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Marketing & Visitor Servicing Update – October Insights

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 December – 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 Call of the Sea: A Guide to Sailing and Boating
  • Busselton’s Culinary Renaissance
  • 10 Things to Do in Yallingup

We’ll also be refreshing the following evergreen articles.

  • The Margaret River Region Gift Guide
  • Open Over Holidays
  • Where to Stay over Summer
  • Ocean View Dining
  • Guide to Margaret River Region Food Trucks
  • The Ultimate Summer Bucket List
  • Itinerary: 7 Days of Summer

EOI’s must include a brief pitch explaining why your business suits the brief and a high-quality image. Send your EOI to [email protected]

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

Website traffic was strong over the September/October school holidays with a 12% increase in sessions compared to the previous year, sitting at just under 138k total users for October. This boost was seen across all main sources, with particularly positive increases from referral traffic and social media.

Members received 126,163 page views this month, up 15% compared to the previous year.

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 ‘Things To Do’ 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 during the school holidays.

New Blog Stories 

141 members were featured across 10 new and refreshed blogs curated by the MRBTA in October, the majority of which were incorporated into the Spring Bucket List article.

Visitation to  blog stories increased 18% in September with 36k page views.

And these blogs were refreshed:

Social Media

September saw subdued numbers once again. Sydney and Melbourne make up 10.3% of our Instagram audience and they came out of an extended lockdown at the end of October, but borders remain closed. As people on the east coast start planning and booking travel, WA is still out of reach and may have a difficult time regaining traction and trust with east coast travellers.

  • Instagram:Followers grew by 72. Reach decreased by 12% but impressions were up 2%.
  • Facebook: Gained 10 new followers. Engagement and impressions decreased by 12% & 9% respectively.
  • The majority of followers on our platforms are Perth-based and female, between 25-44 years of age.

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%.

Moving forward reporting of click rates will be calculated differently in line with updates in privacy policies and as Campaign Monitor (our email platform) refines their metrics to be as accurate as possible. While previously the click rate was determined by the number of emails clicked divided by the number of emails opened (Click To Open Rate), it will now be the number of emails clicked divided by the number of emails sent (minus bounces).

You can read more about reporting of open and click rates here.

  • Consumer Newsletter Sent to 27,303 subscribers. 29.75% open rate and 4.03% click rate (CR). There were 1,431 sessions to the websites from this EDM, with a strong average session duration of 4:39 mins indicating a highly engaged audience.
  • The Monthly What’s On Blaster sent to our intrastate audience: 32% open rate and a CR of 6.2%.

*CR= Click 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 Strings Attached: The West Australian Guitar Festival and Fine Vines Festival in October.

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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