tbex 2013 toronto where's my roi? campaigns & strategies in digital marketing

Stephen Oddo - Co-Founder, CTO, Marketing Director

Where’s my ROI?Campaigns & Strategies in

Digital Marketing

What is Walks?

Walks specializes in day trips, activities and unique experiences

Historical tours, bike rides, cooking classes, wine tours, boat tours, gondola rides, underground visits, volcano hikes, special access. Also ground transport services.

Small groups: 12 max

Hand-picked experts/leaders - fluent in English

Emphasize off the beaten path, sustainable travel, green company.

What is brand marketing?

Definition: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products Entrepreneur mag

Development of a personality to your company, setting standards and following them, consistency, develop positive reputation. Core values.

Ex: Four Seasons Quality, Luxury, Top of the line, 5*, beauty… expensiveEx: RyanAir CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP. (or is it?), uncomfortable, fees

What is content marketing?Creation of media content such as text, photography, video or combination of these to build a core audience, establish a brand reputation, increase interaction/engagement: Good content breeds good interaction, expands reach.BRANDED content marketing, pull vs push:‘Content that is developed or curated by a brand to provide added consumer value such as entertainment or education. It is designed to build brand consideration and affinity, not sell a product or service. It is not a paid ad, sponsorship, or product placement.’ –Forrester Research

What they say…"Blogs are the third most influential digital resource (31%) when making overall purchases, behind retail sites (56%) and brand sites (34%).”Technorati Digital Influence Report

Nearly half of travelers have changed or decided upon a trip based on what they've read on social media! – World travel tourism council (WTTC)

Push vs. Pull Marketing

Setting Goals

• Everyone’s goal is to grow revenues!• Marketing departments are looking for 1 to 1

correlation between investment and ROI as a clear, linear relationship.

• Walks of Italy’s goals, long term marketing strategy:– Increase PR of online properties– Increase overall organic search results, especially via

traffic to blog– Increase following and engagement on social media

sites– Become an “influencer” or “authority” for Italy travel,

increase SSOV– Leverage “indirect” marketing voice

Affinity & Advocacy

Corporations are people like

sometimes

For brands and companies, affinity begets advocacyMore advocacy, more word of mouthMore word of mouth = more bookingsHigh word of mouth = high sales!

Reciprocity: The key to evergreen

• Don’t think that just because a blog review is online, the collaboration ends there.

• Marketing team should continue to engage bloggers: reshare, +1, like, comment, RT, pin, rinse, repeat.

• If you invest the time in social media, social media will work harder for you.

• Often times simply reaching out to bloggers or influencers will result in higher engagement.

Direct ROI from travel blogs

$20,582.83

If your ROI analysis stops here, then I would agree that it doesn’t seem that lucrative to work with travel bloggers. But remember, this is just the people that clicked off their blog.

Time to go beyond the blog!

Started working with bloggers

Organic search results

Case Study: Walks of Italy

Direct hits

Case Study: Walks of Italy

Case Study: Walks of Italy

Case Study: Walks of Italy

Click-throughs from blogger review to walksofitaly.com. When done right, they’re evergreen.

Case Study: Walks of Italy

Think outside the (blog) box

• Bloggers are more than review machines

• Content creation talent + audience/affinity building abilities = great skill to bring to your organization

• Utilize their skills to enhance your marketing campaigns in other ways: videos, photos, text, PR, product collaboration/development, software development, hosting, social media.

Final thoughts

It is not enough for companies to have a digital department, they must become intrinsically digital if they are to meet the service demands of consumers” Phillipe Baumlin. Global digital program director. Chanel

Another great ROI case study on Hawaii:http://www.slideshare.net/rdarling/lvb-rox2011casestudy