media platforms your business should use and what to post to keep them engaged.

Reels 101 – Tips for Creating Short Form Videos to Stand Out on Social Media

Social media has evolved. Scrolling Instagram, it’s evident most of the content we see now is video! Effective social media marketing is all about storytelling, and video is such a great tool to tell a story! Trust me you’re going to love it!

We gained access to Instagram Reels back in August 2020… yes, it’s been that long already! Instagram has also publicly confirmed they are prioritizing short-form videos in their algorithms, i.e reel content. Which means it’s definitely time you stopped putting it off! But don’t worry it’s not all dancing, and finger pointing.

Together in this session we’ll explore the basics on how to create reels, simplify the process, and also best practices for maximum reach so you stand a better chance of going viral.

Grow with Google for Destination Marketing

Learn how you can take advantage of Google tools to help better represent your business on Google and grow revenue.

Provide a Seamless User Experience Through Your Website

Building and maintaining a high performance website isn’t just ‘set it and forget it,’ it involves constant monitoring, major and minor tweaks, and a deep understanding of your user’s behaviour, both on and off your website. After this webinar you’ll know how to get started by speaking the language of developers, marketers, and most importantly, your customers.

Using Customer Relationship Management Tools to Boost Customer Retention

In today’s highly competitive tourism industry, businesses must continually adapt and innovate to stay ahead. Customer satisfaction and retention are the key drivers for growth and long-term success. That’s where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems come into play.

Join us for this insightful and interactive webinar, ” Using Customer Relationship Management Tools to Boost Customer Retention,” where we’ll explore the incredible potential of CRM systems for your tourism business. We will guide you through the process of selecting, implementing, and optimizing a CRM strategy tailored to the unique needs of your business.

How to Use Marketing Technologies to Create a Sustainable Tourism Business

Tourism marketing is very competitive, often with a short window of time to engage visitors. Shelley Bellefontaine from Atlantic Online Fairlead Marketing Inc will describe how brand outreach strategies can connect you to visitors in a helpful way, while speaking to the unique value your business provides, before, during and after their visit.

Email Marketing to boost your business

Empower your Business by creating an email marketing strategy that creates a community and builds customer loyalty.

E-commerce Cybersecurity Essential for Small Business

Understand the basics of threats, your business risks and liabilities, and how to prevent you and your business from becoming a victim of these vicious, anonymous attacks.

How to Choose Your Best Online Booking System

Learn how to market your tourism business with automation tricks while tracking your success.

DigiPort SMM – How to Build a Lead Generation System to Get the Attention Your Business Deserves

Led by Shelley Bellefontaine from Atlantic Online, learn all about how to build a lead generation system to get the attention your business deserves!

DigiPort SMM – Creating a Social Media Content Plan & Increasing Engagement

Led by word-craft, learn all about creating a social media content plan and increasing engagement.

Cultivating a Strong Online Brand Presence

In this webinar, Creative Brand Strategist, Meg Craig will discuss the steps it takes to create a strong online brand presence for your tourism business that drives sales and customer retention.

Optimizing Social Media So Your Customers Can Find You

This presentation will focus on ensuring that businesses are maximizing their efforts on social media to enable their ideal clientele to find them. This involves utilizing all features on various platforms, location tagging, and hashtag strategy.

Building Your Audience and Attracting New Customers

Now that you have a website and social media page, you can start to build your audience and attract new customers. In this webinar, we will go over the what, where, why, when, and how to use your new digital platforms. This will include key terminology, tools, and a basic strategy that will help you understand how to build your audience and attract new customers.

Presenters Bio:

Residing just outside his hometown in Chester Basin, Zach Fraser is helping small and medium-sized businesses adopt digital platforms to help them be more effective and efficient. With 10 years of experience developing digital strategies and platforms beginning at Acadia University where he graduated with a BBA and a Major in Marketing. Revolve marketing agency in Halifax was where Zach was able to develop his skills further as a digital specialist. Zach has helped many businesses grow with digital; including a start-up that was able to climb to the top 10 products in the industry within 3 years. Whatever digital dilemma you are having, Zach can help lead you to the solution based on you, your business, and your customers.

Leveraging Social Media to Attract Consistent Leads in 2022

In this webinar, we’ll dive deep into how to generate consistent leads into your business using social media in this new era of digital marketing.  That means no more crossing your fingers and posting 24/7 on social hoping that your organic marketing will gain traction.  We’ll cover how the digital marketing world has changed and what you need to do if you want to speed up your growth (and it’s actually much easier than what you’re doing now).

Share of Search – What Search Data Can Tell you About Your Brand

Marketing experts have found a connection between the search volume of your brand and brand market share. Peter Woodward will be sharing some of these findings and discussing what it means to use this measurement to help monitor and improve your brand.

How to Deal with Negative Feedback on Social Media

Customer complaints on social media happen. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to look at negative comments as an opportunity to convert dissatisfied customers into loyal fans.

Choosing the Right Website Building Platform for Your Business

Building a website doesn’t have to be a daunting or time-consuming task. Website building platforms offer a relatively easy and inexpensive alternative to hiring a web designer. However, there are many platforms available and choosing the best one, or the right one for your business, is not that easy.

This webinar will give you the information to find the best website building platform for your business.

This webinar is offered in partnership between Tourism Nova Scotia and Digital Nova Scotia through DigiPort, a one-stop-shop of interactive services and educational opportunities to help tourism businesses develop digital marketing skills and access professional support to improve their online presence.

Optimize your content creation for bulk scheduling social media

In tourism, the off-season represents an opportunity to work in your business and free up time during the busy months. In this 1-hour webinar, we will be covering: 

– Content you can create ahead of time

– Tools you can use to bulk schedule content 

– The difference between evergreen content (content that can be created ahead of time, and reused throughout the season) vs. non-evergreen content (posts that should be happening live, in a timely manner, that cannot be reused regularly)

– and finally, content you should be stockpiling during the tourism season to prepare for getting ahead next winter. 

Leveraging Business Automation To Grow Your Business: Start Focusing On What Actually Makes You Money

In this webinar, we will explore the five core elements needed to successfully automate your business and give you back the valuable time you are wasting.  We will show you the systems and processes we use in our business and how they can work for you.

8 Step Traffic Growth Approach

Want to attract guests and customers who are already thinking about your services? Wondering how SEO, social media and newsletters work together to bring leads?

Participants are lead through an 8-step process that turns existing content into website traffic magnets. Complete with tips, tricks and treats to save time and generate content ideas.

Cyber Security Basics for E-commerce:Understand the basics of why and how bad actors typically attack websites and how to prevent your business from becoming a victim of these vicious, anonymous attacks.

What’s worse than having your website, your files, or your customer’s data compromised or hacked? Discovering how easily the loss of trust from your customers and damage to your business’ reputation could’ve been prevented when it’s too late.

Cyber Security is a massive topic which spans most industries, and affects virtually all companies and their data. Small businesses face two unique challenges with cyber security: first, they are most often underprepared for any significant attack or attempt due to their lack of expertise and resources for proper prevention and protection, and second, because of this, they are often the primary target of bad actors, especially when they are tied to larger, higher-profile  industry operators, vendors, suppliers, and customers.

Arbuckle Media has developed a system of procedural controls and steps (policies) for minimizing vulnerability to cyber security breaches and attacks, as well as educating your staff and team on their responsibilities and how they can protect themselves and your business from becoming a victim.

The objective of this webinar is to familiarize yourself with the types of attacks, what to look for, how to know when you’re under attack, and what to do before, during, and after an attack has taken place.

Data Storytelling: How to keep the audience engaged and interested when presenting Analytics

A presentation about the role Data Storytelling plays in communication and presentations. How using a ‘story framework’ will make your thoughts resonate with your audience and invoke change.

Website Dashboard Best Practices: A templated approach to understanding how users interact with your brand online.

A walkthrough of an industry-best-practice digital dashboard covering all of the components that minimize the time it takes to interpret a user’s journey on your website. This story lays the foundation to making informed decisions about your digital presence.

Essential Branding for Entrepreneurs

Every company, large or small, has the same challenge- communication. Companies need to communicate with their potential customers, peers and partners. Branding is visual communication. Most people underestimate the amount of time/effort/$ that it takes to get a brand off the ground. I’ll walk you through what key decisions you need to make- and stick with- when you start your company so you can take advantage of any brand opportunity that comes your way

Canva Level 2

• Branding basics presentation
• Basic Graphic Design Concepts explanation
  • Level 2 (Symmetry, Balance & Space)  
• Hands on step-by-step Canva Exercise
  • Level 2 does not use a template
• Live work time + Q&A time with Amy
• Ideally 10 students or less- should take Level 1 first

**In order for participants to fully benefit from the instructional style of this workshop, attendance will be at a limited capacity. Registration will be on a first come, first served basis, and when capacity has been reached, registration will be closed. Successful registrants will receive a confirmation email from Zoom with the event link.**

Canva Level 1

• Branding basics presentation
• Basic Graphic Design Concepts explanation
  • Level 1 (Readability, Hierarchy & Consistency)
• Hands on step-by-step Canva Exercise
  • Level 1 uses a template
• Live work time + Q&A time with Amy
• Ideally 10 students or less

**In order for participants to fully benefit from the instructional style of this workshop, attendance will be at a limited capacity. Registration will be on a first come, first served basis, and when capacity has been reached, registration will be closed. Successful registrants will receive a confirmation email from Zoom with the event link.**

3 Short Form Videos You Should Make for Your Business: How to have fun on video without dancing

Participants learn how to make short form videos for their business in a variety of tools: Instagram Reels, TikTok and Canva Pro. We will also discuss how to repurpose these videos across other social media platforms to gain the most reach.

Thinking Outside the Webinar: Using short form video to build your brand and entertain your audience

Participants will leave the session with an understanding of how short form video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) can help build their personal and business brand. We will bust the myth that short form video is for teens who dance and prove it can be used for professional business purposes.