As New Years rolls around, we’re already getting a taste of great graphic design and web development in the area of NYE Mini-Sites. Feast your eyes with these examples, it’s not too late to get yours up to par!

In no particular order, here are 5 great examples of promoters, nightclubs or event coordinators really embracing the power of mini-sites to drive more interest to their events.

We salute you!

P.S.  Do you have any examples to show us?  Write them in the comments below and we’ll do a “Part 2″ of this posting.

New Years Forever Miami

Event by Vitamin C Communications

Chicago NYE Ball

Event by React Presents and Surreal Chicago

New Years Eve LA

Event by Go Ventures

Official Playboy New Years Eve Celebration Chicago

Event by Global Adrenaline

Alesso Wall Miami W South Beach

Event by Wall Miami

Here are 6 things to keep in mind when you sit down with your team to strategize your website.

1.  Make It Clear to Visitors What Business You Are In

Since you only have a few seconds to engage your visitors and keep them on your site, it’s important that your value proposition and intent be clear the instant customers hit your homepage.  Great visual design, animation, and pretty pictures can always enhance a website, but you need to take your business’s message into consideration, too.

Example:  “Sobe Live is Hip Hop”.  This is awesome.  I know exactly what I’m getting into before I even visit the venue.Make Your Website

2.  Easy to Use

Let’s face it, people come back to your website to either find out about an event or view pictures they were in from the night before.  These two options need to be front and center on your site.  The Internet is cluttered with bad nightclub websites, make yours one of the most usable, and you’ll attract an audience and form lasting relationships with your customers.

On this same note, the website needs to be easy to use for the person updating the website.  WordPress is the best platform to use for easy updating of your site.

Dig Deeper:  Top 5 Reasons to Use WordPress for your Venue or Event Promotion Website.

3. Don’t Underestimate SEO

If you’re site is not search-engine optimized, you’re basically cutting off almost all possibility for organic traffic or chance encounters with your venue.  At a minimum, be sure that you’ve generated a site map, and your title tags, heading titles, and site description are filled out appropriately.

Dig Deeper:  What does SEO mean for Nightlife Professionals?

4. Give Your Brand A Soul

Many venue and promoter websites lack soul. They tend to use stock imagery of women, static content, and generic web design – all of which undermines the user experience. That’s a serious problem because your site plays a crucial branding role, serving as the digital interface between your customers and your events. The best way to create a positive branding experience is to be yourself: Be transparent, speak to your customers on a real-time basis, and let them connect with each other through your brand.

Dig Deeper:  10 Inspirational Nightclub Website Designs (and why)

5. Don’t Forget the Mobile Web

Not too long ago, we considered mobile sites a nice-to-have add on. That is no longer the case. At present, approximately 5 percent of traffic to sites comes via mobile phone. And over the next year, as more smart phones hit the market, and carriers continue to enhance the capability of cellular wireless standards, we expect that number to dramatically increase.

What that means is that you and your venue need to be there.  Your mobile web strategy needs to center around creating designs for three screen sizes:  PC, smart phone, and the basic (or WAP) phone. Once you’ve covered the basics, monitor your site metrics, and if you have a growing and engaged mobile audience, think about getting into the application game.

Dig Deeper: 5 Reasons Why Nightclubs Must Adopt Mobile Marketing

6. Use Analytics to Track Everything

Your website redesign should never be over.  Make sure you identify clear and realistic brand and business goals for your site so that you have numbers to optimize against after you go live.  Then, you’ll want to think about the different parts of the experience you want to track in order to support your company goals.

Dig Deeper: 4 Easy Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques for your Venue’s Website

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And if this article wasn’t enough, we have a checklist of 21 Factors to Consider When Redesigning Your Website.

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In July, WordPress.com blogs passed the 50 million mark. At the time, WordPress revealed that each month, 287 million people account for 2.5 billion pageviews on WordPress.com blogs.

So what is the nightlife doing on WordPress?  Nightclub management group Angel Management Group is using WordPress to power their new website.  And companies like Promoter Websites are leading the charge in providing WordPress themes for the Nightlife and Entertainment.

Here are 5 reasons you need to jump on WordPress!

1. SEO – WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are a few tweaks you need to make, but there are many seo benefits that WordPress provides for free. In fact Google’s own Matt Cutts says WordPress is “made to do SEO well” in this video: Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners.
2. Content – it is easy to update content on your website without knowing HTML.  Do you hate the idea of having to learn to use a complex HTML editor tool like Dreamweaver? Do you have to “ask” your webmaster every time you want to add an event or change pictures on your site? Well no longer – once WordPress is set up for you, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.
3. Extensions – There is a thriving ecosystem of developers creating themes andplug-ins – imagine free design themes, or the ability to extend your website with polls, contact forms, ratings or hundreds of other cool features without having to hire a web developer.
4. Support – If you do have problems, or want to add very custom features, it is easy to find support and developers who can help you. There are literally thousands of WordPress developers out there. And there are so many people writing about WordPress that help is only a Google search away!
5. One-click-installation – Quick installs are provided by many hosting providers, including Bluehost, 1and1 and GoDaddy.

If you’re looking for a firm that specializes in WordPress websites for the Nightlife and Entertainment, check out http://www.promoterwebsites.com/.

So, what are your venue’s big internet marketing plans for the New Year? Will you be investing more into social media? Will you start blogging? Will you take a more proactive stance with self-promotion? Whatever your online marketing plans, the end goal is likely to attract more people to your venues website in the hopes that the influx of new eyes will translate into new customers, higher liquor sales and new opportunities for your venue.  However, you won’t be able to do any of that if your Web site is turning people off, instead of turning them on.

Below are some very common reasons nightlife web sites fail to attract customers and how to avoid falling prey to them.

1. There’s no conversion path in place.

One criticism of many nightlife web sites is that they don’t include a clear conversion path for their customers. If you want customers to take a certain action, you need to create a funnel intended to guide them to do that. Simply stringing together a number of content pages won’t necessarily put someone on the path to act. Your conversion path may be as simple as a solitary landing page paired with a call to action, or as complex as an entire microsite. Either way, you are in charge of designing the flow of your website. Creating a clear conversion path not only helps customers feel more comfortable on your site, it also gives you clear data to track so that you can see where people are abandoning, where they’re engaging, etc. The more data you have to act on, the better you can design your site to attract new customers.

2. There’s no sign of life.

Customers are discriminating. You can bet that when they land on your website they’re going to kick the tires a little to see if they can trust you. They’re going to check your copyright date to see if it lists 2011 or 2006. They’re going to look for old statistics or other signs you haven’t taken the time to update your content.  They’re going to look for signs that you’ve created a dynamic website, instead of one lying around in stagnant water. Before your customers get there, take a look around yourself. Would you hang out with you?

3. It’s all about you.

Customers don’t head to your site to read how awesome your venue is.  They’re there because they have question they need you to answer or cause they want information on your events. Your website should be designed to help them quickly achieve whatever it is they came for.  Too many references to “we” in lieu of “you,” too much sales talk instead of helpful information, and too much of you not addressing their fears/wants/desires will turn people away from your brand, not on to it. Your customers don’t care about you–they care about how you can help them.

4. People can’t find you.

If you’re finding that customers aren’t interacting with your website at all, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Is it accessible? With more and more users searching via mobile devices and on the go – is your venue’s site mobile accessible? If it’s not, users trying to find you may hit a dead end.  There’s nothing worse than trying to find information on an event from your favorite nightclub’s website while on the road and finding out their site only renders in Flash and won’t load on your phone. Not that I’m talking from experience.
2. Is it properly SEO’d? Have you made it easy for users and search engines to find your content? That means using the right keywords, linking properly, making your site super crawlable for spiders, and staying away from common SEO mistakes.

Sometimes before you can see more traffic, you have to break through the obstacles preventing you from seeing any.

5. There’s no POD.

If you want to attract people, you have to give them more of you. You have to stand out from the crowd and show them something that they’ll want to align themselves with. Take a look at your own site – what are you showing potential customers? I don’t mean the graphics or the videos you choose to incorporate (don’t forget to SEO those, too!), I mean the experiences that you’re creating. Are you using your site to set yourself apart, or do you come off like everyone else? Are you talking to customers in their own language or filling your pages up with buzzwords and jargon? The more powerful a POD (point of differentiation) you can create, the better you’ll attract the right customers to your brand.

If you’re finding it difficult to attract leads via your website, it may be time to ask yourself some hard questions. Before you can fix the problem, you first have to identify it. What are some struggles you’ve had attracting new leads? How have you fixed the problems?

Last week a new product launched that promises to revolutionize online marketing for the nightlife and entertainment. Creating your website with PromoterSuite.com is taking the first step toward taking back control of your website. No longer will you have to rely on web developers or designers to make every little update to your website.

We’re really excited about this product, especially since our blog focuses on online marketing for nightlife professionals! We’ve done a review of the product and we have the scoop for you. Here is what you need to know:

PromoterSuite includes robust features designed to make updating your website easy. With little to no HTML skills, you can build and edit the entire content of your website. Unlike other content management systems, PromoterSuite is built for search engine optimization (SEO). In addition to all of the standard features, PromoterSuite comes equipped with several SEO features as well.

HOW IT WORKS

PromoterSuite is a content-management system. It gives you control over the content of your website without requiring any knowledge of HTML. Easily add events, manage galleries and download guest lists. It’s easy to use, and – since they use the system to run their website, they’re confident in it.

They have a number of strategically planned websites that were developed for the nightlife and entertainment industry. The websites are ready to go LIVE, they just need to be customized to fit your company’s look & feel.

They have a 3-Step Process to completing your website:

1. Work with PromoterSuite representative to plan the website that’s just right for you. And leave the rest to us.
2. Their design & coding team get to work on your project.
3. Easily add all of your events, pictures, and content to the site by logging into your content-management account.

PRICING

This is the best part about what we found. They made it really affordable for any nightclub, bar, lounge, or promoter to have a kick-butt website. In these economic times, this was a breath of fresh air!

1. Setup Investment: There is only a one-time fee to have our design and development team to have your site within 2 weeks. Prices start at $1500. (see pricing)
2. One Monthly Fee: starting at $50/mo (First month free!) Includes:

• • Unlimited access to your content-management system
  • Post as many photos as you need within your selected Monthly Plan. Change your images unlimited times without additional charge.
  • Free Upgrades to your content-management system
  • Access to our Passionate Team of Web Consultant Experts (Phone/Email)
  • Change your Monthly Plan at anytime instantly

WHO USES IT

• Nightclubs
• Bars
• Lounges
• Promoters
• Coordinators
• Pubs
• Taverns
• Beer Gardens
• Saloons
• Megaclubs
• Restaurants
• Hosts
• Sports Bars

FREE CONSULTATION

The best part about it all is that we found the account executives to be really helpful. The account executives become your pseudo in-house online marketing directors. They offer a free consultation.

Overall, we think this is great for the nightlife and entertainment. We’ve always known this industry to be behind in search and social marketing and web development. This is a great all-in-one package.

There is good news of sorts on the economic front. If you believe Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the recession is likely over and the nation’s economy is on the road to recovery. But for the Nightclubs and Lounges (that survived) who have had to weather the economic storm with diminished resources, the outlook isn’t so rosy yet. Cash-strapped Nightclub owners are still scrambling to do more with less, including promoting.

Since the debut of NightlifeMarketingResource.com in February, we’ve talked about ways to successfully use your website to generate buzz about your nightlife venue online. As the year draws to a close, @NightlifeMR gives you an early holiday present: 12 ways to jump start your 2010 venue’s marketing plan before the New Year.

WIKI YOUR BUSINESS. Write a Wikipedia entry about your business or product. Wikipedia entries rank high with search engines, particularly Google. And they can garner extra exposure for your business in 2010. Considering there are more than 684 million Wikipedia readers on the Internet, it’s a great place to create a presence for your business or product.

BOOST YOUR BLOG BUZZ. According to ComScore, a leading Internet marketing research firm, there are more than 346 million people around the world who read blogs. While it’s essential to have your own blog, make sure that in 2010 you regularly read the top blogs in your industry (like Nightlife Marketing Resource). Post comments and helpful information with links back to your site on them.

FAN OUT ON FACEBOOK. With more than 200 million users worldwide, Facebook must be a key part of your online marketing strategy in 2010. If you haven’t done it already, create a fan page for your nightclub, bar, or lounge. Promote it with ads on Facebook, which are cheaper than those available through Google Adwords in most cases. Make sure all of your Facebook friends know about your page and ask them to promote it to their friends. Be sure to distribute informative content on your page that always links back to your website. We wrote a great article in March called The Nightclub Face on Facebook.

STAY ALERT. In 2010 make sure you’re signed up for alerts through Google to find out what people are saying about you, your brand and your industry online. Find out what consumers are saying about your business in the social media realm on sites like Twitter and Facebook. You can’t participate in the online conversation about your business if you don’t know, in real-time, what people are talking about. Also read up on Social Media Meets Google Search.

STAY FOCUSED. Don’t try to be all things to all party-goers. It’s important that in the New Year you keep your events focused and marketing messages brief. Pick the thing your business does best. Pick the crowd you sell the most and stay focused on getting the word out online to them.

TAKE THE TIME. There are no magic bullets when it comes to marketing your business online. It takes time. In the New Year, don’t rush to implement too many strategies at once. Take your time, make a plan and execute it logically.

MASTER THE WEB. Before you open your Nightclub, you may not have thought of yourself as a webmaster. In the New Year, it’s important that you do. Use the tools provided by Google Webmaster Central. Log on to the SitePro News websites for free webmaster tools that can improve your site. Don’t forget to visit Bing Webmaster Tools as well.

BECOME A MEDIA MAVEN. In 2010, make it a goal to ramp up your media relations plan. Increase your media exposure by using Google News to find articles about your industry. Then, make contact with the TV and print reporters who write those stories and offer to be a potential source for their next story. Reach out to bloggers in your industry and do the same thing. Send out a press release at least once a month about your business or product, but make sure it’s newsworthy before you do. Use services like Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO) or Pitchrate.com to find out about the stories reporters and editors are working on.

SPEAK A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Expand your reach by installing a translator plug-in on your site. This will allow users who don’t speak English to translate your website content into different languages, exposing your business and products to foreign markets.

ANSWER LIKE AN EXPERT. Demonstrate your expertise by posting and answering questions on Yahoo Answers or LinkedIn Answers. Both rank exceptionally high with search engines and will results in increased traffic to your website.

GIVE THE VIP TREATMENT. Treat your customers like royalty by soliciting their feedback, sending them special promotions via e-mail or spotlighting a Partier of the Month on your website. Here are 6 Steps to Building a Relationship with your Customers…Online.

USE VIDEO TO TELL YOUR STORY. You can create great promotional videos for your Nightclub using simple tools like Windows Movie Maker. Google loves videos. When you make them, upload them to YouTube, Metacafe and other video sharing sites for maximum exposure. And when you make that video, here are Five Tips for Including Video in E-mail.

I look forward to your comments.

Follow Nightlife Marketing Resouce on Twitter

Over the last months, we’ve analyzed numerous Nightclub Web designs, observing emerging trends and weighing the merits of numerous design decisions and coding solutions. In this post, we present the Top 10 Nightclub Websites for 2009.

What makes a “Top Nightclub Website”? Great question!

Our list shows exemplary websites that are pursuing “best practices” in website design & Internet communications. They are judged on their developments, new design elements and new graphic approaches.

This article covers only 10 of the over 100 nightclub websites we’ve identified over the last months. If you feel like we missed your masterpiece, email us at blog@thecreativecomplex.com with your web gem and we will be sure to publish a second part to this blog.

Mansion – Miami: www.mansionmiami.com

site by www.thecreativecomplex.com

Fabric Nightclub – London: www.fabriclondon.com

Site by: Unknown

Beta Nightclub – Denver: www.betanightclub.com

site by www.thefirmgraphics.com

ageHa Nightclub – Tokyo: www.ageha.com

Site by: www.non-grid.jp

Set – Miami: www.setmiami.com

Site by: www.thecreativecomplex.com

HardPop – Mexico: www.thehardpop.com

Site by: www.modulorweb.com

Louis – Miami: www.louismiami

Site by: www.thecreativecomplex.com

Privilege – Ibiza: www.privilegeibiza.com

Site by: www.klixx.com

Volume – Seoul, Korea: www.clubvolume.com

Site by: www.klixx.com

Digital – UK: www.yourfutureisdigital.com

www.yourfutureisdigital.com

For every comment received on our Blog in December 2009, The Creative Complex will donate $1 to www.charitywater.org. Every 20 comments can give one person clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.

Almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.

Doesn’t that make you thirtsy to start commenting? We hope so!

As many of you know, www.nighlifemarketingresource.com offers an “inside secret” to online marketing operations and provides opportunities for you to learn, improve, and exchange ideas directly with us and other readers who know online marketing is the foundation for their company’s marketing success. To foster a meaningful and constructive discussion, we follow these guiding principles:

• We will provide unique, individual perspectives on what’s going on in the nightlife and entertainment world;
• We will post comments, except for spam and remarks that are off-topic, denigrating or offensive;
• We will reply to comments promptly, when appropriate;
• We will respect proprietary information and confidentiality; and
• We will be respectful when disagreeing with others’ opinions.

We invite you visit the site regularly to read about what’s on the minds of The Creative Complex leaders and to join in the discussion.

Redesigning a website can be a very involved process, and it is important to properly plan and consider the necessary factors that will make or break the redesign. You want the web design process to run smoothly, so help your developer out by identifying the good and bad things about your old website. This will give us a better understanding of how we should design your site.

1. What is the goal of the redesign? What do you hope to accomplish? It’s always important to have a clear understanding of your reasons and motivations as they should impact the decisions that you make along the way. Without knowing these goals the project will lack direction and you will likely wind up with a website that still doesn’t meet your needs.
   
2. Is this going to be just a minor upgrade or a complete overhaul? A redesign could be anything from a minor facelift to an entirely new site. Obviously the time, effort, and cost involved will vary, but first you should determine what types of changes are required for you to meet your goals with the design. If a complete redesign is done you will also want to consider to what extent the new design should resemble the old design. If visitors are coming back to the site, chances are you will want them to notice the new design without feeling like they’ve never been to your site before.
   
3. What aspects of the current design are most effective? Most likely there are some things about the current design that work very well, and these may be aspects that you would like to keep or incorporate into the new design. It’s a good idea to make a simple list of your likes and dislikes to help with decisions on the new design.
   
4. What aspects of the current design are not effective? Building on point #3, if you are redesigning the site you are bound to want to get rid of some specific aspects of the website or the design. Are there some characteristics of the design that do not accurately portray your business to new visitors?
   
5. Who are your target users? During any design process you never want to lose focus on the visitors. By knowing who you are targeting and how you can meet their needs, you will be on your way to building an effective website. What style of design are your users going to like?
   
6. How can the website be more user-friendly? Improving the functionality and usability of a website is always a good thing. It’s pointless to spend time and money on a redesign that looks great but simply isn’t user-friendly.
   
7. Does the logo/branding need to be changed or updated? Most likely the website will include some form of a logo or branding. Are these items still up-to-date and will they function effectively with a new design? If your logo is out-of-date and not attractive, a new design may not do much good if it is still using the same old logo.
   
8. Should the color scheme change or remain the same? In point #2 I mentioned that most of the time you will want to keep the website at least looking familiar to repeat visitors. Using a similar color scheme is one of the best ways to accomplish this. A lot of times it can be a good idea to make some minor changes to the color scheme, such as changing shades of colors or adding a few new colors, just to give the site a fresh look.
   
9. What screen resolutions are visitors using? It’s important to know how your visitors are going to be viewing the site. A program such as Google Analytics can easily give you this information. Obviously, a fixed-width design should take into consideration the typical screen resolutions of visitors.
   
10. What connection speed are visitors using? Knowing the connection speed will help you to know what types of elements you can include in the design without causing hardships for the average visitor.
    
11. What should be the focal points of the design? Every design is going to draw attention to certain parts of the page in one way or another. By knowing what you want to emphasize you will have more control over what gets attention from visitors.
    
12. How can the navigation be made more effective? Navigation is one of the most critical elements of a site’s usability. If a significant amount of content and/or pages have been added to the site since the last design, it is possible that navigation is no longer optimal. Before designing think about how visitors will want to move through the site, and make it as easy as possible for them.
    
13. What will visitors want from the website? Meeting the needs of visitors is important to the success of any website. Will visitors be coming to the site looking for information? If so, make it easy to find the information and make it a prominent part of the design. Will they be coming to the site to find products? Will they be coming for some other reason? Anticipate what your visitors will want and do your best to give it to them.
    
14. How can increased user interaction be incorporated? The most successful websites are able to get visitors involved in one way or another. Blogs are great for this purpose because they allow for comments and discussion. Other possibilities are forums, games, user-generated content, polls, quizzes, etc. By making the website more engaging to visitors you are more likely to get a high number of repeat visitors.
    
15. Who will be doing the maintenance/updates? Will you be the one doing routine maintenance and updates? Will someone else be doing them? If multiple people will be using the website commenting the code becomes even more important. Code should always be kept as clean as possible, but when others will be doing work on the site has a bigger impact.
    
16. Is a content management system (CMS) needed? Many website owners now prefer to use a CMS so that the site can easily be updated without requiring a designer. Depending on the amount and type of updates that are anticipated, a CMS may be a good, time-saving decision, especially for a venue that’s always changing its events and uploading photos.
    
17. How can SEO be improved? Any time a website is being designed, search engines should be considered. The current design may or may not be search engine-friendly, but the new one certainly should be. Should the current page titles be kept, or could they be done more effectively? How can internal linking be improved? Where can headers be used? This list could obviously go on for a while.
    
18. What keywords and phrases are being targeted? Of course, keywords should be used in titles, headers, anchor text, alt tags, etc. Designing a website without knowing what words and phrases you are targeting means that you are most likely targeting none, at least not effectively. Don’t simply consider the search terms that are being targeted with the current site, make sure that these are the most effective terms to go after.
    
19. What pages and search terms are currently drawing traffic? If there are pages on the site that are currently doing very well with search engines, you’ll probably not want to make major changes to the content of those pages. This can easily be overlooked during a redesign, but making excessive changes to pages that are ranking well can kill the rankings. Likewise, what search terms are currently producing traffic? Be sure that they are used in the new design.
    
20. What pages currently have inbound links? Whatever pages on the site have a significant number of inbound links or are drawing traffic through those links, you’ll want to make sure that any changes do not negatively affect these links. If possible, use the same URL structure. If not, be sure to re-direct visitors to the appropriate page.
    
21. What will make visitors want to come back? Most likely you’ve considered how the new design can make a solid first impression, but what is it about the website that will keep visitors coming back for more?

I look forward to your comments.

Follow Alex Miranda on twitter.

www.mansionmiami.com

It’s amazing how I still see nightclubs, bars, and lounges not taking their website seriously. The website should be done even BEFORE your opening day! Still, folks are struggling for Web site budget. Many venues have made this a capital expenditure after revenue is generated. Really, it’s the cost of doing business.

So the marketing should control Web site investments, but the business operation must pay for it. Nothing will have a greater effect on your company’s sales than its Web site.

Consider these stats and trends from recent published reports:

· Dunkin’ Donuts has more than 370,000 Facebook fans, according to this eMarketer interview with David E. Tryder, manager of interactive and relationship marketing at Dunkin’ Donuts.

· Many Fortune 500 companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and Intel, invest at least 50 percent of their marketing budget in digital.

· E-mail service providers are experiencing record financial quarters.

· SEM (search engine marketing) consultants and digital agencies are reinforcing the undeniable shift to digital.

In the 1990s, the digital divide referred to the gap between those who had broadband access and could work efficiently online — and those who didn’t. In business, it’s safe to say we’ve crossed that divide. Consider that e-mail is the primary and preferred method of communication and information sharing, while researching information is almost exclusively online. And, instant messaging, texting, and social networking are the next generation of online communications.

Digital divide now refers to the divide between those aligning their priorities, budgets, staff, and strategic thinking with the behavior and preferences of their customers.

Your venue needs to think digitally, act digitally, and really embrace principles of online marketing. It’s not good enough to have an e-newsletter, run a few paid search ads, and redesign your Web site sometime over the past two years. It’s critical to understand that it’s competitive. Those that execute online marketing better will succeed; those that don’t will quickly fall.

Consider these few principles that winning organizations embrace and culturally will make or break a company in the most trying economic times we’ve seen in two generations.

Principle No. 1: Be Willing to Fail

You must be willing to fail and fail fast. What does this mean for your venue? You can’t move into a new area or change strategy and expect immediately to realize a robust ROI (return on investment) and then base all decisions on that. If that happens, one is forced to be conservative and only do what is known to have worked. And that is nowhere near crossing the digital divide.

SEO (search engine optimization) and social media strategies are the best examples. If you aren’t willing to invest in determining the right strategy and balance of what’s needed in these two areas, you can count the days down that your competitors will — and the tremendous market share to be lost.

Principle No 2: Treat Your Web Site as an Asset or Capital Expenditure

Your Web site should be treated as the absolute epicenter of all things marketing. Every ad should have a URL; every direct mailer should have a Web-based call to action.

For instance, I saw my favorite DJ was performing at an event. I was on my laptop thinking, “All right, this is something I want to get tickets in advance for.” And all the ad offered was a toll-free phone number. Who wants to call anyone at 9 a.m. on a Saturday and talk? I was ready to make the purchase online, so are your customers.

Lesson: if you don’t have campaign-specific URLs on everything, then you’re missing the boat. While most marketers use campaign-specific URLs, the real question is why we aren’t paying more attention to the landing pages, microsites, and Web sites we send visitors to. Every marketing effort will either see a significant lift or decrease in its conversion rate even in long B2B sales cycles if you give the customer what they want. Also, make sure it’s easy for visitors to find related items of interest on your site.

Principle No. 3: Strategy Starts With the Customer

Yes, we all know this. We all preach this in nightlife and entertainment. But, how many really do this?

We don’t need to be pioneers to be successful. All we have to do is look around us, learn from those succeeding, listen to our customers and be committed to crossing that divide before our competition does.

I look forward to your comments.

Follow Alex Miranda on Twitter