South West Wales Tourism Partnership

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Case Study: Product Campaign Websites


All SWWTP consortia led marketing campaigns went through major re-designs in 2005 -All campaign activity is now based around online media in order to eliminate duplication of effort, add value for regional businesses and organisations and demonstrate best practice in context of website design incorporating DDA legislation and ethical principles of new media activity- new sites went live in January 2006………………….

The websites are designed on the basis of three main principles;

to be complementary to rather than duplicate what’s out there and take advantage of national adventure marketing for regional businesses and destinations – the www.AsWildAsYouWantIt.com site has recently been chosen as a good practice case study by consultants for the new Outdoor Activity Framework in preparation via VisitWales/WAG
to be ‘best practice’ in terms of DDA and general design principles (one of the sites was voted new site of the month by the Guild of Accessible Web Designers www.onebiggarden.com immediately following its launch while another, www.inspirationalwales.com was short listed for the RNIB Visionary Awards)
to underpin and assist in development of visitwales – i.e. encourage population of visitwales.com through integration as far as possible with the national Destination Management System (DMS) and activity
Spend on the sites from functional spec through to design and optimisation of text etc. was approx £25k per site. Annual spend per campaign (to include all activity and continued development of sites) is approx £75-80k. Partner income contributes roughly £25-35k

The sites were originally Search Engine optimised and continue to be reviewed and re-optimised by Spannerworks (www.spannerworks.com) with input from our agency Designate and also the consortia and SWWTP Exec.

The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is proving effective as in the last 2 months all sites continue to rise in terms of visibility and appearances in the 1-10 positions on Search Engines including Google and Yahoo (by 15% on average).

By end of summer 2006, figures are anticipated to be averaging 4000 unique users per month per site rising to a minimum of 6000 per month by Autumn 06.

Crucially, we are looking at a conversion level of ‘product to operator’ page activity of 20% by the autumn.

The above is another underlying principle of all three campaign websites.

i.e campaigns aim to hook visitors in by a combination of good SEO and e-letter/ e-shots etc. and then ensure that they leave the site having found the link to exactly what they need. This may be further detailed destination information or operator specific contact details. The latter obviously relies heavily on the operators taking advantage of the leads and converting them into real business.

From the point of view of tracking conversion at operator level, previously, we have relied heavily on feedback made at meetings and basic web stats however from June 06 figures have been enhanced in terms of detail level by the use of ‘Hitbox’, a detailed web statistics programme. The specific behaviour of site visitors in relation to product interest (i.e destination, sector and operator pages) will be further monitored. This will provide additional data essential for ROI calculations and inform future campaign planning, and investment priorities ion the context of resource allocation.

Pay Per Click (PPC):

PPC activity has been limited simply because we work across the consortia to try to ensure that we are not all bidding for similar terms as between national, local destination and private operator activity this is an occupational hazard. The campaigns, by the partnership nature in which they operate, are constantly trying to balance the need for increased traffic to sites with non-duplication of activity.

Benefits to the approach taken (i.e. consortia led and online based):

Regional engagement and cooperation e.g. consortia partners are asked to ‘sign-up’ to a terms of reference document.

This means that a cluster of operators (sometimes as many as 20 organisations) meet regularly to discuss a range of issues, not just marketing.

E.g. through the activity campaign ‘cluster’ sign up to Green Dragon Level 2 and increased exchange of best practice in environmental and business practice sharing is encouraged. For this reason a ‘bulletin board’ facility is now in operation on the site for members.

The Consortias, brought together initially with the marketing activity as a core concern are now in a position to assist with achieving national marketing objectives more effectively via participation in online and DM activity, exhibition work (e.g. a Wild West Wales area is staffed by operators on the Wales general stand) and also by providing product for email communications, competitions and work with in store and online work and as a result have an improved channel to promote their own businesses/organisations.

SWW as a region is encouraging the generation of increased product (in comparison to other parts of Wales) presenting on visitwales as a result of encouraging sign up of accommodation and activity operators as a means of participation.

Print: The decision to go for low print runs of high quality publications has been well received and is proving far more economical in terms of both financial and time resources. Print is used at specific events for partner activity (e.g. Outdoor Show at NEC where Wild West Wales operators shared space with VisitWales).

For the first time, and owing to its high quality nature, the cultural product campaign print ‘Inspirational South West Wales’ was accepted for display at the Hay Literature Festival – a festival that proves exceptionally hard to gain access to in terms of print dissemination.

Consumers are encouraged to use the online trip planner facility to tailor their own interests and availability of this facility is one of the principal messages given in marketing activity.

In general, the campaigns, by the partnership nature in which they operate, are constantly trying to balance the need for increased traffic to sites with non-duplication of activity, i.e. being as competitive as possible externally but non-competitive internally.

Future Activity

Future activity in next 12 months will focus on;

SEO – review and additions (particularly based around events)
Selective PPC
retention and acquisition activity – mail and email and online advertising with specific sites (e.g. Surfers against Sewage, RHS etc.)
communicating with current database – currently approx 20000
using Acquisition lists and the above activity to encourage sign up to database for special events/offers and e-communications
buy in to VW activity where appropriate (E.G. current levels of requests via Adventure activity are around 10000 since collaboration began)
limited print production, and that purely for exhibition work to drive traffic to websites and encourage use of trip planner facility
A new addition, i.e. Partner/Consortia email newsletters- the first of which went out at end of June, provides quarterly updates, links to news items and examples of activity and advice on online business development
 
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