Marketing Opportunities |
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September 16, 2010 VCM Social Media
Pilot Update |
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For those of you who may not be aware (or may be!), Vancouver, Coast & Mountains has been running a social media marketing campaign in partnership with Think! Social Media over the past month. As this has been launched as a pilot project for social media marketing, we would like to share some of our initial findings with you. Since the start of the VCM social media pilot the campaign has produced a total of 7218 clicks through to participating partner websites from highly qualified leads. As social media tools allow a greater ability to segment and develop targeted messages for consumers, the efficiency of capturing the attention of qualified leads and moving them towards conversion is increased. As a result, these leads are much more valuable than regular web traffic. In addition to generating over 23 million impressions for paid advertising on social media sites, the campaign has focused on organic content creation and blogger outreach, as well as the Life Points platform. When executing a social media campaign, value is derived from both the distribution of targeted messages and the many additional interactions by users who share, participate with and perpetuate advertising content. These effects are very difficult to measure in the short term but they last forever and should not be trivialized. Over the final few weeks of the campaign, partners are encouraged to continue sharing content with their networks and promoting the Life Points application. A final report will be compiled following the culmination of the campaign. If you have questions about the social media pilot please contact Jennifer Rhyne at jennifer@vcmbc.com or 604-637-9046. Social Media Workshop - Some spots still available! Vancouver, Coast & Mountains (VCM) is offering a series of full day social media workshops. One of the workshops is targeted at accommodation providers and the other has been designed for activity operators. The intent of the course is to increase awareness and understanding of social tools for tourism businesses. The workshop will be conducted by Think! Social Media and has been compiled in conjunction with, Paul Cubbon (UBC) and William Bakker (Tourism BC). The first 2 workshops are scheduled as follows: Activity Operator Workshop - North Vancouver, BC - October 6, 2010 Accommodation Workshop - Vancouver, BC - October 7, 2010 Please visit the VCM Partners Extranet for more detailed information and a registration form. If you have questions about the social media workshops please contact Shawna Leung at shawna@vcmbc.com or 604-484-5360. Tap into the Chinese Resident Market Vancouver, Coast & Mountains is looking for partners who are interested in promoting their businesses to the resident Chinese market. We are planning a targeted campaign with Alisa Choi Darcy from Quote EndQuote Cross-Cultural Strategy to encourage resident Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin speaking) consumers to visit and explore our region and participating partners, so that they influence their visiting friends and family from China. If you are interested in reaching this market, or to learn a little more about it, VCM will be scheduling a webinar in the next few weeks. Please contact Jennifer Rhyne (jennifer@vcmbc.com) to learn details. Upcoming Consumer Shows – Partner Opportunity Lights, camera, action - it’s show time! Get ready to showcase your business or community to potential visiting consumers for the 2011 season. Vancouver, Coast & Mountains has secured booth space until November for our partners in the following upcoming shows: Northwest Women’s Show – March 4 – 6, 2011 Vancouver Travel and Outdoor Show – March 19 – 20, 2011 VCM will also be will be showcasing our region with booths at the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles Adventure shows. We would like to extend the offer of brochure distribution at these shows to our adventure operators. If you are interested in any of the above Consumer Show opportunities, please contact Doleen Dean at Doleen@vcmbc.com. Chilliwack – The Ultimate Fishing Town? The finalists have been announced for the World Fishing Network’s Ultimate Fishing Town contest and our very own Chilliwack has made it into the Top 10. Congratulations to Chilliwack! The contest ends on September 28 and Chilliwack needs our help to win as many votes as possible. Visit the World Fishing Network website to vote. Voting has already started and voters are allowed one vote every 12 hours from each email address. Let’s help Chilliwack out and spread the word on your own networks. Make sure to share the voting link on facebook, twitter and with your partners, members and friends. We already know that Chilliwack is the ultimate fishing town, but let’s share it with the world and make them truly the “Ultimate Fishing Town”! CITAP Informational Seminars on HST & ADS Please join the Canadian Inbound Tourism Association (Asia Pacific) for a practical, down-to-earth discussion of our current position and tips for success in this highly competitive environment. Topics of discussion include the harmonized sales tax (HST) and approved destination status (ADS). The presentation will include:
Seminar One: 'HST Ruling for the Travel Industry'. Presented by Marjorie Stevens from HST Ruling/CRA. Ms. Stevens will be covering topics/issues specific to travel industry, followed by a question and answer session. Seminar Two: 'BC, Canada, China & ADS - What Now?' Presented by Cindy Gobin, Market Development Manager/Tourism BC. Ms. Gobin will provide a brief overview of plans, opportunities and challenges for developing tourism business with China. This is a practical, down-to-earth discussion of our current position and tips for success in this highly competitive environment. There will also be ADS accredited Tour Operators present to add input from the operator's side. DATE: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 Download the registration form here. Registration Deadline: Friday, September 17, 2010 Please contact the CITAP office directly for more information at 604-247-1997 or citap97@citap.ca GfK,
MRI: Magazine Ad Placement Registers Little Impact Despite all the attention paid to magazine ad placements, a new study from GfK MRI indicates that advertising context, including editorial relevancy, has little impact on the effectiveness of magazine ads. The results, first reported by Mediaweek, suggest that one of the more labor-intensive parts of the media planning process for magazines serves no real purpose. GfK MRI examined 68,000 ads that appeared in magazines over the last 18 months, measuring their impact on readers and attempting to correlate ad effectiveness with positioning. But the research firm found that on average, a single ad had the same impact regardless of its location -- e.g., in the front or back of a magazine, or proximity to relevant editorial. The one major discriminator in terms of ad effectiveness appeared to be adjacency to other ads. Ads that appeared next to editorial did better than ads next to other ads, attracting 51% of readers versus 46% for the latter category. Ads located next to the table of contents scored somewhat higher, read by 59% of readers. The data for magazine ad effectiveness are drawn from GfK MRI's annual Survey of the American Consumer and its proprietary comprehensive advertising measurement service for consumer magazines, AdMeasure. AdMeasure combines data-describing ad recall, the influence of the ad on the consumer's perception of the brand, and actions taken subsequent to seeing the ad with audience data to determine the ad's impact over time. The service was formed by the integration of MRI's new issue-specific readership data with ad-effectiveness data from GfK Starch, which MRI acquired in the first half of 2009. In 2010, MRI is offering AdMeasure ratings for every national ad in every issue of all 200 consumer magazines tracked by the research firm. |
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Your feedback is most welcome on any subject – please e-mail kevan@vcmbc.com. |
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