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Marketing & Visitor Servicing Update – September Insights

Campaign Updates

The South West Wander Voucher campaign received 2,375 page views and just over 1600 entries. Winners were notified on Tuesday 12 September and have until 30 October to redeem their voucher.

The spring voucher campaign is targeted to support tour, attraction and experience businesses in Australia’s South West. $50,000 worth of funding originally secured by Australia’s South West and MRBTA to support the launch of the Melbourne to Busselton Jetstar route has been reallocated to incentivise the intrastate market. Read more about the campaign here.

Expressions of Interest for November Content  

Our full year working content calendar can be viewed here. Expressions of interest are open for the following blogs. Blogs are free for Primary members and $99 per inclusion for Secondary members.

What’s On November – The guide receives over 2,000 hits per month, is promoted on our social channels and included in our monthly consumer email marketing with 30,000+ subscribers. For consideration, your event must be submitted and published on margaretriver.com no later than the 15th of each month to appear in the following month.

  • The Luxe List: Once in a Lifetime Experiences
  • A Guide to Golfing in the Margaret River Region
  • A Guide to Local Summer Beers

We’ll also be refreshing the following evergreen articles.

  • Delicious Degustations to Indulge In
  • Best Farm Stays
  • How to Keep Teenagers Busy in the Margaret River Region
  • Alternative Tours
  • Joyfully Nostalgic Beach Houses

EOI’s must include a brief pitch explaining why your business suits the brief and a high-quality image. Send your EOI to communications@margaretriver.com

Paid Advertising

Please get in touch for paid opportunities such as web ads, TV advertising in the Visitors Centres, or a top 3 listing on margaretriver.com.

MRBTA Marketing & Visitor Servicing Channels

Margaretriver.com

There was an increase in website traffic towards the end of the month, in line with the start of the September school holidays.  

There was also an increase in traffic of 23% month on month, sitting at just under 92k total users for September against slightly shy of 75k in August. This boost was seen across all main sources, with particularly positive increases from referral traffic generated from The Urban List and Perth Is Ok.  

Traffic was also up slightly (3.3%) when compared to September 2020.  

Engagement metrics of bounce rate and average session duration have remained steady and are sitting within industry benchmarks.  

The top landing pages included: ‘Margaret River’, Busselton’, ‘Dunsborough’, Accommodation’, and the Open Studios Event Page.  

Looking at the blog content, Night Time Dining and Best Breakfasts took the top two spots, followed by the Dog Friendly Travel Guide. Family friendly topics also dominated, which is to be expected considering the school holidays.   

Members received 128,496 page views this month, up 23% against August. 

New Blog Stories 

109 members were featured across 11 new and refreshed blogs curated by the MRBTA in September. 

Visitation to blog stories increased by 16% in September with 37.7k page views compared to 32.5k in 2020.  

Page Break 

Social Media

Facebook stats have improved this month, but Instagram is still subdued. This could be attributed to the effect of extended east coast lockdowns and closed borders. Sydney and Melbourne make up 10.3% of our Instagram audience (Perth is 33%, Singapore 2%) and it’s possible they’re not engaging with travel content right now.

Listicle style captions tagging member businesses are proving successful. We recommend experimenting with this style on your social media channels and looping in businesses around you.

Monthly EDMs 

Monthly newsletters to consumers and media have maintained high engagement. The industry benchmark for Travel & Leisure is an open rate of 15.7%.  

*CTR= Click Through Rate 

 The most popular stories this month were: 

Hot tip: Consider sharing these stories to your email database.

Media Coverage 

A snapshot of media coverage featuring the Margaret River Region across September included: 

Event Support  

The MRBTA annually supports over 30 major events to drive off-peak visitation to our region. 

Support was provided to Margaret River Region Open Studios in September.  

Marketing Resources 

  • Summer Image Library: Members can access our Spring / Summer image library and share inspirational visuals of the Margaret River Region. Please always credit the photographers when using images. View here. 
  • How to Leverage Your Events: The MRBTA regularly support major events in the region and have noticed a growing demand from members hosting smaller events wanting to gain leverage and build their audience. In response to this, we have put together a guide with useful tips on promoting your event. View here.  
  • Rediscover Videos: The regional Rediscover compilation video shares inspirational messaging for a domestic and intrastate market. Members are welcome to share the video across their channels. View here.  
  • Consumer Confidence - Useful Links: We’ve put together some useful links and insights on consumer confidence and how this may be affecting travel planning. View here. 
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