
October Highlights
Last month the Margaret River Region brand was recognised as a leader in publishing at APAC’s most prestigious travel media and marketing awards, the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards, receiving Highly Commended in the Publication of the Year category.
Travel Publication of the Year is a highly competitive category, and we were thrilled that our regional publication Tales & Trails received runner up against industry peers; QANTAS, Perth is OK, and We Are Explorers.
In other positive news, the MRBTA marketing and attractions teams supported a school camp last month from the RAWA Community School located in the Pilbara region. The Punmu and Kunawarritji communities are amongst the more remote in Australia, lying between the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts. Many of the students and teachers had never been on a plane or seen the ocean, and they had an incredible adventure being welcomed to Country by Wayne, Zac and Toni Webb, and experiencing the capes, caves and forests on Wadandi Boodja.
Expressions of Interest for January 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 January: 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:
- Plates With Mates: Where to Book Lunch with a Group
- How To Explore the Margaret River Region in an EV
We will be refreshing the following evergreen articles, which are available for EOI’s.
- The Indelible Buzz of Margaret River’s Main Street
- The Best Camping Spots Along The Coast
- The Ultimate Summer Bucket list: 50 of the Best Things to Do this Summer
- Sustainable Stays: Unique Retreats
Campaigns
Drive Your Story – Content Famil with Jarrad Seng & Rachel Claire
As part of the Drive Your Story campaign Jarrad and Rachel are currently in the region filming, with the deliverables including an Instagram Reel for each of the five Drive Trails and B roll footage that will be available for members on the trail to use. So far there have been behind the scenes clips shared on Instagram and amplified by the @margaretriver page which have received a positive response. Once complete the Reels will be shared and targeted to relevant interstate audiences.
Social Media
With a greater emphasis on communicating our evolved Margaret River Region brand across socials, in October we implemented new icons for Instagram highlights which give a cleaner more consistent aesthetic. We also made a dedicated effort to post content that leaned into the theme of ‘generous nature.’ Our overall KPIs for social media are to better connect our content plan with Facebook and Instagram, and drive traffic to mr.com rather than watching likes too closely.
With this new approach we saw Facebook comments increase by 53% across October, shares increase by 91% and engagement up around 7%. Many of the best performing, most engaging and most shared posts are on-brand, mention MRBTA members and link back to website stories. Some MRBTA assets (Tim Campbell and Ryan Murphy images) are also top performing.
Similarly with Instagram, reach was up 21% and engagement up 7%.
The post about the Nuytsia floribunda tree or Moodja tree, was highly successful with strong engagement from our audience. There is clearly an appetite from audiences to be educated on Wadandi cultural content. Next month we will begin a stronger education push across socials with geotagging Wadandi place names for audience awareness.
Highest Reaching October Results: Facebook & Instagram
Highest Reaching October posts linked to the following blogs
- Affordable Accommodation to book before Christmas
- Busselton’s Best Kept Secrets (22.6k reach)
- Spring Bucket List (32k reach)
Most Shared October Results: Facebook & Instagram
Most Shared October posts linked to the following blogs
- Moodja Tree blog (129 shares 24 comments and 22.4k reach)
- Affordable Accommodation to book before Christmas
- Busselton’s Best Kept Secrets
A few things to note:
- 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.
Margaretriver.com
In October there were 254,909 page views in total across the site, from 115,272 sessions. Compared to the same period last year Perth traffic has dipped by 40%, however this has been balanced out by increases in website users from Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Brisbane.
Top 5 pages in October (excluding the Homepage) were:
Top 5 blog posts in October were:
- Which Cave is Best For Me
- Family Friendly Wineries
- What’s On In October
- Night Time Dining
- Family Friendly Things To Do In Dunsborough
OCTOBER BLOG STORIES
There were 16 new and refreshed blogs curated by MRBTA in October.
In total there were 50,077 blog story page views. Website visitors spent an average time of 2:28 minutes on the page.
NEW
9 Things To Do At Night | The Margaret River Region
The Christmas Gift Guide | The Margaret River Region
Ocean Safety: Diving In The Margaret River Region | The Margaret River Region
Wine Stories: The Founding Four | The Margaret River Region
What’s On in November | The Margaret River Region
Poolside Panache: Luxury Summer Accommodation | The Margaret River Region
Wine Stories: For the Love of Chardonnay | The Margaret River Region
REFRESHED
Guide To: Margaret River Region’s Farmers Markets | The Margaret River Region
11 Awesome Things to Do in Yallingup | The Margaret River Region
7 Amazing Artistic Adventures | The Margaret River Region
Sustainable Travel: How To Holiday With a Light Footprint | The Margaret River Region
The Best Family Friendly Beaches | The Margaret River Region
The Local Summer Beers You Have To Try | The Margaret River Region
Best Family Friendly Breweries with Playgrounds | Margaret River Region
Karnidale: The World-Class Circus & Music Festival | The Margaret River Region
7 Days of Summer in the Margaret River Region | The Margaret River Region
Photoshoots
Last month we produced 2 photoshoots for our image asset library.
- Margaret River Main Street updated images taken by Sean at Ovis Creative
- Brand narrative images of the Augusta Skiffs to promote the generous nature of the Augusta community taken by Tim Campbell and assisted by Lizzy Pepper.
Thank you to Bill Perry at the Augusta Rower’s Club for coordinating talent and for the wonderful traders on Margaret River’s main street for letting Sean into your businesses.
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.
October Consumer Newsletter Sent to 37,996 subscribers. 37.09% open rate and 2.27% click rate (CR).
There were 1,283 sessions to the website from this EDM.
*CR= Click Rate
The most popular stories in the EDM this month were:
- A First Timers Guide To The Margaret River Region
- Hiking The Cape To Cape Track
- Busselton’s Best Kept Secrets
- How To Pack The Perfect Picnic
Hot tip: Consider sharing these stories to your email database or social channels.
- What’s On in October Sent to 427 subscribers. 44.92% open rate, and a 6.62% click rate.
Media Coverage
A snapshot of some of the media featuring our region over the last month.
- Australian Traveller EDM featured Breweries of Margaret River (went out to 82k subscribers with an open rate of 29%)
- Gourmet Traveller: The Best Spots to Eat and Drink in WA right now. Featured Vasse Felix. Voyager, Miki’s Open Kitchen and Chow’s Table.
- Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse 400th birthday event celebrated in local papers and also on ABC News with the Cape to Cape MTB
- Australian Traveller Top 50 Towns Edition: Featured Margaret River as number 9 and Busselton as number 28.
- The West Australian Newspaper featured MRBTA and Husbands that Travel workshops.
Event Support
The MRBTA annually supports over 30 major events to drive off-peak visitation to our region.
In October we supported Strings Attached: The WA Guitar Festival, and Fine Vines 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.
Spring / 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.
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.