View
225
Download
0
Category
Tags:
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
A campaign report detailing the promotion of the Isle of Wight
Citation preview
1
Digital PR: The Internet and Social Media
Group Campaign Report
2
Content Page Number List of Illustrations 4
Situation 5
Objective 6
Audience 8
Strategy 9
Tactics 17
Timings & Implications 26
Budget 27
Campaign Measurement & Evaluation 28
List of References 29
3
1. List of Illustrations Fig. 1 – Quarter one visitor results
Fig. 2 – Quarter two visitor results
Fig. 3 – Quarter three visitor results
Fig. 4 – Quarter four visitor results
Fig. 5 – Affluent older couple
Fig. 6 – Family
Fig. 7 – International tourist
Fig. 8 – Sports Enthusiasts
Fig. 9 – Students
Fig. 10 – Social media illustration
Fig. 11- Demonstrates the current Isle of Wight Facebook page
Fig. 12- Tumblr dashboard
Fig. 13- Mock Twitter account
Fig. 14- YouTube
Fig. 15- WordPress
Fig. 16- Demonstration Disqus page
4
2. Situation Background
The client requires a proposed digital communications strategy that the Isle
of Wight council can implement over the year 2012. The current situation on
the Isle of Wight in terms of tourism is fairly similar to that of previous
years.
Peak season covers the summer period, and then the rest of the year
sees a decline in the number of people visiting the island. The island
has not seen a year peak that of Summer 2003. The lowest tourist
numbers are in the first quarter of each year, where domestic and
leisure visits decrease.
Campaign
The brief is for a one-year retainer campaign with a budget of £50,000.
Aim
The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness online of the island as a
summer holiday and weekend break destination, ultimately driving traffic to
www.islandbreaks.co.uk
5
3. Objectives The objective of this campaign is to implement an online campaign in order
to increase the number of visitors who book their trips through
islandbreaks.co.uk. Specifically targeting key audiences, which are profiled
through research conducted into current island visitor data and calendar
events. The campaign aims to draw traffic to the island throughout the
duration of the year.
Specifically the contents of our campaign will revolve around a variety of
appropriate online resources – websites and social media such as Facebook,
Twitter, Tumblr, video websites, online newspapers and blogs. These
channels act as a commenting platform, to help popularise The Isle of Wight
over the period of year 2012. Each digital platform will be used to reach out
to a selected target audience by distributing information, photos and videos
of the island, promoting competitions, gathering users' feedback,
participating in conversations about tourism and related activities. Using a
calendar corresponding to the one of Isle of Wight's events, usage of each
platform will be carefully monitored, with focus being placed on specific
channels according to the happenings on the Isle. Carefully chosen
partnerships assisting in attracting people's attention, combined with the
use of the above-mentioned online channels, web traffic will ultimately be
driven to www.islandbreaks.co.uk as per the client's request.
a. Specific
To increase the amount of traffic to islandbreaks.co.uk via a digital
media communication strategy implemented over the course of one
year.
b. Measurable
The success of the campaign can be measured through the social
channels deemed appropriate for the audiences.
c. Achievable
The success of the campaign will be achieved on a budget of £50,000
across one year.
d. Realistic
6
There are many online resources available at no additional cost.
e. Time
This year long campaign will involve
7
4. Audience
4.1. Profiling the audience
This stage of the report focuses on the research, development and
construction of an audience core, relevant to the product and brand.
Important to the success of the campaign, is establishing a diverse group of
audiences, that build on and strengthen the existing markets, whilst also
exploring the option of introducing new and potential audience groups to
contribute in adding value to the campaign and ultimately the brand,
driving more traffic to www.islandbreaks.co.uk as outlined in the brief.
4.2. Researching the market
The graphs below show the trends within the existing market of
consumers/visitors in terms of the average number of visits to the island
each week compared to previous years for the four quarters of the calendar
year. These graphs, collected from the Isle of Wight Council website, show a
steady number of visitors to the island across the year in correlation with
major events and key dates on the island. The graphs also indicate the
opportunities for growth and expansion, in terms of strengthening existing
markets and developing new ones.
Fig. 2. Quarter two results of average number of visitors to the island per week 2010 compared to previous years.
Fig.1. Quarter one results of average number of visitors to the island per week 2010 compared to previous years.
8
Fig. 4 Quarter four results of average number of visitors to the island per week 2010 compared to previous years.
Fig.3. Peak season/Quarter three results of average number of visitors to the island per week 2010 compared to previous years.
Fig. 4. Quarter four results of average number of visitors to the island per week 2010 compared to previous years.
9
3.3 Defining the audience
Group 1 Affluent older couples
Age: Range from 40+
Occupation(s): Executives or retired
Interests: Arts, culture, history, social events, travelling
Why the Isle of Wight?: The island offers a number activities that would
interest this audience, things such as ‘Cowes week’ in August or beer and
wine festivals, this category has a wide disposable income and therefore fall
into the top three of the audience groups, because they also have a wide
amount of time to spare, and are compliant with loyal brand attitudes.
Group 2 Families
Age: Parents middle aged with children up to the age of around 14/15
Occupation: Stay at home mum/Father who works
Interests: Family activities, holiday breaks during time off school, weekend
short breaks
Why the Isle of Wight?: The isle of Wight offers a number of attractions to
families , such as things for the kids, like Halloween specials ‘Wizard Week’
or ‘The Victorian Christmas’ as well as more family orientated events like
Fig. 6 Family on beach
Fig. 5 Affluent older couple
10
the New Year’s ‘Hangover Special’ or ‘Carnivals’.
Group 3 International Market (tourists)
Age: Any age range
Occupation: Tourists to the UK
Interests: Travelling, sightseeing, events and local attractions
Why the Isle of Wight?: Fully exploiting the Olympic games, a number of
foreign visitors will be in the UK over the summer months of 2012, with
events like ‘Heritage open days’ as well as sporting 'events like ‘Walk the
Wight’ ‘The Wight Challenge’ and ‘Island Games’ offering something for this
audience group, to complement their travel and visit to the UK.
Group 4 Sports Enthusiasts
Age: 20-50
Occupation: City workers, middle class
Interests: Sightseeing, keeping fit, sports related, camping
Fig. 8 Sports enthusiasts cycling
Fig. 7 International tourist
11
Why the Isle of Wight?: With a diverse amount of sporting events on the
island, and the perfect landscape for many endurance, and recreational
sports, the island is already world famous for numerous events sport related
over the year.
Group 5 Students
Age: 16-25
Occupation: Students
Interests: Music, films, pop culture, gigs, socialising, camping
Why the Isle of Wight?: Building on the success of ‘The isle of Wight
Festival’ and ‘Bestival’ there is a strong market here, that return year in
year out, that as of yet haven’t been fully exposed to the other
opportunities and attractions on the island.
3.4. Reaching the audience Having defined the audience, the next relevant step is profiling their online
activity and making sure, that they are accessible to the campaign, and will
be able to use content generated by the social media outlets we provide. As
important in the content generated through the sites, in terms of being
relevant to different groups developed later in the report. Below is an
illustration produced in September 2011, that shows the variation of
different groups online, accessing relevant media.
Fig. 9 Students at festival
12
Fig.10. Illustration of social media technologies and exactly which audiences are active members of
different channels
13
5. Strategy This campaign is going to use a variety of appropriate online resources –
websites and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, video
websites, online newspapers and blogs and a commenting platform, to help
popularize The Isle of Wight over the period of year 2012. Each digital
platform will be used to reach out to a selected target audience by
distributing information, photos and videos of the island, holding contests,
gathering users' feedback, participating in conversations about tourism and
related activities. Using a calendar corresponding to the one of Isle of
Wight's events, usage of each platform will be carefully monitored, with
focus being placed on specific ones according to the happenings on the Isle.
Carefully chosen partnerships assisting in attracting people's attention,
combined with the use of the previously described online channels, web
traffic will ultimately be driven to www.islandbreaks.co.uk as per the
client's request.
5.1. Tumblr
Tumblr is a website that allows people to post text, photos links, music, and
videos, from a browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever someone happen
to be. (Tumblr, 2011)
Tumblr is different from the famous social media (Facebook, Twitter or
LinkedIn) as it is a ‘cross between social networking and blogging’ (Courtney
Burton, 29 November 2011). Moreover, it is really simple to use: ‘Anytime a
user sees something interesting online, they can click a quick “Share on
Tumblr” bookmark that then tumbles the snippet directly.’ (Crunchbase,
2011). Furthermore, it is an important social media to acknowledge as ‘87%
of its users are regulars, it’s becoming a little virtual, worldwide, society’
with ‘over 38,000 posts per minutes’. (Courtney Burton, 29 November 2011).
14
The audience addressed via this channel are mainly young people as
half of the users are students: ‘56% of the service’s 25.2 million
monthly visitors are under 34’ (Juliana Allen, 2011).
5.2. Press Releases
Press Releases will be sent to these audiences: families, people who do
sport or like it, and students. To keep those particular audiences aware of
what is going on the Isle of Wight.
5.3. Facebook
Facebook is the social media site used by a variety of different audiences.
This social channel website ‘connects friends, family, and business
associates’ (Wisegeek, 2011). Facebook is an effective way of engaging with
key audiences and offers many opportunities to promote aspects of our
campaign.
Affluent families
Couples
Students
People with an interest in sports
As ‘there are 800 million active users’ and an estimated 200 million people
logging on to Facebook everyday day, this is a huge platform to
communicate from. (Facebook, 2011)
Currently there is already a Facebook page named ‘The Isle of Wight’ (Fig
1). There is a significant amount of current ‘likes’ already established on
the current page. Therefore it would take a considerable amount of time to
create an entirely new page in aid of this campaign. That is why, the
existing page will be used by making improvements.
15
Fig 1: Demonstration of current Isle of Wight Facebook page
How will it be enhanced?
Regular updates and news detailing different events both that have
been and are yet to come.
Image and video uploads reflecting visitor’s experiences. All of which
are updated within a labelled photo album.
To create a special page for each event happening on the island in
order to persuade the audience to visit.
The website link will be detailed throughout the page.
Daily updated status’ in order to appear on individuals news feeds.
For example: ‘Sunshine all weekend! Who’s coming to visit the island?
For more in formation go on http://www.islandbreaks.co.uk/’ or
‘Don’t forget to reserve your weekend for the carnival. For more in
formation go on http://www.islandbreaks.co.uk/’.
16
5.4. Tumblr
The attention of the audience will be engaged by posting what’s happening
on the island. There will be posts updated via the ‘Dashboard’ (Figure 2):
People unique experiences on the island (using the ‘Text’ tool).
Pictures of events and images of the island in general will be
uploaded.
Direct feedback from people who went on the island (using the
‘Quote’ tool). For example: ‘What an amazing and surprising island!’
The link ‘http://www.islandbreaks.co.uk/’ will be added with every
post.
Chat for people who have questions or want some advice.
Videos: Sporting events, a montage of family holidays, music festivals
etc.
Fig 2: Dashboard (30/11/11 16:13)
5.5. Press Releases
Press releases will be sent at least two to three times a month. In
particular, the online magazines and newspapers listed below are the most
likely sites visited by the different audiences.
17
Families:
http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
http://www.familiesonline.co.uk
www.holidayswithkids.com,
http://www.myfamilymagazine.co.uk,
http://www.familyholidayandleisure.com/
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/
http://www.families-for-children.co.uk/
http://familyfriendlysites.com/
Sport:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport
http://www.sportawayholidays.com/,
http://www.sportsnetholidays.com
http://www.skysports.com/
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/sports-channel.htm
http://www.mysportsite.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport
http://www.uksport.gov.uk/
Student:
http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.thenationalstudent.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.last.fm/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk/
http://www.veoh.com/ (forum)
http://www.student365.co.uk/
http://www.skysports.com/
18
http://www.studentuk.com/
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/
http://www.younilife.com/
5.6. Partnerships
After understanding the key audiences targeted by our campaign and a
number of social channels that effectively communicate with those groups a
number of partnerships have been developed in order to appeal specifically
to our audiences.
Nectar card customers: A partnership aimed at the affluent older
couples and families. Nectar points are collectable throughout the
year and will therefore run the full length of the campaign.
Groupon: This partnership is effectively directed at students and
families. The groupon voucher site offers exclusive discounts on
activities and trips of all kinds taking place on the island.
Blacks: The Blacks/Millets campaign is directly aimed at the sports
enthusiasts, students and festival goers who may benefit from the
products available in this outdoor equipment store.
Oyster Card customers: The reasons for choosing Oyster as the final
partnership is to promote the island to the international audience,
visiting over the course of the Olympic Games.
5.7. Promotions
Using promotions throughout the campaign year will encourage
activity across all social channels. Promotions will run in conjunction
with events and offers associated with the island and will also
promote our partnerships. Ultimately the promotions will drive traffic
to islandbreaks.co.uk.
19
6. Tactics
6.1. Partnerships
Using the partnerships to implement tactic will allows for each audience to
benefit from the range of discounts and offers via various methods. The
partnerships will be supporting the campaign throughout the year and
suitably coinciding with events taking place on the island.
Nectar Card (Double club card points): ‘Swapping one Isle for
another’. This partnership aims to offer an opportunity to use Nectar
points. This partnership aims to offer a variety of the audiences an
opportunity to use their Nectar points in exchange for discounts and
offers exchangeable through islandbreaks.co.uk. Effectively this
partnership will run throughout the duration of the campaign.
Islandbreaks.co.uk will benefit from the publicity on the Nectar
website and by incorporating the Nectar logo in the islandbreaks.com
homepage visitors are reminded that their points equal days out on
the island. Effectively this partnership will run throughout the
duration of the campaign. Islandbreaks.co.uk will benefit from the
publicity on the Nectar website and by incorporating the Nectar logo
into the islandbreaks.co.uk homepage visitors are reminded that their
points equal days out on the island. This partnership will run
throughout the campaign year.
Groupon: Once a month islandbreaks.co.uk offer a discount on
activities or weekends away. Groupon users can purchase the offer
and are directed to the island breaks website in order to confirm
their booking and select the dates in which they want to visit.
Blacks (Millets): In conjunction with the events being held on the
island regarding festivals, camping or walking. Customers at Blacks
are offered a 20% discount on relevant outdoor equipment and
20
clothing. During selected times of the year when booking activities
through island Breaks.
Oyster card customers ‘Travel further this summer you’re your
Oyster card’: Registered oyster cardholders are offered the
opportunity to use their card as a method of discounted ferry travel
Red Funnel Ferries during the Olympic weeks.
6.2. Twitter
The social networking and micro-blogging service Twitter will be used to
create an account for quick but efficient ways to connect with a large
portion of the campaign's target audience. Tweets with relevant information
about the islands up and coming events and the campaign itself will be
posted, links to photos/videos/posts on the other channels used in the
campaign, as well as links directing traffic to the Island Breaks website. The
account will be used to join and start conversations with users interested in
island-related topics like tourism, camping, music festivals and so on.
The account will follow organisations connected with The Isle of Wight such
as @iwight, @IsleOfWightFest , @iwightradio and @iwcponline, as well as
the campaign's partnerships, @groupon, @sainsburys etc. Via these follower
based connections, buzz will be created around the campaign's purpose and
progress by using Twitter's re-tweet feature, with the campaign's tweets
reaching the above mentioned organisations' followers. (Fig 2).
21
Fig 2: Demonstrates Twitter account
On occasion, competitions such as 'Best 140 characters or less description of
the island' will be held, with the prizes for the winners decided and
provided by Island Breaks.
6.3. Facebook
The strategy that we intend to implement via Facebook aims to
communicate with a variety of our target audiences by creating a new
Facebook page called ‘The Official Isle Experience’ or ‘The Isle of Wight
Official Page’. Currently there is already an Isle of Wight page active on
Facebook. However by regularly updating and using the additional pages and
a variety of additional applications these new pages intend to be marginally
better compared to ‘The Isle of Wight’ page. (Figure 1)
6.4. YouTube and DailyMotion
22
The two largest video sharing websites www.youtube.com and
www.dailymotion.com will be used to upload and share video content with
the target audiences. Special backstage clips and interviews from specific
events, teaser videos about upcoming ones and such will be posted in both
accounts (Fig 3).
These websites will be used to interact with the user base and create
contests via the video response features. Depending on the topic of the
original video, the 'best' response video would win the prize provided by
island breaks or partnerships (on whose websites' the video can embed).
All content posted on both websites will be used to raise awareness about
the Isle of Wight through videos and short clips, in the description portion of
which the link to the island breaks website will be conveniently placed –
easily visible and accessed.
Fig 3: Demonstrates Isle of Wight YouTube page.
23
WordPress (Blog)
6.5. A blog account (“The Wight Experience”) will be created on the
popular and widely used website WordPress.com as a main means for
reputations management. (Fig 4) The website provides options to
share entries across blogs as well as on Twitter and Facebook, which
would benefit the campaign as it's a way to raise awareness. Each
entry will be dedicated to a specific event or occurrence on The Isle
of Wight, without going into too much detail. At the end of each
post, the blog's visitors will be prompted to share their experience of
the Isle on that particular day or during said week. Through this, the
target audience's feedback will be not only monitored and responded
to but also available to people who have yet to visit the Isle as well.
Fig: Demonstrates WordPress page
Using the PollDaddy plugin feature, polls will be included in posts to better
categorize visitors' experiences. Highly positive results will be shared across
channels to create a buzz.
24
Traffic will be driven to islandbreaks.co.uk by linking to the website in each
blog post, using users' positive feedback as tag lines or quotes to attract
attention and interact with visitors.
6.6. Disqus
The online discussion and commenting platform Disqus will be installed on
the blog account. It will enable visitors to log into their social network or
email accounts and comment. If the user chooses, their comment ends up
being cross-posted under the blog entry as well as on their social network
account (if they've logged on such) profile. This way, feedback covers a
wide range of channels and is highly useful to the campaign's main purpose
of raising awareness.
Fig 5: Demonstration of Disqus page.
25
6.7. Google Analytics Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you
rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.
Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze
your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more
prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives
and create higher converting websites.
6.8. Additional Recommendations
Smartphone Application
Although an additional extra and added cost, this application ties in with
the entire campaign and calendar year with the potential to run over many
years.
The aim of the app is to act as a social calendar for smartphone users to the
island. Once downloaded the individual is shown a list of interests ranging
from music, outdoor activities and food and drink establishments. Once a
variety of interests have been selected the individual is then registered to
events and activities taking place throughout the year related to their
interests. Notifications are then directly sent to smart phone notify the
individual weeks in advance of the event with details. The individual can
decide whether or not they wish to attend and if so, a link will take them
directly to www.islandbreaks.com to book their accommodation and or
tickets.
There is great potential for this application to return on its development
costs. Not only can this idea be applied to a smartphone application, there
is an opportunity to create the same application for Facebook which would
broaden the variety of audiences.
26
27
28
7. Timings & Implications Timings and implications focus heavily around user/audience specific
content generated via suitable social channels and at relevant times of the
year. The campaign will incorporate a continuous online presence over the
year long period. However the intermittent streamlined approach of raising
awareness and levels of interaction with each group with vary throughout
the year. This will enable savings on resources such as money and time, and
ensures that content is relevant and effectively meets the desired campaign
aims.
Influencing factors such as timings and social events/activities on the island
will shape much of the timings and implications in the campaign, and should
help to produce relevant content for each user/audience groups.
Understanding the different audiences’ and having completed user profiles
means being able to generate and aim content that fits their profile in
terms of availability during the year and likely interests. For example
targeting the international market at Christmas, who are likely to have left
the UK after the Olympics, is irrelevant to that market and ineffective for
the campaign.
Below is a list of each audience group and the specific times of the year
where they will be the focus of online drives, incentives and high levels of
interaction:
Families – school holidays, short weekend breaks
Affluent older couples – short weekends, major holiday seasons,
relevant events such as ‘Cowes week’
International Market – June to September (The Olympics)
Sports Enthusiasts – specific events such as ‘the Wight Challenge’,
‘Island Games’ ‘Walk the Wight’, camping season
Students – Summer season, festivals, camping
29
This approach adds value to the campaign in presenting the brand as diverse
and relevant to a number of audiences for different reasons, and will make
interaction more effective adding value to the brand and prompting positive
user/audience response to the campaign.
30
8. Budget Allocation of the budget has been determined by evaluating exactly where
the majority of time will be spent. Of the £50,000 budget which has been
allocated, a summarised budget has been comprised.
Wired PR works at a rate of £100 an hour. Of which the following
developments are made, regularly.
Account Management- Monitoring of success, Google Analytics etc.
6 hours p/w- £15,600
Publicity- Updating social media channels (Content, press, news etc.)
6 hours p/w- £
Promotions/Prize Partnerships
2 hours p/w-£5,200
Total: £46,800
31
9. Campaign Measurement & Evaluation
The success of this campaign will be measured via a number of sources.
Ultimately the value of the proposed online communications strategy will
develop from the structure of the campaign.
9.1. Measuring online responses
On Twitter, the number of followers the account has is going to be
taken in mind. Focus is going to be placed on each tweet’s amount of
re-tweets. For further detail and specifics, the website
www.Klout.com will be used to measure the account’s influence and
popularity.
Regarding the video giants YouTube and DailyMotion, the number of
views on each video, as well as the number of comments it has
received, is going to be monitored daily. In addition, the number of
video responses to videos on both websites is going to be taken into
account.
On the WordPress-hosted “The Wight Experience” blog, each entry’s
number of comments will be easily monitored using the platform
Disqus’ features.
Competitons
32
List of References
Recommended