DIGITAL DESTINATIONS

Dr Philip Alford Bournemouth University

www.digitalhub.co.uk

www.pinterest.com/digitaldest www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub

ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU

Digital Destinations project is an ESRC funded research project, delivered by Bournemouth University,

with an overarching aim to:

‘capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.

Through increased understanding and use of emerging digital technologies, visitor economy businesses will be in a position to increase their marketing and management effectiveness, and

develop new products and services that will provide an enhanced experience for visitors to their destinations’

The businesses benefited from 4 workshops which covered: Background to on line marketing

Individual Business objectives

Developing the strategy

Measuring impact

Reporting outcomes via case studies

All course material can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub All business outcomes and blogs can be found at http://www.budigitalhub.co.uk/

The following presentation is the case study provided by Surf Steps Surf Steps key activity was to develop a more engaging and mobile friendly website, to make sure it was SEO optimised, and to ensure that social media activity focused in the right direction. The projected helped them to assess social media impact v awareness raising and highlight key next steps around customer engagement and user generated content.

Digital Destinations Project

Based on analysis, suggestions and opportunities:

1. Launch new mobile-friendly website.

2. Generate user added content onto website.

Target: Create new website that fulfils action points 1 and

2.

3. Introduce linking between social media and website

(Agreed that student report would be based on using SM to increase hits website hits).

Target: To get FB and Twitter into top 10 referrals to our

site.

Actions monitored by Google analytics and goal set up to

see conversions success (leading to our contact page).

• Traffic increased from 100 to 160 hits on the day we used SM to communicate that we had a new site! (22nd May-23rd May.)

• In addition SM feedback has been positive and helps to identify possible amends and errors

Source Visits

bournemouth.co.uk 64

magicseaweed.com 50

letsgoout-bournemouthandpoole.co.uk 40

coastwiththemost.com 24

surfinggb.com 20

twitter.com 18

facebook.com 18

google.co.uk 11

visitbournemouth.com 9

Referral sources taken from Google Analytics between the

dates of 20 January and March 6:

• SM referrals are only 3% of total traffic!

(91 of 2820, 28 April-28 May 2013)

• Although feel SM creates a personality and a

fun aspect for the company.

Because of this reflection and analysis we have

decided to change priorities………….

1. More blogging, share these on SM, people to go then to website blog, then sign up to blog feeds.

2. Fine tune new website based on Market grader report (e.g. sharing buttons, user generated content)

3. Monitor Email opening rates and blog feed sign up.

4. Monitor goal conversions based on action 1.

5. Base targets on this monitoring.

6. New report from Market Grader, end of June.

For more information on DIGITAL DESTINATIONS contact:

Dr Philip Alford, Bournemouth University

ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU