creating a destination content strategy for today's traveler
TRANSCRIPT
CREATING A DESTINATION CONTENT STRATEGY IN 5 STEPS.
LOUDSCOUT.CO
Loudscout’s mission is to transform DMO’s from being advertisers into publishers and
ultimately into media entities.
That reads like a big mission, and it is, but there’s a lot of small steps along the way.
And the most important step is creating a destination content strategy.Developing a destination content strategy is going to transform the way you tell and share stories with travellers, trade, media and industry. By bringing your teams together and defining a process to plan, create, curate and distribute content, for all channels and markets, you will be stepping on the launch pad to transformation.
What is a destination content strategy? A destination content strategy is a plan and a roadmap to deliver content as a differentiated service to the consumer, industry, trade and travel media. Think of it as really exciting stuff like:
v The mechanics of building a publishing capability v Uniform processes, guidelines, tools and governance v Organizational alignment of goals and objectives v Coordinated measurement and performance optimization
Why should I care? We’re getting things done, aren’t we?
Because you’re working in silos and it’s making your team ineffective and miserable. And..
%OFPEOPLEWHOSKIPTVADS
%OFDIGITALBANNERCLICKTHROUGHRATE
86 0.10 198MILLION
%OFPEOPLE,GLOBALLY,BLOCKINGADS
Sources:TheGuardianAugust2010;DoubleClickJuly2012;March2009;EPA.GOVNovember2010The2015AdBlockingReport-PageFair
Your media is most likely delivering declining results. Year, after year.
So let’s look at 5 steps to change everything about your content.
Follow these steps in sequence to get your destination content strategy up on the launch pad.
1.Content Vision
2.Audience Profile
3. Content Pillars
4. Content Planning
5. Operating Model
STEP 1. Content VisionIs a clear and concise expression of the role and impact content will have for your destination and industry partners. Your content vision tells people, all kinds of people, who you are, what you believe in and how you will make that relevant to them personally. You’re creating a touchstone to guide content creation moving forward.
We aspire to tell the stories of personal transformation through the emotions that revitalize the spirit when in contact with nature. We are advocates for the adventurous spirit and we believe in the power of our destination to remind people of the true nature of beauty and freedom. Our stories are created by those who experience us first hand and shared across the world in story, film and practical wisdom.
We aspire to tell the stories of personal transformation through the emotions that revitalize the spirit when in contact with nature. We are advocates for the adventurous spirit and we believe in the power of our destination to remind people of the true nature of beauty and freedom. Our stories are created by those who experience us first hand and shared across the world in story, film and practical wisdom.
We have something personal, emotional and extraordinary to share with you.
We are not corporate or group travel. But we sure are passionate.
We are going to showcase our destination through the people that have experienced it.
The vision helps us focus.
Understanding how prospective travellers think, relate and what they aspire to in life, not just in travel, is fundamental to nurturing the capability to build, engage and influence them as an audience. You are also drowning in so much clinical, cold research that you need a way to bring the humanity back into your audience segmentation.
STEP 2. Audience Profiles
SEGMENT
Point of View (How they see
the world)
TRIGGERS
Interests (What they want
from travel)
INSIGHTS
Barriers (Where do you
win & lose them?)
+ +
Audience Profiling is about creating a mindset to augment travel research.
It’s a simple formula to build a mindset and it will help you brief better creative and develop more relevant content plans because you’re thinking
about the traveller as a person, not just a decile in research.
Step 3. Content PillarsContent pillars have come to mean a lot of things over the last 2 years, but we see them as the top levels of your content plan. Content pillars are for planning and organizing your teams. They are not always traveller facing, nor are they always the navigation of your website. A working criteria for content pillars: • They can be destination experiences or traveller centric passions
or based on your marketing calendar • They are easily broken down into sections or themes that speak to
the audience points of view, such as, adventure, luxury, or time in nature.
• And inside the sections or themes are the relevant triggers that inspire travel.
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So, it could look like this.
THE UNPLUGGED FAMILY
BEACH LIFERUSTIC LIVING LUXURY
Content Pillar
Themes
WILDLIFE VIEWING
NATURE TRAILS
NATURAL WONDERS
WATER SPORTS
BOATING
OCEAN EXPLORING
DAY TRIPS
EVENT DINING
GUIDED TOURS
Triggers
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CONTENT PLANNING
STEP 4. Content PlanWhat are the fundamental building blocks of a content plan? When is enough, enough and you should just start creating content? Well, when you feel you’ve gotten a good handle on: • Getting on the same page with content priorities • A process to stayed aligned through planning and into execution • Being transparent with who is doing what and when with content
CONTENTCALENDAR
CONTENT LIFECYCLE
+
Let’s keep this simple and say there are 2 building blocks.
This is where your operating model and all the business processes live. The ways and means of getting content planned, produced and distributed.
These are the shared planning deliverables that foster alignment, transparency and integration.
CONTENT LIFECYCLE
Business Processes
Roles & Responsibilities
Standards & Guidelines
Me in a nutshell.
CONTENT CALENDAR
Content Pillars
Editorial Calendar
Distribution Plan
Me at a glance.
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CONTENT PLANNING
STEP 5. Operating ModelsThere are more important questions in the world then, “who is going to pay for content?” Such as, who is going to approve it, publish it, be subject matter experts or just be informed as to what the plan is. Your operating model is the way you will orchestrate who owns what, who does what and who is accountable. Both inside the DMO and within your agencies and partners. The operating model makes roles and responsibilities clear, which is really important when you think about how we are all trying to do more with less and get to scale with limited resources.
Here’s what a content operating model can look like.
MANAGING EDITOR
DIGITAL EDITOR PRODUCER
CONTENT DIRECTOR (Head of Content)
DIGITAL MEDIA
WEB PLATFORMS
ANALYTICS PLATFORMS
CONTENT STRATEGY
CHANNEL STRATEGY
MEASUREMENT
CONTENT STRATEGIST
DIGITAL (Head of Digital)
MEASUREMENT ANALYST CREATIVE CONTENT CREATORS
ART DIRECTOR WRITERS
DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTO EDITOR VIDEO
MARKET MANAGERS GSA
CMO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS, DIRECTORS
DMO RESOURCE
AGENCY
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Who owns what? Who does what? Who is accountable?
Remember, your operating model is all about clarifying roles and responsibilities:
But wait. Isn’t there more to
a content strategy?
Yes, yes there is. But you may not be ready for it.
You need to get started. You need to worry about alignment and planning
first.
Like, right now.
This is the ocean. Do not boil it.
SEO, taxonomies, platform and engagement strategies can be done in your digital strategy.
As you’ll most likely be rethinking your digital
capabilities as well.
Start with these 5 steps and within 3 months you can be creating and
distributing content like a pro.
Good luck, call us if you need us!
