8 Ways Online Listings Can Boost Your MICE Business
You take pride in your venue, and you want the world to see it. As a venue owner or manager, promoting your space is crucial to your business' success. So, where is the best place to list your venue online? With numerous listings and event directories available, how do you know which ones will give your business the exposure it deserves?
The simple answer is to use specialist online venue listings.
Venue directories and listings are your virtual spotlight, beaming your venue into the eyes of thousands of event professionals searching for a space like yours. From increased exposure to targeted online marketing, data insights, and industry links, listings provide various advantages that can significantly benefit your business.
In this blog, we'll share the benefits of using listings and how they can work for your venue. From increased exposure to targeted online marketing, learn how to get the most out of your listings. The stage is set – let's dive in!
Why Use An Online Listing Platform?
For venues, posting their listings on these venue finder platforms or general event directories is important for the following reasons:
1. Exposure and Visibility: These online venue-finding platforms act as an online directory, which essentially boosts visibility and exposure to potential customers. Venue owners can highlight their venue's strengths, capacity, location, and other amenities they offer to organise any event through their listings. This will attract and encourage event organisers, promoters, and other clients to rent their venue for events.
2. Draw in Bookings: Event planners typically begin their venue search online. Posting listings on any of these online venue platforms will draw in bookings for conferences, weddings, concerts, meetings, parties, and other events. Some platforms provide specialised tools for organisers to filter their options based on venue capacity, location, facilities, and pricing. This allows venues to be found easily by their intended audience with little effort.
3. Marketing and Advertising: Most platforms spend money on advertising campaigns to boost traffic to their respective websites or applications. Joined venue listings will benefit from these marketing activities and expose the venue to customers who may not have discovered them otherwise.
4. Trust and Reviews: Creating a well-optimised and informative listing for a renowned or popular platform will give venues a certain level of credibility. Event organisers usually check for reviews, ratings, and past client testimonials to understand the venue's professionalism, service, and reliability. Good comments and feedback on these directory platforms will encourage trust and bookings.
5. Marketing Levels: The venue market is highly competitive, with many venues vying for clients and vendors. Many smaller or lesser-known venues don't get the same level of exposure as their larger competitors. Joining directory and listing sites gives them a chance to market their USP (unique selling proposition) and compete with the big boys as well as the upcoming venues.
6. Ease of Booking: Accommodating the customers' ease of booking, many of the venue finding listing platforms provide venues with online enquiry options, calendar integrations to show venue availability, and direct messaging with the event organiser. These features not only simplify the venue finding process for customers but also makes it easier for venues to manage bookings and enquiries in a centralised platform.
7. Valuable Venue Data: The data these listing platforms gather and provide to their partners (the venues) is very valuable and helpful when optimised. Analytics on how your listing is performing, customer interaction, market trends, and many others. Venues can use this data to tweak their listings, recognise weak points, and make informed strategic decisions for future growth.
8. Community and Partnerships: Some venue listing platforms create a community among venues, event organisers, suppliers, and other related business partners. This allows venues to gain exposure and build connections with potential partners with whom they can collaborate in the future or receive referrals.
Let Venuedirectory.com Be Your Spotlight
When searching for the perfect event venue, choice is everything. To catch the eye of event planners, your venue must stand out from the crowd. With two incredible new products, Venuedirectory.com provides just that.
Promoted Listings and Enquiry Insights are two of the industry's most advanced promotional and analytical tools, and now they make Venuedirectory.com the smartest choice for marketing and analysing your venue.
Promoted Listings
Maximum Exposure, Exclusive Placement
There are hundreds of venues to choose from, so how can you be sure your venue is the one planners choose? Venues featured via Promoted Listings on Venuedirectory.com are displayed with premium placement so meeting and event planners can find them first. This exclusive placement increases your venue's exposure to drive more business.
Premium Exposure
Promoted Venues display your venue's details to a highly targeted group of meeting and event planners. As they browse options for their upcoming events, your venue will receive exposure to more clients than other venues in the area.
More Contacts
Elevated placement leads to more contacts from potential clients. More contacts mean more leads, more bookings, and more revenue for your venue. Exclusive placement ensures that planners will remember your venue when searching for your destination.
Exclusive Placement
Just two venues per destination take advantage of top-priority placement on each Venuedirectory.com and GRATIS search page. Exclusive placement gives your venue a significant competitive edge over other local venues. Be among the most easily accessible venues available.
Choose from two options:
a. Promoted Venue Ad
With the Promoted Venue Ad option, your venue will be displayed in the top two positions of the venue listings for your destination on each search page. Only eight slots are available monthly within each UK destination, so your venue will be displayed in premium placement. Plus, your venue will be listed on not only Venuedirectory.com but also GRATIS and MyEventsPortal.com.
For destinations with more than two venues, two will be selected randomly to display in each unique search for the Promoted Venue Ad option. This allows rotating spots among all venues listed for the destination.
b. Spotlight Venues
The Spotlight Venues option displays your venue in the eighth position on each search page within your listed destination. Only one spot is available per month per destination, so your venue will be displayed in premium placement. Also, like the Promoted Venue Ad option, venues will be displayed on Venuedirectory.com, GRATIS, and MyEventsPortal.com.
Enquiry Insights: Optimise Your Venue's Performance
Beyond promoting your venue, understanding and improving your performance is key to sustained success. Venuedirectory.com's new product, Enquiry Insights, exclusively available to venues with an Enhanced Listing, comprehensively analyses your Request for Proposal (RFP) responses. This powerful tool helps you review and refine your approach, ensuring you stay ahead of the competition.
Key Features of Enquiry Insights
1. RFP Level Analysis: Gain deep insights into each RFP response, evaluating the effectiveness of your proposals.
2. Response Time Performance: Track and compare your response times to ensure you provide prompt and professional service.
3. Pricing Evaluation: Analyse your pricing strategies compared to competitors to make informed adjustments.
4. Position Assessment: Understand your industry ranking and identify improvement areas.
5. Informed Decision-Making: Leverage comprehensive data to make strategic choices for future enquiries, enhancing your venue's success.
Beyond the Basics: Expanding Your Reach
Venuedirectory.com doesn't stop there. Here's how we extend your reach:
1. Social Media Powerhouse: Tap into our active social media audience of over 9,000 followers, gaining valuable exposure beyond the platform.
2. Cross-Platform Visibility: Your listing gets an extra boost by appearing on GRATIS and MyEventsPortal.com, further expanding your reach to a wider network of event planners.
3. Transparent Pricing: Pricing is straightforward, based on a per-month basis, and discounts are available.
Parting Thoughts
In the competitive venue market, simply existing isn't enough. With Venuedirectory.com, you're not just joining a platform; you're becoming part of a community committed to your success.
From maximum exposure with Promoted Listings to deep-dive analysis with Enquiry Insights, we help you stand out, optimise, and thrive. So why wait? Let Venuedirectory.com be your spotlight.
