fbpx

Access to our latest & most up to date blogs is available to our Grow NZ Business Members.

To become a member of Grow NZ Business, you can sign up here

Tourism, TikTok and the Truth about Marketing

by | Jul 21, 2021 | Marketing, RESILIENCE, RESOURCES, Uncategorized | 0 comments

It’s hump day in the second week of the New Zealand school holidays and I’m hearing mixed reports from business owners about what the past week and a half has looked like revenue-wise. Some, especially those in the tourism sector, are enjoying strong sales, despite a negative tailwind from the on again-off again NSW bubble. Other segments, in particular retail, are feeling the effects of kiwis’ desire to travel abroad and are reporting softer results.

If you are one of the tourism businesses experiencing an uplift, we are really pleased for you and we come bearing even more good news; Grow NZ Business can now provide business support services to you that can be up to 100% subsidised, pending approval from the Regional Business Partner Network (and we have more services awaiting subsidy approval in the pipeline too, so watch this space!)

But it’s not just the tourism sector getting the goods this week…may I present to you the gift of TikTok…

The gift of TikTok…

As many of you will know, Grow NZ Business fully owns its own marketing agency, Grow NZ Marketing, which also celebrates its birthday in July. And the best gift we’ve received so far is an invitation from popular social media channel, TikTok,  to be one of its very first partners in New Zealand.

TikTok is now available in 154 countries worldwide and in 75 different languages. NZ is not yet open to take advantage of TikTok ads, however, TikTok’s business team has selected a few businesses to be part of its pilot programme in this country – and we are one of them!

I am pretty confident that with the addition of this exciting new partnership, kiwis will be hard-pressed to find another marketing agency in New Zealand with the breadth and depth of strategic partner relationships that Grow NZ Marketing has.

Fancy being one the first kiwi business to grow via TikTok ads?

Our TikTok partnership presents a HUGE profitable growth opportunity for many kiwi businesses:

  • Due to TikTok’s unique delivery algorithms, it’s easy to get higher engagement on your videos with much less effort
  • Because the TikTok Ads platform is new, a smaller number of brands are currently using it meaning you have less competition
  • TikTok advertising is a great platform for any new product launch
  • 80% of TikTok users are between the ages 16-34
TikTok is, of course, not suitable for every business; Just like most other channels, we need to consider your target audiences and the best ways to access them in order to generate a profitable return.

Fortunately, at Grow NZ Marketing, we are experts at doing exactly that. Here’s why….
We’re marketers, but not like you know them…

The 4 reasons we bothered setting up our own marketing agency in NZ:

  1. Marketing is largely unregulated in New Zealand, which means the quality is highly variable and, in many cases, downright unacceptable if you ask us….
  2. This is because many marketers do not understand a Profit & Loss statement or the importance of cash flow to a business. Most marketers, whilst wonderfully creative,  lack capability around analytics, or insight generation. During my 25 years of corporate life, I dealt with many agencies and internal marketing teams with annual budgets in the millions and very few could make a case for why each dollar invested in marketing could generate more in profit. 
  3.  I already had strong, long-standing relationships with many marketing channels and local and global partners that Grow NZ Marketing could (and does) harness.
  4. But the biggest driver was that I wanted to give Grow NZ Business members access to excellent marketing expertise that I could put my name behind. It annoyed me immensely to watch too many business owners hand over fists full of cash for very little return, having fallen prey to fancy presentations, delivered by people who lacked understanding about profitable business growth.

It was time to make marketing the profitable growth tool it was designed to be!

“As a tourism-reliant business impacted by COVID, we are so grateful for Grow NZ Business’ experience and access to powerful market insights, which have helped us take our own business from “survive” mode to “thrive” mode. Thanks to the opportunities identified by Grow NZ Business, my business is now flourishing with a clear plan for future growth when the borders start to re-open. I cannot recommend the team at Grow NZ Business highly enough!”


– 
Vicki Adams, Owner of Adventure Car Rentals.

Quality marketing is your business’ lifeline

Remember the old adage, you can’t sell a secret! Much like the human heart pumps oxygenated blood to every other organ in your body so they can each perform their function,  effective marketing keeps your business growing profitably.

Notice I say effective marketing. A gorgeous glossy billboard that costs more cash than it generates, a pithy Facebook ad that fails to convert customers, or a fancy website that fails to take into account your customer journey might be marketing, but I guarantee you, it won’t be effective if what you are looking for is profitable growth.
That’s why, at Grow NZ Marketing, we will never recommend any one channel to you without really getting to know your business and customers. We’re not one-dimensional Google experts, self-professed social media experts, or an over-promising, under-delivering ‘cheap’ web developer. We are business people who understand profitability, cashflow, customers and how to market a product or service to generate revenue based on your value proposition and the market opportunity.

So, whether you’re keen to trial TikTok, or just want to suss out what a credible marketing agency that understands business growth can deliver for you, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]

In the meantime, I hope your business can make the most of the last few days of the school term break. We’ll be back next week with more on growing your business sustainably and profitably.