Marketing & Visitor Servicing Update - November Insights

November Highlights

Last month the second phase of our Drive Trails campaign went into production. After consultation with participating members, the marketing team planned a dedicated content famil to create five inspirational Social Media Reels – one to promote each Drive Trail.

We enlisted photographer and filmmaker Jarrad Seng (@jarradseng 193k followers on IG), and photographer and journalist Rachel Claire (@fieldnotes__ 47.8k followers on IG) to spend six days in the region bringing the campaign to life.

Instagram reels are trending in popularity and have become the platform’s fastest growing feature worldwide, proving that short, sharp video-based content is here to stay. With social media followers plateauing globally, this is a time to experiment with new content formats and introduce unique campaigns. The Drive Trails reels will be ready to distribute across our social media platforms in January, when we will encourage all our members to share as part of a coordinated blitz.

Additionally, MRBTA will be provided with video assets from the shoot that can be accessed by members to use across their own channels.

Some screen grabs below of live Instagram Stories shared during the shoot. We look forward to sharing the video assets in the new year.

Expressions of Interest for February 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 February: 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:

Treasure Hunting in Dunsborough & Yallingup (aimed at Art and Jewellery operators)
Sparkling Wine Guide
Tasting World Flavours in Margaret River
Family Friendly Accommodation

We will be refreshing the following evergreen articles, which are available for EOI’s.

10 of the Most Romantic Things to Do
Reigniting Nostalgia: A Day in Augusta

Social Media

With social media undergoing changes to their algorithm, it’s important that we look at our followers as our community rather than an audience, and measure success via consumer engagement over increased numbers of passive onlookers.

Owned image assets seem to be getting more organic reach than user generated content, and we are leaning into sharing a greater proportion of MRBTA brand imagery.

We’ve had positive feedback on Wadandi content which shows there is a strong demand for education on our First Nations People and culture. Overall, the stats were slightly down last month, but change can take time, and pivoting to a new style and tone can result in initial dips in results.

Next year, we look forward to including social media buy-in options for members, contact the membership team if you would like to know more.

Highlights:

Key Takeaways – Facebook

The Wins:

The best performing post was taken by a member
Many of our top posts link back to blog posts and trail guides
Some MRBTA assets created by Tim Campbell and Ryan Murphy are top performing posts

What We’ve Learnt:

Stats are subdued and lack significant new followers. Could be due to time of year (pre-Christmas shoulder season), global social media trends more generally, or pivoting our tone of voice and images which can create initial flux.

Key Takeaways – Instagram

The Wins:

Was great to see a post reach 2.2k likes again. With Instagram algorithms changing, these sort of numbers have been challenging to reach organically this year.

What We’ve Learnt:

We’ve read that Instagram intends to give static content the same reach as reels (early December) which is a win given how resource-consuming it can be to create quality reels.

Margaretriver.com

Overall, unique website visitors increased just over 5% when compared to November last year.
International traffic is rebounding. Website visitors from Singapore is up over 500% in November with 3,000 unique visitors. Other strong performers were the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Malaysia.
Within Australia, traffic from New South Wales has bounced back with an increase of 163% to 7,000 unique visitors in November compared to last year, Victoria grew 45% to nearly 5,000 visitors. WA traffic fell by 9%.
Landing pages that performed particularly well in November include;
- ’Things To Do’ landing page
- The Accommodation page
- The Busselton, Dunsborough and Augusta town pages.
- ‘What’s on in November’ page grew 200%

Top 5 pages in November (excluding the Homepage) were:

Photoshoots

Still grab from film shoot by Jarrad Seng

The Drive Trails video and stills production took place from November 14th – November 20th. Photo and video assets of hero landscapes across the region will be made available to all members in the coming month.

Thank you to all participating businesses who provided support during the shoot.

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%.

November Consumer Newsletter  Sent to 37,843 subscribers. 41.2% open rate and 2.8% click rate (CR).

There were 1,610 sessions to the website from this EDM.

*CR= Click Rate

The most popular stories in the EDM this month were:

7 Days of Summer
11 Things to Do in Yallingup
The Best Family Friendly Beaches
For The Love of Chardonnay
Wine Stories: The Founding Four

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

What’s On in November Sent to 430 subscribers. 49.6% open rate, and a 9.4% click rate.

Media Coverage

A snapshot of some of the media featuring our region over the last month.

Lonely Planet – The Ultimate 7 Day Journey in Western Australia (this news also appeared in So Perth, the West Australian and other major mastheads)
WA Good Food Guide Awards celebrated over 15 Margaret River Region venues.
NZ Herald – 48 Hours in Margaret River, Western Australia
Multiple Media sources recognising Margaret River Region wins in the WA Tourism Awards

Event Support

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

In November we supported Perth International Jazz Festival and provided Ngilgi Cave as a location for some of their break-out events.

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.

Marketing & Visitor Servicing Update – November Insights