cahir house hotel content plan.docx
TRANSCRIPT
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 1
Project Title: Content Strategy for Cahir House Hotel
Presented by: Shane Hickey
Course: Certificate in Digital Marketing
Module: Social Media Marketing and PR
Lecturer: Keith Feighery
Date: 14/10/2014
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 2
Table of Contents
1.0) Executive Summary
2.0) Business Overview
2.1) Product
2.2) Cahir and its Amenities
3.0) Situation Analysis
3.1) Digital Communication Channels
3.2) Competitor Analysis
4.0) Buyer Persona’s
4.1) Mapping Persona’s to Channels
5.0) Business Objectives, Digital Goals and KPI’s
5.1) Facebook
5.2) Twitter
5.3) Linkedin
5.4) Google Adwords
5.5) SEO
5.6) Mailchimp
Bibiliography
Appendices
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 3
Executive Summary
The purpose of this paper is to develop a content strategy for Cahir House Hotel which is a three star 42 bedroom hotel in
county Tipperary. A review will be undertaken of the current content strategy with an analysis of this. A target audience will
be identified and a content plan for two weeks will be produced. The paid, owned and earned media channels will all be
leveraged.
Given that it is a two week content plan though we are a little limited in the scope. Area’s that could be examined which
will only be touched on in this report include Website redesign with a highly optimised site and an examination into the
possibility of digitally targeting overseas visitors to Ireland.
2.0) Business Overview
Cahir House Hotel is a three star 42 bedroom Hotel in the heritage town of Cahir in south Tipperary. The Hotel offers mod-
ern amenities such as wireless internet, a health spa, O'Brien's bar and Bistro.
2.1) Product
The hotel caters for weddings with a range of gold, silver and bronze packages and also cater for civil ceremonies. Confer-
ences can also be organised that can cater for numbers of up to 400. They also host a number of special events including
Darts and Snooker Matches and musical events..
2.1) Cahir and its Amenities
Cahir is twinned with Scarborough in the UK. Local tourist attractions include Cahir Castle one of Ireland’s best preserved
Castles, the Swiss Cottage, Mitchelstown Caves and the Rock of Cashel.
Cahir is also very popular for fishing with the rivers Suir, Nore and Blackwater all close by. Salmon and Trout fishing on the
River Suir in particular draw large number of foreign visitors.
Tipperary has a number of sporting attractions including three Horse racing tracks and Clonmel greyhound racing.
Tipperary also has fantastic natural amenities and is a haven for hikers with good walks in the Vee and the Galtee Mountains
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 4
3.0) Situational Analysis
3.1) Digital Communication Channels
Cahir House Hotel have 4,097 likes and 1,145 visits which ranks quite favourably when compared with
their competitors. They post very regularly on special offers, events and special seasonal and topical
campaigns such as a special offer surrounding Tipperary’s involvement in the hurling All Ireland. They
also post twitter hash tags linking to their Twitter page. Areas that could be examined include setting
up separate Facebook pages for different elements of the business such as weddings and
conferences, Facebook retargeting and running Facebook specific special offers.
Cahir House also have a very good presence on Twitter compared to their competitors. They have 381
followers on Twitter and tweet frequently. Both their Facebook and Twitter thumbnails could take
more prominence on the landing page of their website to reflect the effort they put into their social
media marketing. They also follow 250 twitter accounts including tourism boards, and local business
and amenities. The content that is posted on Twitter and Facebook is the same and this could be
examined in terms of having platform specific content.
Cahir House Hotel have no profile on LinkedIn and their competitors have a very poor representation
on this platform. Given that Cahir House can cater for conferences of up to 400 they should create a
business profile for LinkedIn and the owners of the business and look at networking and posting good
content on LinkedIn as a way of generating conference business for the Hotel. LinkedIn is extremely
powerful now and can be used for connecting with ex alumni and following groups connected with the
Hotel industry.
Cahir House have only one follower on G+ although they have 157,095 views. Although G+ has been
effectively been abandoned as a project by Google it is still very important in terms of search engine
optimisation and local listings. One of the reasons possibly why Cahir House appears in the local
listings when searching for hotels in Tipperary. Their profile could be more complete and the G+
thumbnail added to the landing page of the website.
Cahir House Hotel has a professional produced video which is on YouTube but has only received 1,324
views. This video is not on their website which it should be. A search for Cahir House Hotel produces
584 results which is favourable when compared to competing hotels.
There is no sign up newsletter on the website and an email database is invaluable to a Hotel. There is
an email option on the Contact Us page and also an envelope icon on the landing page which brings
you through to the booking page screen. Most of the Cahir House competitors are availing of this
opportunity to email clients with special offers or news items that may be of interest. The content that
is used on Twitter and Facebook could be emailed out to their database at the very least.
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 5
3.2) Competitor Analysis
Clonmel Park Hotel is a four star Conference, Leisure and Spa Hotel with 99
rooms. They have a very strong presence across Social Media with five different
Facebook pages targeting different aspects of the business. They also spend on
AdWords under their own name. Their site is very easy to navigate and is
content rich and with a ‘Book Now’ feature prominent on every page. They use
bookings.com for their payments.
Cashel Palace Hotel is a four star Hotel with bar and restaurant facilities and
caters for conferences and weddings. The site has a prominent booking facility
with excellent photographs. They take booking directly on their website and
email special offers to subscribers. They don’t seem to use Social Media
particularly in terms of postings and tweets.
Aherlow House Hotel has both room and self catering lodges set in its own pri-
vate woodlands. They have an excellent presence across all Social Media
particularly on Facebook and Twitter where they publish well designed topical
content. They don’t have any Google Analytics on their website or AdWords or
Display advertising.
Dundrum House Hotel Golf and Leisure Resort is set on 220 acres with an 18
hole golf course. They have some interesting features on their site including
online chat and an email sign up for special offers. They have a Google tracking
code for conversions and although their site is not heavily optimised. They also
spend on AdWords under the Search “Hotels in Tipperary” and their own brand
and have a prominent booking facility.
3.3) Social Media Followership:
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google + You Tube
Clonmel Park 1,140 Likes
8,953 Visits
1,933 Tweets
1,051 Followers
Personal Page
No followers
52 Followers
246,608 Views
492 Results
Company Video
Cashel Palace 221 Likes
1,641 Visits
3 Tweets
85 Followers
Personal Page
No followers
Profile but
No Followers
499 Results
Company Video
Aherlow House 6,903 Likes
2,693 Visits
764 Tweets
233 Followers
Company Page
43 Followers
1 Follower
160,797 Views
131 Results
Company Video
Dundrum House 1,141 Likes
7,215 Visits
592 Tweets
116 Followers
Company Page
40 Followers
7 Followers
142,001 Views
533 Results
Company Video
Cahir House 4,097 Likes
1,145 Visits
549 Tweets
381 Followers
No Profile 1 Follower
157,095 Views
584 Results
Company Video
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 6
Strengths:
Good presence on Facebook with 4,097 likes on Fa-
cebook although the levels of interaction with their
posts is poor.
Functional website with reasonable levels of
content and information on facilities at the Hotel
and local attractions.
Website is updated with events the Hotel is running.
219 reviews on Tripadvisor with 156 of these either
Excellent or Very Good.
93% recommendation rate on Expedia.
Good quality resolution images on the website.
Mobile version of the website is an exact replica of
the desktop version.
Hotel ranks well on Google local listings.
409 Backlinks to the site. (Backlinkwatch)
Reasonable speed and UX across mobile and
desktop (Google PageSpeed Insights)
Weaknesses:
No email sign up facility on the website.
Booking does not take a preference on the landing
page or other pages that are clicked on.
Lack of optimisation on the website in particular
with lack of title and heading tags and keywords.
No google analytics on the website meaning there is
no measurement or statistical analysis of unique
visitors, bounce rates or conversions.
Use of bookings.com as a payment facilitator may
cause difficulty when tracking conversions.
No retargeting strategy on Search or Facebook.
Corporate video on Youtube is not on the website.
Vouchers, reviews, map and photos are all in the
booking section and should be separate headings.
No Google AdWords or Display spend.
No breadcrumb or URL structure.
Opportunities:
The Hotel has no presence on LinkedIn which is a
platform where they could market the conference
element of their business.
Back links could be created from Hiking and Great
Outdoors websites as Tipperary has excellent hiking
routes.
To capitalise on their Facebook presence and use
paid Facebook advertising for the Wedding market.
Optimise the website with good title and heading
tags and keyword descriptions to rank better in
Search.
Improve the layout and structure of the website in
particular prioritise making a reservation.
Use email marketing to advertise special offers and
events that the Hotel is running.
Add rich content on local amenities and attractions.
A content rich blog could be added to the site.
Threats:
According to Tripadvisor there are 28 hotels in
Tipperary but also 204 other accommodation
options so competition is fierce.
Companies such as Airbnb have segmented the holi-
day accommodation even further given the custom-
er greater choice and
First impressions last on the net and the Cahir House
Hotel website needs to improve. It would be very
interesting to measure the bounce rate of the land-
ing page.
Without Google Analytics the Hotel has no means to
measure where it loses clients on the site.
Competitors are investing in Search Marketing such
as Dundrum House which is owned by the Dalata
Group who have a centralised marketing team.
No Digital strategy mean’s OTA can cannibalise
searches and bookings for Cahir House as they have
AdWords campaigns on their name search.
4.0) SWOT Analysis
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 7
Buyer Persona’s:
Joe and Mary are in their early sixties are two retired teachers from Dublin. They
have very good pensions and are mortgage free giving them very good levels of
disposable income. Their three kids have all left home and they like to spend a lot
of their time travelling abroad and in Ireland. They are members of the Wayfarers
Associtation in Dublin who are a walking club and plan regular weekend excursions
throughout the country. Joe and Mary have hiked before in Tipperary in the
Galtee Mountains. They are internet savy and use the internet for booking holi-
days, email and general research. They are Facebook users using it to contact their
kids who are based overseas. Their favourite sites include Tripadvisor and discover-
ireland.
Paul is a Sales Trainer in Vodafone in Dublin. He is in his late thirties and lives alone in
Dublin city centre. He is an extremely hard working professional and regularly works 60
to 70 a week. He is extremely tech savy and needs to be for his job. He organises n
quarterly offsite sales training courses for Vodafone sales people around Ireland.
These courses normally combine sales training and team building elements. The
numbers in the group are normally in the 50 person territory. Paul has a smartphone
and a tablet. He is an avid social media user and believes digital networking is very
important to his career. He has a Linkedin premium account and regularly contributes
industry related rticles to Linkedin. He is also a regular Twitter user and tweets daily.
Thomas and Niamh are a couple from Tipperary. Thomas is from Cahir and Niamh is
from Clonmel. Niamh is her late twenties and Thomas is in his late thirties. They recent-
ly got engaged and are planning to marry in Tipperary 12 months from their
engagement.. Niamh is a fitness instructor and Thomas is a landscaper. They are both
avid Social Media fans and plan to set up a website for their wedding to deal with is-
sues like directions to the venue and invitations. They are currently in the process of
researching their wedding online and is a regular user of weddings.ie and
weddingsonline.ie. They have just updated their Facebook status to engaged.
Retired Couple Late thirties Professional Engaged Couple
Facebook YES NO YES
Twitter NO YES NO
Linkedin NO YES NO
PPC YES NO YES
SEO YES YES YES
Email YES YES YES
Website YES YES YES
Mapping Persona’s to Channels
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 8
Business Objectives, Digital Goals and KPI’s:
The Business Objectives , Digital Goals and KPI’s for this two week content plan will be displayed using the RACE format
below. In order for us to measure the effectiveness of the campaign the Google Analytics code will need to be included
on the code for each individual page on the website.
BUSINESSS OBJECTIVES DIGITAL GOALS CHANNELS KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS (KPIS)
REACH Increase Brand
Awareness in Ireland
Increase Social Media
Presence
Increase Visitor
Numbers
Increase
PPC
200 connections on Linkedin
400 New Facebook followers
100 New Twitter Followers
200 Email signups
5000 Page Impressions
ACT Higher Engagement
Levels
Lower the bounce
rate on Home page
Increase LinkedIn
interaction
Increased
engagement levels
on Social Media
Increased
Engagement levels
with the Website
Website
10% Engagement per LinkedIn
post
15% Engagement per Social
Media Post
Reduce Bounce rate on
website by 20%
Increase Page Views per visit
by 10%
Email Engagement 5%
CONERT Increase Conversions on
Website
Convert new
network of contacts
from Linkedin,
Facebook, Twitter
and Email.
Website
20 Conversions from Linkedin
50 Conversions from
Facebook and Twitter
20 Conversion from PPC
10 Conversions from Email
ENGAGE Improve Customer
Retention
Increase repeat
visitor numbers to
the site
Increase numbers
of new visits to
website and Social
Media
Website
Increase Email Engagement
Increase Social Media
Engement
Increase repeat visitor
numbers to the website
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 9
Facebook is by far and way the largest Social Media platform in Ireland with current user levels estimated at 2.25 million
according to recent research (Irish Independent, 2014)
Cahir House Hotel are effectively using Facebook but could improve on the engagement levels on their organic posts and
also use Facebook to target prospective wedding couples who are looking for a venue.
Relationship status updates are extremely popular on Facebook and Cahir House could use paid Facebook advertising
and ‘Custom Audiedences’ to target couples who have recently changed their status to engaged.
We look at both a sample of a new organic post that will hopefully increase engagement levels and look at a paid post to
target clients for Cahir House as a wedding venue.
At the moment Cahir House Hotel are effectively mixing Twitter and Facebook incorporating hash tag posts into some of
their Facebook adverts. Content is the same across both platforms but this is not necessarily a bad thing. They are also
following a large number of companies that have an impact on their industry and customers.
The objective behind any tweet should be to make it interesting and funny. Examples of catchy targeting hikers and gen-
eral visitors to the area. Links to photographs can be created using Bitly to shorten elongated URL links.
Hike the Galtee Mountains this weekend and rest your weary bones at Cahir House Hotel
#Hike #Galtee #HotWhiskey #Comfybed #CahirHouse
Check out this incredible photo taken of the Vee in Tipperary #Knockmealdown #CahirHouse #Hiking #Ireland
LinkedIn now has an estimated over 300 million users worldwide (Forbes, 2014). Ireland has over 1 million LinkedIn users
(Silicon Republic, 2013). The primary purpose of LinkedIn is for business networking and job hunting but it is becomingly
increasingly popular as a marketing tool.
Cahir House Hotel has no LinkedIn profile so the first issue is to address this and update LinkedIn with completed profiles of
the business owners. One of the KPI’s was to have over 200 connections on LinkedIn in the time frame of the two week con-
tent plan.
Cahir House can use LinkedIn in particular to target business professionals who are looking to book conference space and
organise team building weekends. There are some simple strategies that can be employed to connect with business
professionals that book these kind of events. For example Boolean searches can be conducted with key phrases such as
“Event Managers” to link with the key decision makers within organisations that book events.
You can also create groups to provide some thought leadership in area (Socialmediaexaminer, 2013)Cahir House Hotel
could for example set up or join a group relating to conferences in Ireland and write a post on annual spend and numbers of
conferences being held among other topics.
Paid LinkedIn advertising ca n also be used but the primary objectives are to setup the company profile and add relevant
connections.
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 10
Campaign: Campaign Level
Negative Keywords
AD Group Keywords
Wedding
Couple
Leinster
Dublin
Northern Ireland
Five Star
Celebrity
Weddins’s “Weddings in Tipperary”
“Wedding Reception
Tipperary”
“Civil Ceremonies”
“Tipperary Weddings”
“Weddings in Munster”
“Weddings in Clonmel”
“Weddings in Cashel”
“Weddings in Munster”
Hiking Couple Hostel
Lodge
Wicklow Mountains
Macgillycuddy Reeks
Mourne Mountains
Camping
Hikers “Hiking in Ireland”
“Hiking in Tipperary”
“Walks in Tipperary”
“Galtee Mountains”
“Knockmealdown
Mountains”
“The Vee”
“Slievenamon”
“Galtymore”
Google Adwords will be used as a two week Pay Per Click campaign targeted at attracting customers looking for
information on weddings and hiking in Tipperary. Google Analtics will allow accurate measurement of the Click
Through Rate (CTR) from this campaign.
Research was carried put using the Google Keyword Planner to get information on the keyowrds and suggested key-
words that could be used in the campaign. Negative keywords will also be used to ensure the campaign is highly target-
ed and effective.
Search Enginer Marketing (SEM) for the Hotel industry is extremely competitive and expensive. OTA’s such as
Expedia.com bookings.com have driven up the price for hotels and quite often run PPC campaigns with the hotel names
so that clients will book with them before booking directly with the Hotel. Cahir House Hotel should run a permanent
campaign under their own name as current searches reveal other OTA’s are running these under their name at the mo-
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 11
Although we can only light touch on SEO they are some key areas that the company need to address in order to properly op-
timise their website. At the moment there are no title, heading or meta tags on the site.
At the moment Cahir House Hotel does not have an email sign up on their website. Thiis function needs to be created at
the website and can also be collected from guests when they checkin to the Hotel. The importance of email marketing in
the Hotel industry cannot be underestimated and is an effective way of targeting customers who have expressed genuine
interest in your product and have explicitilly stated they want to be contacted by you.
The list needs to be grown organically as oppose to purchasing an email database. Mailchimp will then be used email these
clients using the A/B Split Campaign m,ethod which will allow to test effectiveness of campaign running concurrently.
Campaigns can for special offers and events as they happen in the hotel:
From: Cahir House Hotel
Subject Line Group A: Book Wedding Fair tickets online for 10% discount.
Subject Line Group B: Hearty Meal and Stay for €49pp after your Knockmealdown Hike.
Cahir House Hotel Content Strategy 12
www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2014/05/04/new-research-2014-linkedin-user-trends-and-10-top-surprises/
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/item/34733-linkedin-reaches-1m-irish-m
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/linkedin-marketing-plan/