Brief

To celebrate and promote Wales’ Year of Legends we were asked by Visit Snowdonia to raise the profile of three distinct County Councils with a digital marketing campaign to attract more visitors to the designated regions. The brief focussed on delivering the campaign in both English and Welsh to drive visitor traffic to the three websites – Gwynedd, Anglesey, Llandudno and also to Snowdonia National Park.

The specific requirement was to generate interest both in the Midlands and the North West of England in the attractions and holiday opportunities across the region. With an overarching campaign celebrating the Year of Legends, the digital campaign was targeted at potential visitors to Wales with an emphasis on adventure, exploration and the proximity of the regions to the targeted audiences.

The campaign was required to drive visitors to each of the participating regional websites and to create greater interest by devising a social media poll centred on the top attractions in the three locations.

Strategy

We devised a strong digital campaign across Facebook and Twitter to reach specific audiences comprising independent explorers, those interested in local Welsh culture, historical sites, stunning landscapes and those looking for a sense of adventure. By combining different messages about the beauty and attractions of the regions we were able to reach out to single travellers, married couples with children looking for something new and easily reachable, as well as ABC1 city dwellers who would be taking more than a single holiday each year. Our campaign filtered the relevant audiences in terms of homeowners, frequent travellers, financial status and purchase behaviour.

To engage with social media users we created a unique custom polling app for use on Facebook that was mobile-friendly and providing a seamless operation for both users and the campaign. We ensured secure integration with Facebook along with customisation options enabling branding and bespoke questions to be created for the campaign.

Digital Dialog devised a poll for users to choose their top 10 Welsh experiences and locations from a list offered through the polling app. With simple options to rank the selected items with a click and drag feature, local users were able to rate their favourites. We were able to encourage them to draw their friends and followers into the poll and to generate increased website traffic. A total of six polls were created covering both locations and experiences in Wales and these were accompanied with photography and short descriptions to pique interest.

Results

The social media campaign was highly effective both in terms of promoting Wales as a destination and in driving traffic to the three websites.The campaign generated over 30,000 visits to the websites. Besides the targeted ad campaign, the specifically created polls were also used to highlight the desirable attractions and experiences that visitors to the regions could see and enjoy. By encouraging them to draw in their followers on Facebook it increased the reach of the poll and paid dividends in driving new visitors to the three websites.