enjoy discovering wine

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DIGITAL DESTINATIONS Dr Philip Alford Bournemouth University www.digitalhub.co.uk www.pinterest.com/digitaldest www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub [email protected] @schooloftourism | @philipalford #DDBU

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Enjoy Discovering Wine had an active website including weekly blogs; facebook page; and regular mailings to subscribers, but not so active with Twitter and LinkedIn. We knew we needed a more targeted campaign and to work harder at driving traffic to our website, but in turn to improve our website’s look to keep viewers interested and reduce bounces. The main areas of improvement were around facebook and enhancing the look of our website; we increased our knowledge of and, therefore, influence with facebook, and are aware this is a good platform for PR, and have done a lot of work on our website and learnt which direction we need to take it further to give us more brand presence and returning customers.

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Page 1: Enjoy Discovering Wine

DIGITAL DESTINATIONS

Dr Philip Alford Bournemouth University

www.digitalhub.co.uk

www.pinterest.com/digitaldest www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub

[email protected]

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU

Page 2: Enjoy Discovering Wine

Digital Destinations project is an ESRC funded research project, delivered by Bournemouth University,

with an overarching aim to:

‘capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.

Through increased understanding and use of emerging digital technologies, visitor economy businesses will be in a position to increase their marketing and management effectiveness, and

develop new products and services that will provide an enhanced experience for visitors to their destinations’

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The businesses benefited from 4 workshops which covered: Background to on line marketing

Individual Business objectives

Developing the strategy

Measuring impact

Reporting outcomes via case studies

All course material can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub All business outcomes and blogs can be found at http://www.budigitalhub.co.uk/

Page 4: Enjoy Discovering Wine

The following presentation is the case study provided by Enjoy Discovering Wine Enjoy Discovering Wine had an active website including weekly blogs; facebook page; and regular mailings to subscribers, but not so active with Twitter and LinkedIn. We knew we needed a more targeted campaign and to work harder at driving traffic to our website, but in turn to improve our website’s look to keep viewers interested and reduce bounces. The main areas of improvement were around facebook and enhancing the look of our website; we increased our knowledge of and, therefore, influence with facebook, and are aware this is a good platform for PR, and have done a lot of work on our website and learnt which direction we need to take it further to give us more brand presence and returning customers.

Page 5: Enjoy Discovering Wine

BACKGROUND • Enjoy Discovering Wine are a small company offering

Government Approved Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) courses in the Hampshire/Dorset area

• Customers include Hospitality businesses, Distance learners (e.g. Superyacht staff), and Hospitality students

• Our existing online marketing included a website, a Facebook page, Blogs (once or twice a month), Erica (Director of Enjoy Discovering Wine) has a Twitter account, and LinkedIn Page

• We also have an online subscriber list held on AWeber which we use for monthly newsletters and a weekly update about upcoming courses

• Whilst using the digital marketing, we were not using them effectively with no clear strategy or plan

Page 6: Enjoy Discovering Wine

AREA OF FOCUS • To increase bookings on the upcoming WSET Level 2

courses (in particular the course scheduled to run in March 2013)

• Focusing primarily on Bournemouth University students leading us towards a Facebook-focused project

• For this course to be financially viable we needed a minimum of 12 attendees

• Increase engagement on Facebook and drive traffic to the website

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CHALLENGES

• Continual changing of objectives meant that final objectives were not agreed until 7th February

– Initial objective was email campaign with our current subscriber list on AWeber

– Due to limitations with AWeber this proved unworkable

– Advised to use a more relaxed system such as MailChimp by BU, but advised by external marketing expert to stick with AWeber, as issues would remain with an alternative system

Page 8: Enjoy Discovering Wine

OBJECTIVES

• To create more engaging content on Facebook, increasing awareness, interest, conversion and reach amongst Bournemouth University students

• To create more informative content on the website relating to Bournemouth University students, driving the traffic to conversion

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TACTICS - Facebook

• Daily plan of posts:

– Monday – News article

– Tuesday – Photo of the week

– Wednesday – Interesting Story

– Thursday – Blog of the week

– Friday – Weekend question

• Increase ‘tagging in’ on posts to increase virality of posts

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MAGIC MOMENT

• Voluntary interaction on Facebook by EDW staff

Helen Evans posted very positive & useful comment

Saw huge response to number of views (57 organic, 123 viral)

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• Time – Initial plan meant impact on ALL staff members time to create

content i.e. blogs, photo’s, requesting comments from students, monitoring, finding newsworthy articles

• Struggling to find five topics for five-day plan – Not wanting to increase numbers to subscriber list just for the

sake of it (competitions aimed at students would get us quantity but not quality?) as per Philip’s Google Analytics presentation – “think about quality of traffic, not just quantity”

– Monday – News article – time to research – Tuesday – Photo of the week – difficult to maintain – Wednesday – Interesting Story – too similar to Monday – Thursday – Blog of the week – VERY time consuming – Friday – Weekend question - worked

CHALLENGES - FACEBOOK

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• Create area on website targeted at University Students already studying for a hospitality-related degree including:

– Why Study for WSET?

– Student Testimonials

– Student Booking Procedure

– Student Discount

– Course Dates by University

– Frequently Asked Questions

TACTICS - Website

www.enjoydiscoveringwine.com

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CHALLENGES - WEBSITE

• Time

– Small business with part time workers

– Additional time (100%) required to complete website updates

– Contacting students for new testimonials

– Restrictions due to level of staff expertise

– Lack of knowledge of Google Analytics

Page 16: Enjoy Discovering Wine

OUTCOME - Facebook • 4th January – 5th February

– Total Likes - 126 – People talking about this – 58 – Weekly total reach - 108

• 8th May – 28th May

– Total Likes – 160 – People talking about this - 10 – Weekly total reach – 232

• We are seeing more viral views to our posts

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OUTCOME – Facebook - Website

• We paid to boost this post – yet during the

period of 8th – 29th May we received just 6 referrals from Facebook to our website

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• Saw an increase in traffic directed from Facebook to Website during peak of campaign, despite sustaining regular content now tailed off

– Jan to Feb – 13 referred from Facebook

– Feb to Mar – 28 referred from Facebook

– Mar to Apr – 51 referred from Facebook

– Apr to May – 15 referred from Facebook

– May to Jun - 8 referred from Facebook

OUTCOME – Facebook to Website

Page 19: Enjoy Discovering Wine

Statistics 1 Jan – 28 Feb 2013 1 Mar – 30 Apr 2013

Visits 996 1212

Unique visits 709 784

New Visits 65.56% 60.4%

Page Views 2411 3116

Average Visit Duration 2:23 3:45

Bounce Rates 57.83% 59.57%

OUTCOME - Website

Page 20: Enjoy Discovering Wine

• Level 2 course was full

• But NOT due to Digital Marketing

• Due to upselling by Erica on previous Level 1 course

• Digital Marketing useful, particularly in raising the profile of Enjoy Discovering Wine but not provided the benefits we hope to see so far

• We need to continue to utilise our Digital Marketing and measure the effectiveness

OUTCOME - Overall

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LEARNING

• We need a set plan for future Digital Marketing, less sporadic posts and tweets although spontaneity is good to remain current

• Need a better understanding of Google Analytics to set goals and monitor them

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• Working out what works best

– Friday weekend question often gets a few comments, and then receives a higher number than usual views and viral views

– Blog drives traffic to website – how do we increase this?

– Some posts very popular – why?

– Utilise Facebook Insights to see which posts are most popular

NEXT STEPS - Facebook

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NEXT STEPS – Website • Creating webpages specific to other Target Markets

– Hospitality Businesses

– Superyacht Staff

• Adding more user friendly content

– Clearer ‘Upcoming Events’ list

– FAQ’s

– Related Links

• Add more visual content wherever possible

• Aim to reduce Bounce Rate

• Utilise Google Analytics and set goals to measure successes on website (possible staff training required)

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• Based on recommendations from Stephanie Waller:

– Create a 5 day plan for EDW Twitter account

– Generate Content and Connection on LinkedIn

NEXT STEPS – Other

• Also, regular, weekly mailings using our AWeber subscriber list

– Content, Content, Content, Promotion format

– i.e. Blog, Newsworthy story, Newsletter, Course details

Page 25: Enjoy Discovering Wine

For more information on DIGITAL DESTINATIONS contact:

Dr Philip Alford, Bournemouth University

[email protected]

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU