A step-by-step guide to getting started on inHounslow
How to register for an account
Navigate to the registration page at inHounslow.com/register and fill in the details about your business/attraction that you want to appear on the site. Once registered, you will be able to set up a business/attraction profile and add events.
How to submit an event
Once you log in, additional links will appear in the top right-hand menu. Click “Add Event” and fill out the form to let people know what’s coming up in your calendar.
Make sure you select the correct location in the “Event Location Fields” – this should be your business / attraction name. Even if your business name does not appear, you can still submit your event: just add a note into the “Additional Private Notes” field, requesting your business be added to the list. Once added by a site administrator, your business name will appear in “Event Location Fields” the next time you upload an event.
How to submit a destination
Once you log in, additional links will appear in the top right-hand menu. Click “Add Business” and fill out the form.
Here, you can submit all the key information that you want to include on your business/attraction profile, including your business/attraction name, a short and long description of your business/attraction, logo, background image, contact information (address, email and phone number), website, social media profiles, opening times and instructions on how to get to your business/attraction.
How to edit your profile and submit additional images
Once your business / attraction profile page has been approved, log in to your account and go to your profile page. Scroll to the bottom and click on one of the two additional buttons that only appear to logged-in members: “Suggest Image Update” and “Suggest Details Update”. You can submit additional images for a gallery or suggest a content update.
The buttons will appear just below your business description and the right-hand menu with your contact details. If you have submitted additional images to be added to the image gallery on your profile page, then the buttons will appear just below that.
Become an official inHounslow contributor and help us create the borough’s go-to site for the best local hotspots
Join inHounslow.com’s editorial teams
inHounslow.com is the new website for residents of and visitors to Hounslow borough. Whether you love history, cycling, sport, music or just getting out to enjoy Hounslow’s great restaurants, pubs and open spaces, inHounslow.com should be the first place you go to when planning to get out and about in the borough. The opportunity to become an official inHounslow contributor is open to anyone in Hounslow with a keen interest in sharing their passions – whether you live or work here or are just visiting.
- Maybe you’re a keen cyclist wanting to share some hints and tips about biking around our borough
- If you’re a local historian with great stories to tell about Hounslow and would love to share them, this could be your platform to do so
- Perhaps you’re mad about music and want to shout about Hounslow’s live gigs or music festivals
- You could be a green-minded adventurer looking to engage with local businesses that are putting the planet first
What should you expect from the groups?
We’re excited to hear your ideas and stories. If you have something to say about Hounslow, this is the place to be. We’re creating editorial teams: groups of passionate people that have something to say to the community accessing the site, who will support us in our mission to connect with the people of Hounslow and generate some honestly helpful content that we can display on the site.
The main focus of the editorial teams is you and how we can help you maximise your presence on the site.
Share what you love: whatever it is in Hounslow borough that drives you, we want to hear about it. When you support our content production efforts, you reap the rewards! This is a great opportunity to get free exposure for your business/attraction. To get you up on the site, all you have to do is create a profile for your business/attraction, which includes all your basic information (contact details, links to your website, links to social, location, and your bio).
In addition, we can include relevant links to your website in the content that you help produce and any relevant promotions you may be running! So whether your business objectives are to attract new customers to your website or to promote your products and services via a free digital channel, inHounslow.com is here for you to use.
We would like to emphasise that this is all fun and no worry: commitment to the group and content production is completely flexible and is dictated by you. Your contribution can be ongoing or a one-off and as big or small as you want it to be. We have had content produced entirely by some editorial group members but we’re also on hand to help create a lot of it too, so there is definitely the opportunity for collaboration.
Becoming an inHounslow editorial contributor is a win-win!
How to join
Jump onto inHounslow.com/contribute and fill in the form. We’ve currently established editorial teams for people interested in cycling, food & drink, music, and history, with more to come. If you have an interest in these – great, you can sign up and get started immediately! You’re also welcome to suggest other groups you are interested in being a part of and we’ll do our best to progress those as the site develops.
Once you sign up, we’ll be in touch with the next steps.
Examples of creative content produced in collaboration with contributors
Want to see more? See all the awesome content produced so far.
Now that you’ve seen what the creative content looks like, you may be asking: what about promotional content?
How to create successful promotional offers that engage customers and increase sales potential on inHounslow
inHounslow is the new website for active people in Hounslow borough. We want the community that the site serves – both local residents and visitors – to have access to a growing resource full of honestly useful information and for businesses and attractions to benefit from exposure and to leverage the marketing opportunities the site provides – that’s where you come in!
Now that all the frameworks for the site have been established, we’re keen to develop the content. We’re in the process of setting up contributor groups: small groups of passionate people that have something to say to the community accessing the site. We have established a few groups already (focusing on music, food & drink and cycling-related content, with more to come!) and have had some great content produced from these efforts.
You might be thinking ‘getting new content on the site is great for inHounslow.com, but what has this got to do with me?’ – well when you choose to support the site, you reap the benefits.
Why would you want to be on inHounslow.com?
The site is already proving to be an invaluable resource, with several tens of thousands of people having visited since the July 2021 launch and 2000 people visiting the site on average every month. This translates to lots of new prospects who could be viewing your business and products every day. And the number of businesses joining the site is growing steadily too, with over 70 having signed up already (if you haven’t joined yet, we welcome you sign up at inHounslow.com/register).
Once you’ve got a profile on the site, you can start engaging directly with the inHounslow community straight away. When you support the site with engaging content, we can include your relevant links and promotions in the editorial, increasing your exposure to the community twofold.
What does content with integrated promotions look like on inHounslow?
Let’s explore how businesses already on inHounslow have launched promotional content on the platform.
J’aimebike
Challenge
We connected with Hounslow-based business owner – Jamie from J’aimebike – keen to start his digital journey on inHounslow and brainstorm a creative way of promoting his specialist bike shop and eCargo bikes. Working with Jamie, we came up with a strategy that would enrich the site with great content and attract potential customers to his offer.
Approach
Jamie has a range of eCargo bikes available and wanted to educate more people on the benefits of having one. As an eCargo bike is a big investment, we wanted to create an offer that would make the bike accessible for interested individuals in the borough.
So we created the eCargo Bike Challenge – an initiative where the participant pledges to give up using their car for a week and instead use an eCargo bike, which is delivered to their home courtesy of J’aimebike. The participants were asked to keep an experience log documenting their highs and lows while using the bike, taking lots of photos and videos so that we could harness the experience and transform it into a powerful story.
Impact
The campaign resulted in 700 people viewing the page in the first 2 months and 25 people signing up for the offer. The campaign got new eyeballs on Jamie’s business and springboarded the development of user-generated content that we, in collaboration with the participants, will mature into a valuable story benefitting the Hounslow community.
Back In The Saddle Bikes
Challenge
Jon Marks at Back In The Saddle Bikes provides high-quality, affordable bike repairs and servicing as well as maintenance classes. Having worked for organisations such as London Bike Hub, London Cycling Campaign, Sustrans, Ealing and Hounslow councils and others, Back In The Saddle Bikes wants to engage with local prospects and attract them to explore their offer via digital channels.
Approach
We invited Jon to a meeting to learn more about him, his business, what drives him and what he thinks he can contribute to inHounslow.com. The chat felt very natural and sparked creative ideas that were shaped into promotional ones.
Exploring the sort of offer that feels natural for Jon to present to his customers, we created a campaign offering free security marking for bikes when customers pop into the shop, as well as a discount for a select group.
Jon is passionate about all things cycling and, eager to connect with the audience, he produced an honestly helpful article – advising cyclists on how they can winterproof their bike. We added his promotion into the article and disseminated it across various social channels, encouraging Back In The Saddle to leverage theirs as well.
Impact
The campaign resulted in a boost in traffic to the page and earned Back In The Saddle Bike’s offer some great exposure.
Now that you’ve explored how other businesses have leveraged inHounslow to promote their offer, it’s your turn! Check our top tips below to help you get started.
How to create successful promotional offers online
Want to reach out to customers and boost sales? Try a sales promotion. Promotions are a great way of reaching out to existing and new customers. They create a sense of urgency and give your audience an explicit incentive to buy – turning casual browsers into transacting buyers. It mobilises your audience to click ‘buy now’ at pace.
A promotion also helps your business achieve long-term growth. With the right approach, your sales promotion can capture new shoppers and nurture them into long-term customers. When you’re ready to create a promotion, consider the following tips to strengthen the offer.
1. Keep promotions simple
Make your promotions easy to understand and redeem as this makes the promotion accessible and more likely to generate a high response rate. Consider the platform for your promotion – whether it’s your website, social or inHounslow.com – and think about where to place the promotion to allow as many people to see it as possible. On your website, for example, consider placing it on your homepage so that people know you’re running special deals on first contact with your business.
The simplest approach to a promotion is to discount the item for everyone. You can strike out the original price on your website and add the new price, accenting the special deal, perhaps with a bolded font, to make the benefit apparent to customers.
You could also use promo codes. If going down this route, make sure that the codes are straightforward to use. Consider publishing the code somewhere prominent on your website or emailing it out to your customers, ensuring that it is clearly visible/searchable so that customers can easily go back and find it.
2. Reward customers to boost orders
You can increase the average value of your orders by offering a freebie when a customer reaches a certain purchase threshold.
One popular version of this strategy is conditional free shipping—the “Free Shipping over £X” offer. Research shows that free shipping increases the likelihood of an online purchase for about 94% of UK customers and that 68% of people are happy to add another item to their basket to reach a free shipping threshold. You can decide on a threshold that best suits your business. For example, if you have a lot of orders totaling £50, consider offering free shipping at £60.
If you can’t afford to offer free shipping, that’s okay. If you choose to offer a different incentive, then consider adding a small complimentary item when an order reaches a certain threshold.
3. Reward top customers with special offers
Some marketing data analytics show that existing customers spend 31% more than new buyers, and they’re 50% more likely to try a new product. If you’re tracking your customers’ behaviour on your site or you’ve identified your top buyers, you can boost loyalty by rewarding your highest spenders with customised offers.
You can then encourage your rewarded customers to share their experiences on social media, attracting new customers to your products and services. You could also create a referral scheme – you ask a happy customer to encourage others to make a purchase from your business and if they successfully refer new customers to you, the referee receives an incentive, such as a voucher to spend at your business or a discount. You can track referees by distributing individual referral codes to each one.
4. Showcase product reviews
Reviews matter to many customers. One study shows that close to 95% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. A retailer showing 5 reviews compared to no reviews for a product can increase desired actions, such as making a purchase or adding an item to the basket, by up to 270%.
Before you run your promotion, make sure your products have good reviews. Meanwhile, start collecting original reviews. A good way to increase the number of reviews, especially for new product launches, is to send free products to existing customers and ask for reviews. Then, with their permission, you can post them to your product pages.
5. Stay memorable
Consumers have promotions coming into their inboxes and social media feeds every day. It’s important for you to stand out as a brand, preferably with a personal touch. Consider adding a thank-you card or free sample item into orders to delight your customers.
Another way to stay memorable is by mixing up the look and feel of your business online. Your customers get used to seeing your page as it is. When you mix it up and add new visual elements, you draw attention to your promotion.
If you’re going to try this on your website, consider tweaking your homepage and product pages when you start your promotion. A good way to start is by revamping your homepage, placing promoted products front and centre.
