MC Section

using analytics to make strategic decisions new england inns & resorts association 2011 // annual meeting presented on 10.23.2011

agency overview

agency overview ethology is a digital marketing agency that helps brands leverage audience hubs to better understand, engage, & serve their customers.

full service, informed, digital marketing

earning & owning digital success align search, social, & content marketing efforts, guided by a deep understanding of content demand, & an integrated strategy & digital marketing plan.

analytics = strategy

Using analytics to determine search demand categories are created & charted & the content categories with high priority are analyzed for targeting. search demand by category & topic is trended. keywords are prioritized to increase search visibility & site traffic.

Using analytics to determine search demand Using analytics helps you understand distributed content that is driving traffic to your site. sites have linked to your site – this opens doors for new partnerships. content that is resonating well with consumers. new opportunities for content development.

analytics for problem solving

My site’s traffic is down – why? Understand the 4 different “buckets of traffic” Direct – Visitors typing in your company’s domain name (URL) in their browser. Qualities: They already know your company & your URL. They probably are a current customer, have stayed at your property, or saw the URL on an offline advertisement. Referral – Visitors that clicked a link on another website and arrived to your site. Qualities: Typically referral traffic arrives to the site from industry partners (like NEIRA), email marketing campaigns, facebook, and other 3rd party sites. Search (Organic) – Visitors arriving to your site from organic search results. Search (Paid) – Visitors arriving to your site from paid search results. (AdWords, Bing, etc) Qualities: Typically a new person that is being introduced to your site/company. Search continues to be an excellent way to target visitors that are in their “top of the funnel” or discovery phase. Now lets see a real world example….

My site’s traffic is down – why? Problem: Year over Year Traffic is down 5%.

My site’s traffic is down – why? Problem: Year over Year Traffic is down 5%. Trip Advisor driving 30% less Traffic. Local CVB Driving 55% less Traffic. Largest segments driving traffic in 2010 are non-existent in 2011.

My site’s traffic is down – why? Problem: Year over Year Traffic is down 5%.

My site’s traffic is down – why? Problem: Year over Year Traffic is down 5%. Zero Paid Search traffic in 2011 – this accounts for a drop in OVERALL Search traffic. 23% increase in Organic Traffic.

social media

New England Inns and Resorts’ (NEIRA) “Endless Summer” Photo Contest kicked off on August 22nd, 2011, offering a prize of a $500 NEIRA gift certificate. Using Wildfire’s photo contest application, fans of NEIRA were asked to submit up to eight of their best photos taken from around New England during Summer 2011. Fans had until September 30th to submit their photos, and NEIRA selected its ten finalists. During the submission period, NEIRA received 71 photo submissions from 29 fans. From NEIRA’s ten selected finalists, fans voted for their favorite photos from October 5th through October 15th, with the winner being announced in the afternoon of the 15th. To keep the momentum of the contest strong, NEIRA e-mailed the ten finalists encouraging them to rally their friends to become fans of NEIRA on Facebook so they could vote for their picture in the contest. The ten finalists achieved a combined 330 votes. social media

The contest produced great results for NEIRA’s social presence. NEIRA gained new fans during the contest - fans to 1,044. Fan growth on Facebook is important because it grows NEIRA’s reach. Its recent growth has helped NEIRA achieve an 83% increase in post views and a 67% increase in post feedback. The daily average active users on facebook was 247, with a total of 11,130 people being exposed to the NEIRA facebook page during the contest. There were 58,041 News Feed Impressions counted during this campaign that meant on average 1,290 impressions were seen per day. social media

social media I am so grateful for such amazing and supportive friends! I cannot thank everyone enough for voting for my picture in the New England Inns & Resorts Association's "Endless Summer" photo contest! Thanks to your continued support, I won the NEIRA "Endless Summer" Photo Contest! I am very excited, and am so appreciative of everyone's support! - Katherine Larson

social media

search engine optimization

26% total website traffic growth over 2010 18% total website traffic growth over 2009 Already beat FY 2010 & 2009 search engine traffic accounts for 85% of all traffic direct traffic accounts for 7.6% of all traffic referral traffic accounts for 7.2% of all traffic SEO

Organic search traffic…. View 9% more pages / visit. Spend 8% more time on site. Are more likely to be a new visitor. Have a 10% less bounce rate. Come from Google 85% Visitors arrive to the site looking for… Romantic vacations 5%. Getaways 15%. Packages 13%. Spas 8%. Golf 6%. SEO

Strong interest level page traffic. romance receives more traffic than the home page. interest pages drive visitors straight into the resort pages. State pages have strong engagement. + 25% average time on site. + 15% more pages/visit for a landing page visitor. SEO Most Popular Pages

Developed 4 new Fall Foliage targeted pages: Discover Fall Colors in New England Portal Page Fall Foliage Hiking Trips in New England Fall Foliage Biking Trips in New England Peak Fall Foliage in New England Increased NEIRA’s exposure in the search engines by targeting travel, and interest based keywords. SEO Fall Foliage