Marketing Update July 2010

This is an update on our marketing activity, featuring information on our current high profile short breaks campaign, 'Eventful Escapes' and our activity for Cheshire’s Garden’s of Distinction.

Eventful Escapes campaign 

Targets
Total Reach (opportunities to see/hear the campaign) 6.4 million

Activity to date
Online: The campaign website www.visitchester.com/events  has had 11,068 visits

Radio: The radio ad featuring Liza Tarbuck is continuing to be played. Total radio reach 1,654,000.

Print: 4 page inserts have featured in Daily Mail Weekend, Sunday Times Magazine, Saturday Times Magazine, Saturday Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph ‘Stella’. These inserts provided us with a total reach of 1,158,000.

Online & Digital: All online advertising placed to date has performed within the industry average with some exceeding it.

We bought advertising space on e-newsletters sent out to the databases of Telegraph.co.uk (Telegraph News and Telegraph Sport). Alongside this, we sent a solus email to 27,500 Daily Mail email subscribers.

Our social media activity has been brought into the campaign and our Facebook, Twitter and Flickr communities are being interacted with, with Eventful Escapes in mind.

www.facebook.com/visitchesterandcheshire.co.uk
www.twitter.com/visitcheshire
www.flickr.com/visitchesterandcheshire

The focus of this activity is to drive the audience to our campaign website, visitcheshire.com/events.

SEO & PPC campaign launched to compliment (not compete) with any activity being done by event organizers.

PR: Consumer PR activity has continued with both on and off line activities including coverage in Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent and Virgin Trains Hotline Magazine. Online coverage has included features on EnjoyEngland Online, VisitBritain Online, kidsguide.co.uk and Time Out London Online.

Results to date
Total reach with the campaign to date: 4.3 million 

Click through rates from the online display advertising and emailers are on target for the campaign forecasts. The online display advertising has, to date, performed above the industry average.

Competitions have featured in five publications; Daily Mail Weekend; Sunday Times Magazine; Saturday Telegraph Magazine; Sunday Telegraph ‘Stella’ and The Observer Magazine. There have been a total of 1,042 entries with Daily Mail Weekend generating the most entries.

PR: Our consumer PR activity has generated a PR value of over £75,000, with a circulation of over 60million including online PR.

Outdoor (Events): Banners showcasing the Eventful Escapes message to all face to face audiences have been placed at events where possible, including The Thundersprint (May 2010), Halfords Tour Series (June 2010), Cheshire County Show (June 2010), Charles Stanley British Masters (July 2010), Tatton Park Biennial (on-going).

There’s still time to get involved, Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre is taking place in Chester during July and August and we have a discount code that you can provide to customers booking a stay during the event. To find out more click here.

For more information on the Eventful Escapes campaign, please contact:

Steve Adamson
Marketing Manager
T: 01244 405616
E: Email Steve here


Other Marketing Activity

Chester Zoo Short Breaks campaign
The Chester Zoo Short Breaks campaign website is now live, chesterzoo.org/stay. To-date the site has had 193 visits.  There are 15 partners in the campaign, the majority being accommodation providers who are already zoo ticket agents.

The aim of the campaign is to deliver this pilot campaign which will see a combined Zoo-Destination message, to encourage overnight stays. Using Chester Zoo’s existing ticket agent mechanism,

The campaign commenced w/c 21st June 2010, and will run through to August 2010 (summer holidays are the target time for visits). 

The target market for this campaign is families and couples in Yorkshire region. West and North Yorkshire being mostly targeted.

For more information on the Chester Zoo campaign, please contact

Steve Adamson
Marketing Manager
T: 01244 405616
E: Email Steve here

New website for visitchester.com
As one of our main consumer sites and a key experiential site, we will launch the redesigned visitchester.com, late summer 2010.

Driven by an understanding of the audience and the key customer groups, we know that first impressions count and the majority of consumer decisions are made from the information they are initially presented with.  Based on this, we will implement the same membership-led listings as visitcheshire.com, along with the opportunity for banner advertising and our new Property of the Week feature.  We will be writing to all Chester businesses this month to communicate these changes.

For more information on the new website for visitchester.com, please contact

Donna Lund
E-Media Manager
T: 01244 405627
E: Email Donna here

Digital Marketing 
Our Facebook, Twitter and Flickr audiences have continued to grow this month and there has been increased interaction on our social media channels.

For more information on digital marketing, please contact

Jenny Bate
Digital Marketing Executive
T: 01244 405620
E: Email Jenny here
  
PR 
Our consumer PR has focussed on the Eventful Escapes campaign, Cheshire’s Gardens of Distinction as well as key thematics including Taste and Short Breaks.

June produced some strong PR for Chester and Cheshire with an overall PR value of £253,419 being generated across titles including, Food and Travel Magazine, Daily Telegraph Magazine, Time Out London online and Countryside Magazine.  There was also strong international PR with a piece on how to spend your leisure time in Lazer magazine, a magazine sent to 30,000 doctors in Tokyo.

For more information on PR, please contact

Kate Blythe
Information & Data Executive
T: 01244 405607
E: Email Kate here