Rethinking your Hamptons marketing strategy in a pandemic.
If you own a business in the Hamptons, or you’re starting one, here’s our take on the best approach. Go big, online… or go home!
While some businesses opted to save money by cutting media spending, we continue to see those advertising rewarded with results. The audience out here has never been bigger.
More people are out here.
School enrollment and real estate transactions are higher than ever. And no matter where you live, web use is up 35% according to Andrew Dugan, CTO of networking company CenturyLink. How do you reach them?
Gavin Menu, publisher of 27east.com, reports the site’s web traffic skyrocketed 68%, with an increase in new users who never visited the site before about 74%. (Approximately 165,000 new users a month.) The East Hampton Star has also seen a dramatic uptick in new users, with an increase of about a 136% since 2019, and online page views have doubled.
What makes a great banner?
If you’re not a retailer, banners are for branding. So make sure your banner is engaging and relevant to the market – you’ll get noticed and you’ll be remembered. Shameless self-promotion alert: these are some digital banners we recently created for our clients.
Stay Social.
Many of our clients also continue to send email blasts to stay in touch with their customers. And we’ve helped more than a few get written about in local publications. But what about social media? Come on, admit it – you’ve spent more time than you’d ever confess to on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. (Ok maybe not you, but your kids?)
According to Search Engine Journal, people are spending an average of 1 hour and 20 minutes a day on social media – with Instagram leading the way. Cristina Cuomo’s posts about her family’s Covid experience grew her following to over 147,000 followers and her IG programs have been very successful whether she’s promoting organic beauty products and juicers, or offering meditation and yoga. Digitalcommerce360.com claims that 54% of people polled said they’re now shopping on social media and 82% said it’s where they get information about brands and products.
Media isn’t the only way to support your brand and your community. Wolffer Estate Vineyard was title sponsor of Stony Brook Southampton’s at Home Galas, and Duryea’s underwrote Covid testing in Montauk and Greenport (free for Chamber of Commerce Members) to help support and keep businesses open safely.
Bottom line, get out of there. Get on there. And, no, we don’t think print is dead – we’re enjoying all the local newspapers and magazines. But, you’re more likely to find us, and we dare say – your audience – online.
Lynn + Jill