Case Study

Client

MyRoadTripUSA.co.uk (www.myroadtripusa.co.uk)

Situation → Problem → Solution

The Capital Region USA, Inc. (CRUSA), is a tourism coalition comprised of the the States of Virginia, Maryland and the city of Washington, DC.

CRUSA works to increase visitation and economic impact to the region from selected overseas markets. The ability to reach these markets is critical to the success of the tourism coalition to see through their vision and reach their goals.

CRUSA approached Dot Tourism to discuss an online marketing campaign to target the UK market. The focus of the campaign was to be based around the Scenic Byways found throughout the region.

Our key objective was to create and implement a strategy that would drive traffic to the site and give users a compelling online experience that would inspire them to take action.

We created a website that creates personalised road trips around the Capital Region, based on the visitor preferences. The site is also packed with exciting touring ideas and visitors can request a free Byways travel pack.

CRUSA secured a number of key sponsors, including Hertz, and were able to offer the chance to win a £5000 fly-drive holiday to the region.

Results

Online marketing – In three months the site has attracted over 60,000 page views with almost 12,500 unique visitors. We used an online advertising budget of under £5,000 and managed a pay per click campaign (Facebook and Google Adwords).

We also implemented an email marketing campaign to a small CRUSA consumer database. The result of this was excellent – the email had an open rate of almost 50% and over two thirds of all those recipients clicked through to the site. The industry average is between 20 and 40%.

Conversion – Once we had attracted visitors to the site it was essential that we inspired them to take action. Over 47% of all visitors entered the competition and completed the personalised road trip builder. This client is delighted with the high conversion as each completed road trip builds awareness of what the destination has to offer.

It also presents an opportunity to collect emails for future marketing purposes of which 38% (2250) of all entrants agreed to. This part of the campaign was also a great success for the campaign sponsors, Hertz and North America Travel Service with 28% of entrants opting in for more information.

Over 7% of all competition entrants signed up to have a free brochure sent to them.

The site has been a key stepping stone for visitors to find out more information about CRUSA. We've included clear links to the main consumer site and made available two downloadable PDF brochures.

CRUSA contacted Lastminute.com to enquire regarding the number of entrants it had on its promoted competitions and this was between 3,000 and 10,000. With over 5,000 entrants Capital Region USA are delighted with the level of interest and the conversion rates on the site with a small advertising spend.

The web site is sustainable and will remain online indefinitely and will be used as a marketing tool aimed at potential US visitors interested in visiting the area or experiencing a US style road trip. The site is optimised and is already receiving steady traffic through non paid search engine listings.

Testimonial

“The Capital Region USA partnership contracted Dot Tourism to create an online campaign to raise awareness for the scenic byways experience in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.

The resulting MyRoadTripUSA online campaign attracted sponsorships from two leading UK brand names; Hertz and North America Travel Service, and generated 14,500 site visits, 6,300 competition entries, nearly 500 requests for additional information, and 2,250 opt-ins to our database.

Dot Tourism professionally managed the execution of the campaign from start to finish and we couldn't be more pleased with the results. ”

Matt Gaffney, President & CEO

Capital Region USA, Inc.
T. 302/226-0422
F. 302/226-1986
www.capitalregionusa.org

Services provided

Online marketing and web development

• Strategy
• Digital project management
• Search engine optimisation
• Email marketing
• Pay Per Click Advertising
• Website design
• Website development
• Digital branding
• Competition seeding
• Database development
• Analytics