Only in Scotland How do experiences drive VisitScotlands marketing - - PDF document

Only in Scotland How do experiences drive VisitScotland’s marketing …

Slide 1

• A holiday is all about special moments – moments with family and friends, moments to enjoy

new experiences and visit new places or perhaps to return to familiar places but try or learn something new

• Today’s travellers are looking for more – the experience economy is growing. It’s not just about

“I did this” … but unique experiences that are personally fulfilling

• Many destinations have comparable experiences and products, so Scotland needs to stand out

more in order to remain competitive … so that’s why we have Only in Scotland

• Only in Scotland is the next chapter of the VISIT element of Scotland Is Now

Slide 2

• VisitScotland’s purpose – at the heart of our organisation strategic framework
• Sustainable growth has traditionally been interpreted more in the economic sense via our

marketing, where our focus has been on regional and seasonal spread

• But in light of climate change, we as VisitScotland and as an industry, need to broaden our

thinking and approach more, to consider all aspects of sustainable growth - environmental, economic and social

• For ‘over tourism’ we are taking a more bottom up approach – matching product/place with

visitor markets and audiences, having total buy in from communities/destinations Slide 3 We have shaped our Only in Scotland campaign around these 5 emotional drivers:

• From all the research we have undertaken on visitors, these are the motivators for their holiday

– what they want to get from their experience

• These drivers shape our thinking on the content we create making sure we don’t just promote

things to see and do, but how a holiday/break in Scotland will deliver their needs on a more emotional level Slide 4 Welcome to Only in Scotland where we have put the unique experiences at the heart of our activity and storytelling to promote the experiences you can enjoy Only in Scotland Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XYpAxg_M-I Slide 5 So, what are the things we need to take into account, when designing our strategic approach and

• ur activity plans

Slide 6

• So not only are consumers looking for experiences that will fulfil their emotional drivers and

unique experiences, they also want information and content tailored to them

• One of the main step changes in our understanding of consumer behaviour is the move towards

post-demographics – a way to study personal data in social networking platforms and in particular user profiling - identifying user interests, based on their interactions

• In our digital world, we don’t just segment by age or social status classifications, the advent of

personalisation and digital platforms means that we can also tailor and personalise content by interests and behaviours

• AT VS we are investing in new digital capability – a new Content Management System for vs.com

and a new marketing automation platform that will give us the capability to provide more contextually relevant content based on someone’s interests and online behaviours – helping the visitor to cut through the vast amounts of travel information

• Our digital media buying also now targets via interest and behaviour allowing us to serve very

targeted adverts

• Slide one touches on the experience economy and there are more insights on trends at

VisitScotland.org – Art of Now (enrichment/personal growth), New Society Norms (seeking something meaningful in life) Slide 7

• Over the course of planning a holiday someone might do 100s, or even 1000s of different things
• nline and offline that contribute to their end decision. However, for us from a data perspective,

this journey is almost entirely opaque. We really don’t know what people are doing. But every now and then they pop up when they open our emails, visit our site or engage on social media and for a brief moment we have eyes on them – in a nice way!

• What this also means is we need to understand the channels and media that influences them

and then be discoverable and visible where they are looking and booking

• Within VisitScotland, we talk about holiday soup – lots of ideas bubbling away that people have

gathered from friends, TV programmes, social media etc.. Some of these might be very fixed e.g. I want to see the Northern Lights in Orkney, I want to meet the Harray Potter or visit a jewellery

• workshop. Others will be more conceptual – a touring holiday, a family getaway somewhere

remote etc.

• Our job is to create and distribute content based on what we know people might be searching

for and that will provide more information on what a holiday to Scotland could offer – weaving as many unique Only in Scotland moments in as we can

• Our media and national content activity focuses on the idea and concept forming stage of the
• journey. Our SEO strategy is focused on the concept forming stage of the journey

Slide 8 From left to right, there are in essence 5 different ways tourism providers can sell their products to the happy visitors at the bottom, which you’re probably all aware of. What, in essence, this slide

• utlines is:
• Visitors use different channels
• Many will book direct with businesses (therefore you need to be discoverable)
• Growing numbers will use Online Travel Agents (Expedia/Booking.com etc) and book travel,

accommodation and increasingly experiences

• Some, particularly those from long haul markets, will use Fully Inclusive Tour Operators or

Destination Management Company’s like Abbey Tours, JAC Travel etc to book for them. Increasingly our focus here is working with and influencing the trade to get them to develop unique Scotland packages and helping businesses to work with the travel trade.

• For VisitScotland, this means we need to know who the key intermediaries are in each market

and partner with the key ones. Expedia is the most popular Online Travel Agents in North America Slide 9

• Planning for the whole journey as a nation – we all have a role to play
• VS role at the top of funnel - stimulating demand for the destination – we use media channels

that we know our target audiences are engaging with

• VS social media – also inspiration/idea/concept forming stage of the journey – we measure

success not just by number of followers (3m) but by the amount of non-followers we reach every month which means our engagement is good – every month we reach 4m potential visitors that don’t currently follow us (friends of friends) providing them with ideas for their holiday soup

• VS.com is an important gateway where visitors come to help build their idea/concept of a

holiday in Scotland but we know that they will also use many many other sites during their journey – we optimise the content based on what consumers are searching for and now 80% of

• ur traffic and 90% of our referrals come from organic search – i.e. quality traffic that is

converting

• We also work with industry/destinations to increase capability through for instance Digital

Tourism Scotland, and to increase online discoverability and bookability – it’s important that visitors can convert easily at all stages of the journey

• Businesses need to optimise their content to increase direct bookings and work with Online

Travel Agents that will help you achieve your objectives Slide 10

• Bringing Scotland’s products and experiences to life in an emotive and engaging way, reinforcing

Scotland’s position as a welcoming, creative, innovative, inclusive and progressive nation

• Trends, insights, drivers and market learnings puts storytelling at the very heart of our strategy

• This is where we come in with inspirational and motivational marketing; working with industry

to present unique experiences and products that we can market as Only in Scotland Slide 11 Which markets are we focusing on:

• Good/sustainable growth requires a focus on markets that will deliver high value visitors who

are happy to come out with the main season and travel wider than iconic sites

• 2018 was a record year with strong growth, in particular from Europe + 19%, but the US and UK

markets were also up

• These figures continue to highlight the importance of the UK market (England combined is over

£1 Billion), you will see also on the right, spend on activities by the UK Market

• The US, Germany and France remain our largest overseas markets by value
• We have seen good growth from markets like Australia, Canada and China too although the

volume/value data on China is unreliable Slide 12

• I touched on this earlier, but here are the main media, intermediary and transport content

channels and partners we’re working with by priority market – notwithstanding the current health issues in China. As well as running paid activity with these channels and partners, we also share content through them where we can

• Traffic drivers, such as clickthrough display adverts/social adverts across their sites direct their

audiences to Scotland content and product

• This is all part of our strategy to use big partners’ reach to increase Scotland’s visibility on the

internet – recognising that in global terms and against global players, despite VS.com delivering almost 60 million page views in 2019 and with traffic to the VisitScotland blog up 20% last year, we still have a modest presence on the internet

• We received two accolades from Mafangwo – leading tourism lifestyle guide – for our work

showcasing Scotland as a visitor destination in China – Outstanding Partner and Destination Online Popularity

• In the last 12 months we’ve also won ‘Best Travel Destination’ at Travel & Leisure Awards in

Beijing a Hurun Report award for ‘Outstanding Contributions to China-UK relations’. The Hurun Report is a reputable research, media and investment platform between China and UK and we were nominated by a China Daily reporter Slide 13

• The North America team delivered a campaign with Expedia which ran from October - December
• 2019. We know that increasing numbers of people use Online Travel Agents to book their

holidays – particularly flights and accommodation, plus experiences

• Expedia is the dominant Online Travel Agents in North America, accounting for sales of over

80,000 air tickets and bookings for nearly 400,000 people in 2018. So earlier this year we agreed pilot activity to develop deeper understanding of how their clients are researching and planning

trips to Europe and Scotland; and how we can grow bookings particularly for experiences – providing information to encourage more Scottish businesses to get the best from the platform. Expedia data showed that around one third of people booked 3 months ahead (confirming our insights) with another third booking within 30 days (which surprised us)

• The insights also showed a growth in appetite for experiences, with tours and activities showing

strong growth. Armed with this knowledge, we developed a ‘test and learn’ campaign with Expedia to promote regional and seasonal spread, as well as featuring inspiring ‘Only in Scotland’ content linked to bookable experiences.

• The activity targeted two types of visitor:
• Direct promotion of Scotland targeted those who had booked London, Manchester,

France or Dublin, encouraging them to add Scotland to their itinerary

• Targeted those who searched for UK & Ireland but hadn’t booked - with a BOOK

SCOTLAND direct message. All activity pointed to a dedicated Scotland hub on Expedia with Only in Scotland messaging.

• Early results after two weeks indicated 920 tickets sold and 2937 room nights sold

Slide 14

• Maximising reach through PR, emails, blogs and website content and social media activity
• Helping to provide ideas and concepts for a holiday in Scotland
• Today our social media followers number around 3m, hitting the 1m milestone on Instagram –

and as I said earlier, we’re hitting a high proportion of non-followers – friends of friends

• VS.com has grown year on year comparing 2018 and 2019 with growth in organic traffic up in all
• ur markets and accounting for 90% of the referrals to industry. Growth for 2019 ranged from

1% for the ES to 40% for NL, DE was up 36%, FR up 21%, the US up 14% and UK & Ireland 11%

• In 2019 we search engine optimised the Orkney landing page and improved the user

experience/page layout and we’ve seen traffic to the page increase by 69% year on year to 332k page views, there has also been an increase of 40% in business referrals between April – September 2019

• Instagram aerial Orkney post generated over 28k engagements

Slide 15 Regional marketing support through VisitScotland owned channels:

• We work closely with local stakeholders, including Destination Orkney Ltd, Orkney Islands

Council, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, the ferry companies, Orkney Food & Drink and others helping distribute content assets and campaigns through VisitScotland owned channels where we can

• On occasion we produce Orkney-specific content to support local activity and distribute these

through our owned channels e.g. 11 Autumn Experiences

• We also feature Orkney in some of our national activity – Dave Flanagan’s Old Man of Hoy Insta

image featured in our Instagram Wall of Inspiration on stand at Stylist Live Luxe in November

2019 and Orkney scallops were referenced in our DPS in Stylist Magazine and in our quiz to find your perfect Scottish break

• We support Destination Orkney with the development of VisitOrkney.com through Search

Engine Optimisation and User Experience support

• Regular update emails are sent by our Highlands & Islands regional marketing, Anne Roels, to

internal VisitScotland teams encouraging them to share Orkney content

• The VisitScotland staff photographer has been on the islands a few times and new imagery is

available to local stakeholders and businesses on VisitScotland’s Digital Media Library - https://assets.visitscotland.com/register

• Anne also develops specific Orkney content, media and influencer campaigns with partners such

as NorthLink Slide 16

• Only in Scotland Toolkit can be found on the industry website VisitScotland.org – lots of useful

info – market overviews, media overviews, our content calendar, content you can download and use Slide 17

• Share using our hashtags - #visitscotland #onlyinscotland #scotlandisnow
• Create story content on your own channels
• Focus on visibility/discoverability on the internet and make it easier for visitors to convert by

being online bookable

• Think about how you can adapt your product or work with a local partner to create a new

experience