New OTM website to better promote local business

January 13th, 2016
[by David Armstrong]

Use it, it's free, and it will help your business. That was the message given to Motueka business owners at the launch last night of Our Town Motueka's new website.

About 25 Our Town members saw a preview of the website demonstrated by committee member Johny O'Donnell, and heard how they can use their free directory listing on the site to actively promote their businesses to tech-using customers.

Johny has been the OTM committee member driving the urgency of bringing the business promotion organisation into line with modern social media trends. The new website is geared to encourage active links with hugely popular media such as Facebook and Instagram, and has the new name - Love Motueka.

One of the key parts of the website is the business directory, which offers every member business in the Motueka catchment a free page on which they can put attractive photographs, enticing text and news of upcoming promotions. Search keywords are also encouraged.

Unlike the previous OTM website, this one enables every business to place and update their own material through a simple set of processes with password protection. Last night, Johny emphasised again and again that all businesses with an eye to the future should take advantage of the facility, else they will continue to struggle in an increasingly competitive business environment.

The website, www.lovemotueka.com, will go live this coming Sunday, and this gives first adopters the chance to have their business listings prominent from the start. The public launch will be accompanied by a strong social media campaign.

(The existing web address, www.ourtownmotueka.co.nz, will remain active but soon will redirect visitors to the new Love Motueka site. Although the official name of the organisation is still Our Town Motueka, its public brand will now be Love Motueka.)

To help nervous businesses, the site includes detailed and simple instructions, plus video tutorials, on how to create a business directory page and how to maintain it and link it with social media channels which the business uses.

The website was created, under Johny's close overview and direction, by Andre Ismael of Lightstyle, a Motueka photographer and website specialist. The meeting acknowledged the huge effort that Andre put in over the holiday months, well beyond strictly what he was paid for.

Johny explained a little of the history of the new website and social media initiative, based around the "Love Motueka" Facebook page which has attracted many thousands of followers from around the world over the past 15 months. (See our earlier story.)

The launch event held at Kaiwaka Cafe was also the first showing of a 2-1/2 minute high quality video promoting Motueka to the world. This video is the feature background to the website, and will also be viewable on the website LoveMotueka.com.

The video was created by Kyle Mulinder of Bare Kiwi, a very popular video website worldwide. His work over three long days of shooting and subsequent editing was also applauded by the meeting.

Johny explained that one of the major goals of the video was to drive web traffic to the OTM website, which will then benefit Motueka businesses. Heavy use is made of real local people enjoying the activities and locations around the town, rather than just showing iconic scenery.

The imagery used in the video, while very familiar to local people, is primarily aimed at getting more people to come to Motueka, and for those coming to spend more time here through being more aware of what is on offer, Johny said.

The OTM website also includes a new events calendar, which can be used by any business or member to post information about events that are likely to attract people from outside to come to Motueka.

Johny O'Donnell explains how to update the business directory

Comment by Sue Clark:
[Posted 16 January 2016]

It seems that a number of people have put a lot of energy, time and effort into producing the new website, hopefully our local businesses will make good use of it to promote their business activities. It's an awesome initiative.

Comment by Terri Everett:
[Posted 16 January 2016]

Great and exciting presentation. So proud to be part of this community.

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