Blog Archives

Website design and marketing success for a brand new venue.

October 16, 2019

At the start of 2020, the Barn on the Pemi in Plymouth, NH had been open for 18 months.  It had also exceeded its total financial projections by 40%.  How?  A website precisely designed for the Barn’s target customer and a digital campaign that generates thousands of qualified leads each year.  Here’s how we made that happen.

New venues – whether hotels, restaurants, or event spaces – all face three key challenges in digital marketing:

  1. Launching a website that inspires sales leads long before the venue exists
  2. Evolving content strategically to keep pace as the venue development evolves
  3. Once the venue debuts, implementing a high-octane marketing campaign with enough staying power to shepherd success past the “new venue buzz” phase and well into sustainable growth

When the folks launching Barn on the Pemi asked us to build and then market their new website, we took one look at the architecture and design plans…and we drooled (it’s pretty gorgeous).  Then we wiped the drool, rolled up our sleeves, and implemented a timeline with military precision that went like this:

Jan 2018:  Debuted thebarnonthepemi.com (after extensive brand positioning discussions to craft the appropriate vibe and tone) with area visuals, design drawings, inspirational descriptions, and sophisticated RFP tool.

Feb – April 2018:  Launched thoughtful digital campaign to foster search traction and visibility for the site, while also adding regular enhancements to content:  construction updates, new photography, event opportunities.

April – May 2018:  Enhanced the site fully with breathtaking inspirational photography showing styled detail and vignette shots of the venue in “soft opening” mode, along with staged “wedding scene” photos.  Escalated intensity and reach of digital marketing campaign.

June 2018:  Barn is fully open and hosts first few weddings…a system is immediately put in place to get consent from couples and photographers to use their event images on the website moving forward.  Also, a comprehensive digital marketing campaign is launched, which includes an integrated three-pronged strategy for generating referral traffic, organic traffic, and paid advertising (PPC) traffic…with a strong focus on sales lead generation and RFP completion.

Fall 2018:  Quarterly analytics review drives decision to build and launch more robust online gallery, and orchestrate year-long shot list to diversify images by season, style, and special features.

Dec 2018:  Barn ends the year with 1,200 qualified leads coming through the RFP tool, 44% more weddings than projected, and revenue projections exceeded by 40%.

2019:  Continued targeted digital strategy in place, with consistent focus on growing reach with the three-pronged approach.  Quarterly analytics review discussion with the sales team aligns planned strategies with evolving business goals, and aligns messaging with emerging business patterns.

And where did things stand as 2020 arrived?  Here are some stats for you geeky types:

  • Traffic to the site was up 25% year-over-year
  • Bounce rate was down 15% year-over-year
  • Lead generation was up 32% year-over-year
  • Sales projections for 2019 were exceeded by 40%

Fast forward to late 2021 – ahem, skipping over “the pandemic months” – and Barn on the Pemi is in its strongest position to date.  In fact, Wednesday Weddings are now “a thing” because the venue is booked every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and most Mondays and Thursdays as well.

And stay tuned because we’ll be unveiling a completely redesigned website for the Barn in early 2022!

Integrated social influencer & content campaign: The AFAR ambassador program for USTOA.

September 18, 2019

Five years.  Six continents.  21 countries.  10 states.  27 tour operators.  And countless cups of coffee (and perhaps a few adult beverages) to lend adrenaline support.

That’s what it took to orchestrate this complex, long-term partnership program for the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA) and AFAR Magazine that culminated in 2019.

Flashback to 2013, as we assessed USTOA’s strategic growth runway:  We saw a need to create a robust content strategy that could evolve over several years to support new consumer communication channels the association planned to unfold.  One key initiative we designed within the content strategy was the USTOA AFAR Ambassadors Program.

What is it?

The program was a multi-year (2014-2018) integrated content development initiative that sent prolific journalists/social influencers (dubbed “AFAR Ambassadors”) around the world with USTOA members.  Each of the 15 ambassadors had immersive tour experiences armed with a list of content-generation assignments:  multiple editorial articles for AFAR.com, blog posts for USTOA.com, social media posts/shares/takeovers, photos, and more.  In our role as USTOA’s comprehensive marketing and PR partner, we thoughtfully planned and orchestrated the association’s entire annual content calendars – blog, all social channels, consumer e-newsletters, travel trade byliners, and more – around these rich, unique anchors.

Why was this program such a success for USTOA?

AFAR Magazine was selected as the ideal partner for this program because the audience it reaches aligns perfectly with USTOA’s target audience.  The win-win partnership not only delivered breathtaking content for AFAR’s readers/viewers from destinations like Myanmar, Taiwan, Croatia, Kenya, Colombia, Manitoba, and Arizona, it also provided USTOA with consistent, frequent, and compelling exposure of its messages to AFAR’s coveted audiences over a period of five years.  Moreover, it…

  • Offered USTOA tour operator members a highly cost-effective way to collaborate with leading journalists and influencers, receiving widespread editorial/social media coverage for their specific offerings
  • Shared costs among all the partners involved, yet also shared content among all the partners involved… so the price per trip was low, while the benefit per trip was incredibly high
  • Provided extensive reach for USTOA messaging, as stories, photos, and videos from trips were shared across social and digital channels from AFAR, USTOA, each influencer/ambassador, tour operators, destinations, and a high percentage of USTOA’s members
  • Delivered significant content results for USTOA, including 44 blog posts for USTOA.com, as well as hundreds of social posts across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (story takeovers in 2017 and 2018 alone resulted in 6+ million impressions)
  • Aligned destination content strategically with several of our other high-profile initiatives for USTOA, such as the USTOA Travel Together video series with Tripfilms.com, which fed annual distribution to USA Today, MSN, Amazon Prime, and more

We LOVED orchestrating this entire program, from ideation to analytics, and we executed every single element of each trip, as well as directing all the content generation and placement.  See the highlights reel here.

(photo credit: Megan Murphy)