OPPORTUNITIES
Australian Traveller’s summer issue will feature Australia’s Top 50 towns through a voter-led campaign. The Margaret River Region’s spectacular town of Yallingup received top spot in 2019, ahead of long-time frontrunners Noosa (Qld) and Byron Bay (NSW).
Get online now and vote for one of our region’s anchor towns: Dunsborough, Busselton, Margaret River, Cowaramup, Yallingup or Augusta. Let’s continue to keep the region in the spotlight!
Expressions of Interest for October 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 October: The guide receives around 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 following new articles are available for EOI’s:
- After Dark: The Best Things To Do at Night
- Itinerary: A Mountain Bikers Long Weekend
- The Best Ways To Experience The Rivers Of The Region
- Your Guide to Open Vineyards: Accessing the Inaccessible (For cellar doors that aren’t open 7 days a week)
We will be refreshing the following evergreen articles, which are available for EOI’s.
- Insider Tips: Hiking The Cape To Cape Track
- How To Keep Teenagers Busy
- Busselton’s Best Kept Secrets
- Where To Stay In Summer
- How To Pack The Perfect Picnic (and The Best Spots to Enjoy Them)
MRBTA Marketing & Visitor Servicing Channels
Margaretriver.com
July Insights
In July there were 112,517 sessions to margaretriver.com, which is up 6% compared to June. Organic channels are the highest driver of traffic to the site by a significant amount, not only from Google – we are seeing a strong surge in traffic from Bing, which is up 27% compared to July 2021 and the engagement metrics are very strong which suggests that this audience are interested in the content and finding the information they are searching for.
After Perth, Sydney is the city we are seeing most sessions come from, and it’s great to see the number of sessions climbing each month. Melbourne is also up 12.5% compared to June.
Member page views were up nearly 6% in July, with 92,341 compared to 87,211 in June. .
Top 5 pages in July (excluding the Home page) were:
Top 5 blog posts in July were:
- Which Cave Is Best For Me
- Best Breakfasts
- The Night Time Dining Guide
- Family Friendly Things To Do In Dunsborough
- Family Friendly Wineries
July Blog Stories
There were 11 new and refreshed blogs curated by MRBTA in July.
In total there were 55,425 blog story page views. Website visitors spent an average time of 2:25 minutes on the page.
NEW
What’s On in July | The Margaret River Region
The Margaret River Region Winter Bucket List | The Margaret River Region
CinefestOZ: 10 Things You Need To Know | The Margaret River Region
Let’s Go To Witchcliffe | The Margaret River Region
REFRESHED
Secret Cellar Doors to Visit | The Margaret River Region
A Guide to Artist Galleries | The Margaret River Region
All The Best Family-Friendly Things To Do In Dunsborough & Yallingup (margaretriver.com)
Middle Earth & Other Biking Trails | The Margaret River Region
10 of the Best Breakfasts | The Margaret River Region
MAGAZINE
Monitoring the Mysteries of Migrating Whales | The Margaret River Region
Ancient Oasis: The Ethereal Lake Cave | The Margaret River Region
Campaigns
Drive Journeys
The Drive Your Story campaign promoting our five new iconic drive trails has received over 11,016 views on margaretriver.com The paid social component of the campaign has delivered 1,343,046 impressions and 7878 clicks. The campaign will continue to be promoted across our owned channels, through paid digital, famils and content partnerships.
The Australian Traveller partnership had great cut through and wrapped in mid-July: There were over 3000 unique views with click through rates over 10% which was well above their average.
South West Wanderer Pass
Last month there were still over $200,000 of vouchers remaining, so we further incentivised the offer by increasing the voucher value to $200 and opened up to intrastate visitors for a special winter offer to assist the industry in a typically quieter period. Since then, voucher bookings have accelerated.
We encourage accommodation providers to promote the campaign to upcoming and future bookings by using this banner in post-booking and pre-arrival emails to customers travelling from now until 16 December 2022 and linking to the redemption landing page https://www.margaretriver.com/wanderer-pass-redeem/. Consumers will then register to receive their unique code via email and will be able to book a tour or experience using the $200 voucher.
Winter Deals
The Winter Deals Promotion has received 993 page views since launch. We’ve received positive feedback from operators indicating some direct bookings as a result of the listings.
Social Media
While Facebook stats showed a ~25% dip this month, July’s organic and viral impressions were higher than January, March, and April 2022, and only 1% lower than February.
Instagram’s June figures were lifted by a successful Cabin Fever competition, contributing to July’s relative drop.
Instagram Reach has suffered while Instagram has favoured TikTok-style Reels, however they are reversing some of the recent algorithm changes and already we are seeing stronger performance on static portrait-dimension photos.
Instagram: Gained 130 new followers. Impressions and reach were down from June.
What we learnt: Reach is down, due to algorithm changes and wintry content (bright summer content does better!) but we hope to see an uptick in coming months, as some algorithm changes are reversed.
Facebook: Gained 300 new followers. Engagement and impressions were both down from June.
What we learnt: July was actually a great month; the 3rd highest monthly impressions so far this year. Impressions in July were 50% higher than January.
Most followers on our platforms are Perth-based and female, between 25-44 years of age.
Reach is the number of people who may have seen your content, while impressions are the total number of times your content was displayed to people.
Monthly EDMs
Monthly newsletters to consumers and media have maintained high engagement. The industry benchmark for Travel & Leisure is an open rate of 20.2%.
You can read more about reporting of open and click rates here.
As part of our ongoing EDM strategy we are currently in the process of segmenting and cleaning our email database, in order to maintain these strong engagement rates.
July Consumer Newsletter Sent to 37,540 subscribers. 39.04% open rate and 3.14% click rate (CR).
There were 2,268 sessions to the website from this EDM.
The most popular stories in the EDM this month were:
- The Winter Bucket List
- Best Breakfasts
- Secret Cellar Doors
- Monitoring The Mysteries of Migrating Whales
Hot tip: Consider sharing these stories to your email database.
What’s On in July Sent to 427 subscribers. 40.76% open rate, and 5.45% click rate. There were 50 sessions to the website from this EDM.
Media Coverage
A snapshot of media coverage featuring the Margaret River Region across July included:
- Australian Traveller – Issue 95. Going Guilt Free. The Augusta Margaret River Shire’s eco-certification is credited in their article about sustainable travel.
- 2023 Halliday Wine Companion Awards received good media coverage across a number of major news platforms with multiple wins for the region.
- ABC TV broadcast their series Movin’ to the Country featuring local businesses Glenarty Road winery, Ocean Grown Abalone and Kaarna Sauna.
- QANTAS Insider Feature on Cullen’s approach to sustainable winemaking.
Event Support
The MRBTA annually supports over 30 major events to drive off-peak visitation to our region.
In July we supported Cabin Fever Festival.
Marketing Resources
Margaret River Region Snapshot: A three-page document in presentation format that can be used for media and trade. The summary includes a regional map overview, top 10 natural attractions, town anchor points, signature experiences and iconic drive trails.
2020/21 domestic market profiles: These have been recently updated and published by Tourism WA, and reveal insights into our interstate and intrastate visitor behaviour.
Autumn / Winter Image Library: Members can access our Autumn / Winter image library and share inspirational visuals of the Margaret River Region. Please always credit the photographers when using images.
How to Leverage Your Events: MRBTA regularly supports 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.
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.