Content Development Archives - Travel Alliance Partnership

Driving Awareness Through Engaging Marketing Content

Tim Lindner — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:22:47 +0000

How this Case Study may be relevant to you: This example of work illustrates Break the Ice Media’s strengths in developing content that inspires travel to the American Southwest.

Areas of Focus: sports and events, leisure travel, international travel, group travel, value of tourism in the community.

We built awareness and inspired travel through targeted email marketing and social media efforts.

Photo Credit: Southwest Adventure Tours

Situational Analysis

Based in Utah, Southwest Adventure Tours (SWAT) creates tours and adventures in the American Southwest and beyond. Their mission is to allow their guests to build lasting memories by creating exceptional experiences that will touch their hearts, minds and souls. SWAT specializes in tours to National Parks and offers a range of trips and unique itineraries for everyone from the adventure seeker to the leisure traveler.

SWAT hired Break the Ice Media to grow the brand presence for consumers, travel agents and other tour operators through focused and strategic marketing efforts

The Challenge

Implement creative and cohesive marketing efforts to boost growth.

Photo Credit: Southwest Adventure Tours

Objectives

Increase YOY sales.
Increase open and click through rates on all email marketing.
Develop engaging marketing content that drives awareness.
Nurture relationships with travel agents and past customers to drive repeat business.

Strategic Approach

Enhance positioning for SWAT.
Carry out key messages through all channels.
Supplement messaging through targeting digital channels.
Determine personalized messaging for travel trade and past customers.
Follow best practices to improve email marketing.
Create inspirational story content in multiple formats.
Post regularly on social media channels.
Optimize web content for organic and referral traffic.
Share relevant content with travel agents to build strong relationships.

Photo Credit: Southwest Adventure Tours

Tactics

Email Marketing: Send several emails a month targeting consumers, travel agents and tour operators.
Social Media: Utilize automated social media posting, rotating through several posts a week.
Reels: Create eye-catching reels that capitalize on trends and inspire travel.
Website: Ensure all tours are up to date on the SWAT website.

Results

First Five Months

44% open rate on consumer emails
2.3% clicks on consumer emails
21% increase in website traffic over the same period in 2022
Social media improvements compared to the previous five months:
- 8.4% increase in Facebook reach
- 41.3% increase in Facebook profile visits
- 12% increase in Facebook page likes
- 39.1% increase in Instagram followers
- 20.5% increase in Instagram engagement

Photo Credit: Southwest Adventure Tours

Result Highlights

Redesigned SWAT's email newsletter and started a dedicated and consistent email marketing campaign for three different audiences, sending 8 emails per month.
Developed 48 posts to promote National Parks, U.S. States, tour types and key messages.
Created quality reels to boost social media engagement and capitalize on current trends.

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The post Driving Awareness Through Engaging Marketing Content appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Tour Operator Ramps Up Business with Digital Ads and Content Strategy

Tim Lindner — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 20:58:22 +0000

How this Case Study may be relevant to you: This project involved developing a strategic marketing plan, Google advertising campaigns for lead generation, brand cross-promotion and content development for customer engagement.

By advertising through the second half of 2021, before many of their competitors, and staying top-of-mind with their customer base through regular content, Old Sod Travel positioned itself to ride the wave of "revenge travel" into business recovery.

Situational Analysis

Old Sod Travel is a luxury tour operator creating custom trips to Ireland and the UK for its high end customers. They acquired another tour company in 2018, Scandinavian American, a tour company creating trips throughout Scandinavia. The new addition brought the opportunity for new business with the ability to expand into new markets, leverage pre-existing relationships into new customers and offer new experiences to past customers.

The Challenge

Old Sod Travel found us in early 2021, looking for a way to jumpstart sales post pandemic even though much of Europe was still closed to American travelers. They also wanted to make sure to leverage their new company and ensure it wasn't confusing for customers.

Objectives

Generate short-term revenue in 2021
Increase lifetime value of customers
Build awareness with new audiences

Strategic Insight

In our research, we found that the affluent customer was restless to travel again.

We looked at the competition and saw that they had a uniquely personal travel planning experience for customers.

The two brands, while offering trips to different parts of the world, ended with 5-star experiences that customers rave about.

Old Sod Travel was in an optimal position to deliver memories that last a lifetime for travelers longing to get away again.

Strategic Approach

Cross-promote the two brands, expanding customers' opportunities to travel.
Relate Old Sod Travel's unique positioning into the customer journey.
Create connections to experiences by telling authentic stories.
Refresh the content strategy to create a solid online presence and inspire the audience.
Help potential clients understand the experience they would have on a trip.
Activate the existing customer database with new travel opportunities.
Deploy digital marketing strategies to reach consumers at the right time.

Tactics

Implement strategic Google Advertising campaigns
Create and optimize landing pages for conversions
Engage customers with monthly email newsletters

Results

First Year Results

3 PPC campaigns, 1 display and 1 retargeting campaign
4 landing pages created
385 conversions (lead forms submitted) from ads
2.87% conversion rate and 8.3% click through rate
69% of 6-month website traffic came from paid search
12 email newsletters sent with an avg. open rate of 28%

Second Year Results

Added PPC campaigns for Iceland & Norway
2 landing pages created
450 conversions from ads
3.6% conversion rate and 8.4% click through rate
37% of 9-month website traffic came from paid search
16 email newsletters sent with an avg. open rate of 36%

Result Highlights

Recovered Google Analytics account access to implement cohesive tracking for ads.
Optimized lead intake form and coordinated a data feed to the sales CRM system.
Revamped audience targeting in 2021, which greatly improved lead quality.
Added new itineraries to the website to provide more travel inspiration.
In 2022, "revenge travel" began and the advertising and content strategy paid off with new requests and past clients coming back to reactivate their postponed trips.
Refreshed the full strategic plan after 12 months to expand marketing efforts.

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The post Tour Operator Ramps Up Business with Digital Ads and Content Strategy appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Taking Charge of a Shoulder Season to Reposition Winter for Locals & Visitors

Tim Lindner — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 02:17:44 +0000

How this Case Study may be relevant to you: This campaign used the PESO model to develop a holistic approach to marketing, driving visitation and hotel occupancy within a destination.

We earned 5.61 million media impressions in just four months, created video content that received 18,038 YouTube views, and 52,036 Facebook views. The campaign was covered by Huffington Post and The Weather Channel, and won 6 industry awards.

Note: Visit Syracuse is the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) for Syracuse, New York and Onondaga County’s official Tourism Promotion Agency (TPA).

Photo Credit: Visit Syracuse

Situational Analysis

In Syracuse & Central New York, winter is off-season for tourism. With the region’s snowy reputation, hotel occupancies fall to nearly 40% in January from highs of 80% in August (functionally sold out). Yet, top attractions operate all year. For growth to occur, it must be in winter.

With a need to generate higher levels of hotel occupancy during the winter season, Visit Syracuse was looking to change the perception of winter vacations in Syracuse and Central New York.

The Challenge

To succeed, Visit Syracuse needed to overcome negative perceptions—both internal & external. In addition, they couldn’t rely on typical advertising and promotions which historically showed little return.

Photo Credit: Visit Syracuse

Objectives

Position Syracuse and CNY as the “Official Home of Winter”
Prioritize spending to the most lucrative target markets
Communicate with stakeholders
Build social media and video content

Strategic Insight

Syracuse and Central NY doesn’t just handle winter – they embrace it.

Messaging and positioning are extremely important for influencing and, in this case, changing a visitor’s perception of the destination. This multi-faceted campaign created awareness of Syracuse as a winter destination as groundwork for moving the needle on shoulder season visitation.

Photo Credit: Visit Syracuse

Strategic Approach

Create a simple message: Syracuse owns winter, has fun with it and is proud of it.
Permeate Visit Syracuse’s channels with positive winter messaging for locals, visitors and stakeholders.
Humorously position CNY as a fun destination in all seasons.

Photo Credit: Visit Syracuse

Destiny USA Street Team

Winter Welcome Rally

Six More Weeks!

Winter is interviewed by Jim Cantore, The Weather Channel, at Punxsutawney's Groundhog Day

Tactics

Destiny USA Installation & Street Team: Created and installed a wall display for shoppers to take & post winter-themed photos with 6 fun characters. A street team and video crew on Dec. 10 encouraged visitors to use the photo wall and collect testimonials for use in future videos.
Meet “Winter” Video Series: An actor in seasonal makeup, “Winter” became the spokesperson for the overall campaign, showing the season as fun-loving, irreverent and always interesting. Meet Winter video series launched twice weekly on social media.
Winter Welcome Rally: In a “fake news” press conference, timed for the quietest news week of the year, “Winter” was welcomed to his official hometown. State, county & municipal officials took part in the good-natured event, along with several reporters.
Visit Syracuse FAM Trip: A familiarization tour for 8 travel journalists visited Syracuse in conjunction with the Winter Welcome Rally.
Six More Weeks: The team “hacked” America’s #1 annual weather story, Punxsutawney’s Groundhog Day, with a PR stunt built on a creative news hook. The team bucked common desire for early spring and “protested” for 6 more weeks of winter. The team used social media/streaming video to amplify the message, trailed by an imbedded video crew hired to draw attention & capture B-roll.
Blog: Continued Winter’s exploration of his home with a blog written in his voice, posted on the Visit Syracuse website, Facebook & Twitter.

Results

The campaign generated goodwill and support from local elected officials and piqued the interest of tourism partners who re-evaluated winter as a viable market.

Photo Credit: Visit Syracuse

Result Highlights

Over the course of 5 weeks, 9 videos featuring Winter were released, receiving 18,038 total views on YouTube and 52,036 total views on Facebook
Generated significant media attention with 561,442,540 total impressions in just four months from 38 placements, including stories on Huffington Post and The Weather Channel.
Hosted 11 writers on media fams. Collectively, they posted 156 times in addition to Retweeting VisitSyracuse posts.

Award Recognition

Ragan's PR Daily, Publicity Stunt
Gold HSMAI Adrian, Integrated Marketing Campaign
Gold Davey, Promotional/Branding
Gold MarCom, Public Relations Program
Bronze Telly, Video/Shows/Segments
PRSA PRism, Creative Tactics

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The post Taking Charge of a Shoulder Season to Reposition Winter for Locals & Visitors appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Funding a Capital Campaign by Connecting a Community

Tim Lindner — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:18:22 +0000

How this Case Study may be relevant to you: This project involved several tactics to engage the community and officials to bring attention and raise funds for a capital campaign project. From public relations and a social media contest, to event planning and a newsletter, we supported the campaign committee with mass outreach to the community that loves the park.

We earned 1.9 million PR impressions through 27 media placements, planned three press events and coordinated a contest on social media to curate user generated content.

Dedication by Governor Andrew Cuomo Photo Credit: Letchworth State Park

Situational Analysis

In early 2014, Letchworth State Park announced plans to build a new, four-season facility known as the Letchworth Nature Center. The park received a design grant for $288,000 through the New York Works Park Capital Improvement Fund and State grants. NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo also pledged his support by agreeing to match any funds raised by the park in a two-third share.

The Challenge

The Letchworth Nature Center Committee needed to raise approximately $2.1 million over the course of two years in order to be able to move forward with planning and construction. They needed to raise funds and build community support quickly to see this project take off.

Photo Credit: Letchworth State Park

Objectives

Increase awareness of the Letchworth Nature Center project.
Build attention for the public portion of the fundraising efforts.
Establish the need for public/private partnerships.
Position the Letchworth Nature Center as a leader in collaborative project development.
Drive the public phase of private fundraising efforts.
Build credibility for the project to assist the committee in securing major gifts.

Strategic Insight

Nostalgia & Connectedness.

750,000 visitors come to Letchworth State Park each year, many have been visiting the park since they were young and have strong memories made in the park. Our strategy focused around leveraging that emotional connection and encouraging the Letchworth community to “be a part of the story.”

Photo Credit: Letchworth State Park

Strategic Approach

Create a campaign to engage and excite the public and mobilize them to contribute.
Create interest at the local level through public relations, creating alliances with Chambers and service clubs and enlisting the help of business owners.
Leverage the reach of Letchworth State Park and partner communication channels to spark public interest.

Photo Credit: Letchworth State Park

Tactics

Public Relations: pitching, press releases, and media efforts to generate media coverage around major campaign milestones and construction updates.
Event Planning: campaign kick-off, groundbreaking and final ribbon cutting.
Leveraging Current Events & Opportunities: signage, booth coordination and messaging used at pre-existing park events, like the annual highly-attended Letchworth Arts & Crafts Show.
Newsletter: sent monthly to current and potential donors to share project updates and encourage continued support and giving.
Social Media Management: shared campaign updates on Letchworth State Park’s Facebook page to bolster already attentive fans and community.
User Generated Content: we developed a contest to collect and share audience stories and childhood memories of Letchworth State Park, further encouraging a sense of community. A winner was selected to win a stay at the Park's Glenn Iris Inn.

Results

The Letchworth Capital Committee reached their full goal:

Raised over $2.1 million dollars within the timeline
In July 2016, construction was completed of the Humphrey Nature Center at Letchworth State Park

Over $16,000 was raised just within three days of attendance at the Letchworth Arts & Crafts Show – showing the true impact that community had on the overall success of the campaign.

Photo Credit: Larry Tetamore

Result Highlights

Over 1.9 million impressions through 27 print and digital media placements directly mentioning the campaign.
8.4% growth of Letchworth State Park’s Facebook page.
Attendance at the groundbreaking by high-level state officials including Commissioner of Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Rose Harvey, and New York State
- Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul gave speeches in support of the project.
- Attendance at the ribbon cutting event by New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo.

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The post Funding a Capital Campaign by Connecting a Community appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.