Over 5000 people “Like” him on Facebook – over 700 are following and having conversations with the deceased playwright daily on Twitter all resulting in record number online ticket sales.

Social Media Marketing Campaign Objectives:

To increase direct online sales by growing traffic to the website www.shawfest.com, and by engaging new audiences outside of the traditional target demographics for the theatre company.

The primary objective was to present the Shaw Festival, and each individual Play to a wider group of would-be theatre goers who may have not otherwise considered attending, or had preconceived ideas about the theatre, or the specific productions for the season.

The overall objective in developing the social media strategy was to engage the growing fan base who are actively living online by providing them with insight to the Shaw Festival (with a behind-the-scenes focus), regular special offers (ensuring fans are driven to the special offers page regularly when offers are available), customer service (answering questions about the ticketing process and travel to the area), George Bernard Shaw quotes and information about the plays to generate interest, and useful information for those visiting (events, festivals, Niagara-on-the-Lake visitor info).

The theatre company, located in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, produces ten plays each year and is a key tourism driver for Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Niagara region as a whole.

The multi-channel digital strategy launched Summer 2009, and was created by online marketing firm A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing, and managed in co-ordination with the Shaw Festival in-house Marketing Communications team with the overall goals of increased online ticket sales and new audience development.

The Strategy:

To develop a way to impact and talk directly to Shaw’s audiences in places they are comfortable interacting, as well as to encourage viral distribution of the Shaw and its productions online.

Developing a voice and tone for each community, building out content such as comments about the productions, backstage photos, video’s, images – and developing a strong engagement level with this audience was the focus in the early growth stages for the campaign.

A unique strategy was developed for each social channel.

Once Shaw himself started tweeting quotes and responding to comments and questions (from the grave of course), and the Facebook page for the theatre grew to include commentaries, discussions and more – followers began flocking to the Facebook community, the Twitter page, the YouTube channel, the theatre Blog – and back to the main web asset www.shawfest.com to transact via a communities page that brought all of the social channels together in one place.

The campaign was also supported with Google Adwords campaigns as well as optimized Press Releases, website content development, and ongoing Search Engine Optimization.

The Challenges:

1. Ensuring that the social media communities were not only large in number, but also actively engaged. It was uncertain if the target audience would move from discussing and browsing to buying.

2. Determining an accurate ROI on each tactic.
Tracking was put in place to ensure that sales conversions could be measured back to the specific social media efforts. Facebook only offers were also created.

3. Building up the community base for a niche theatre with different plays targeted to different audiences. Considerations included determining how to build followers who were within drive-in radius (the traditional core market) and to ensure Facebook and Twitter audiences moved to transact by creating the proper user path that encouraged click thru to the website.

Campaign Tactics:

Facebook Fan page, Facebook Tab Development, Twitter community development and strategy, Theatre Blog (featuring behind the scenes), YouTube channel and Flickr photo page development – brought together within a Social Communities page entitled “Stay Connected”.

Campaigns within each community included Facebook specific Ticket offers, contests, behind-the-scenes videos, Blogs written by members of the company, videos with candid conversations with the actors and directors – all integrated into the larger marketing campaign messages. The campaign was measured using conversion tracking in Google Analytics as well as through campaign specific ticket rate codes.

The Blog:    http://blogs.shawfest.com/

The blog serves a dual purpose, generating content for consumers – and generating content that can be indexed in the search engines. The Blog can be easily integrated with other social media efforts and vice versa.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shawfestival

Engages and builds a new fan base by providing insight to the Shaw Festival (behind-the-scenes focus), regular special offers (ensuring fans are driven to the special offers page regularly when offers are available), customer service (answering questions about the ticketing process), Shaw quotes and information about the plays to generate interest, and useful information for those visiting (events, festivals, NOTL info).

This was supported by a Facebook Ad campaign to build the initial Fan Base and to push specific offers to a targeted audience.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/shawtheatre

The strategy behind Twitter was primarily brand development and a key to engaging the audience;  it also serves as a customer service tool and a PR monitoring/growth mechanism to correspond with media. Twitter maintains the “voice” of Shaw himself with commentaries about the plays, politics and other musings.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theshawfestival

YouTube.com was used to grow multimedia content and house video content where it can be sourced from other social media venues, and add to overall online distribution of the Shaw brand. Back of the house video’s, Shaw commercials and other video’s were added to engage the audience.

Go behind the scenes at the Shaw Festival Theatre

‘Stay Connected’ Communities Page: http://www.shawfest.com/Home/Stay-Connected

The website was updated with a ‘Stay Connected’ communities page to offer a central portal for all things social media. The community’s page drives traffic to the various social media outlets in which Shaw participates and serves as the landing page from social media into the site – and to the online ticket box office.

Results Summary:

With Social Media as an evolving advertising medium, the Social Media Marketing Strategy was extremely successful in generating buzz, traffic to the main website and sales. The campaign was featured in the Globe and Mail, and used as a best practice case study at a leading Canadian Online Marketing Conference. The campaign also successfully built a platform that will continue to evolve and drive targeted traffic and sales moving forward.

By growing connections (fan base, followers), aggressively distributing content, and building the level of engagement with new core audiences outside of the typical target audiences, the Shaw Festival was successful in expanding brand awareness with new audiences, and increasing ticket sales online by 25%.

As a result of the digital marketing efforts, Shaw Festival has experienced significant e-commerce sales growth:

• The Spring 2010 season (April 2009 to June 2010) was 7,000 tickets ahead of Spring 2009, selling almost 50% more tickets for the April launch of the season than the April 2009 season.

• Year to Date 27% of sales are online and currently sales are $325,000 over the Year to Date total last year at this time.

• Traffic to the website increased by 17% over the same time in 2009.

Other Campaign Highlights:

• Year over year increase in Website traffic reaching a peak at almost 4,000 unique visits in one day.

• Increases Engagement with website users visiting over 9 pages per visit and spending over 5 minutes on the site.

• Referring sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other social channels provided more search engine visibility as well as more Referring traffic back to the transactional website shawfest.com.

The Social Media Marketing campaign and Web Marketing efforts were also supported and integrated into an aggressive offline campaign that included traditional marketing vehicles such as print and radio – and resulted in growth of new audiences and record attendance.

The Shaw Festival is currently planning for the 2011 season and for the 50th anniversary celebrations.  George Bernard Shaw continues his musings on Twitter “often quoting himself…as it adds spice to the conversation”

This question has had us thinking.

Why the story? Over the past five years since Patricia and I founded A Couple of Chicks’, we have had the pleasure of not only traveling across Canada and the US, but also of really knowing the places and people we are working with – and more importantly – what makes them unique.

So why are these stories so important to the success of what we do? I guess we could just go back to the marketing 101 textbook, which among other things, teaches us to understand the customer. Yes, we have research for that (and lots of it), and while many businesses don’t have the time or resources to individually know every customer, Patricia and I have been lucky enough to be invited into communities, and to really know the people we work with and are speaking to in the workshops and presentations that we do.

In fact, the “stories” have become so ingrained into our methodology that I am not quite sure that our strategies would be as effective without them.

Yes the latest digital marketing trend is important and relevant, and yes we need to understand the latest shift in Google’s algorithms, the new rules on 301 redirects, and how to add a source code to paid search ads for proper measurement – but we also need the narrative behind each unique web strategy, and the people that are building them. How can we truly roll out a successful and engaging web marketing program without first understanding the nuances of the business and who the customers are?

I will quote a Blogger who recently attended one of our presentations (said Blogger happens to be the “techy” son of the owner/operator of a successful Inn in Eastern Canada, who tagged along with his dad to listen to what the Chicks’ were saying about this whole online marketing thing). (Note the “story” in this paragraph)

He writes, “If every prospective guest to the Carriage House could flip through the pages of the guest book sitting in the lobby, they wouldn’t even consider staying elsewhere. With Facebook and Twitter, this is now entirely possible to do online, and relatively easy to promote.”

I could not have said it better myself! So although the research, the training, efficient process and project management skills are all key to assisting businesses to be successful online – sometimes telling a story does it best.

Hey L.S – we think you are on to something btw. The technology driven “writer’s utopia” may just be in sight, but alas we must make sure it is profitable too. And yes I did just use “btw” in that sentence!

Niki Leondakis, COO of Kimpton also points out in the HNN article that integration of social tools such as Blogs into the main websites is planned for the coming year as well as a continued focus on encouraging “tweetups” and other ways for social communities to connect around Kimpton brands. This approach to integration instead of a web presence over here on facebook, one on Twitter – another on a Blog will be confusing to consumers as we grow more comfortable with true interaction and communication directly with brands.

My guess is that the successful hotel brand website as it is today will look very different in the very near future and will need to be the central gathering place for all brand points online – as well as the place for transaction.

Jim Zito, VP of interactive marketing for New York-based Morgans Hotel Group speaks more about going back to what works offline to assist in strategy for the new online media world. Zito is consulting with groups offline and online to really listen to how consumer behavior has changed in the new social online world. Smart. Not jumping in without understanding why first and making sure you are truly ‘hearing’ what your customers are responding to.

Then there is Fairmont Hotels and Resorts – a brand who has not been shy in adapting to this new marketing medium. David Doucette executive director of Internet marketing for Fairmont speaks about the brand’s use of exsisting social networks where consumers are already living and interacting (Tripadvisor), as well as the launch of a new social networking platform built around Fairmont brand stories for Fairmont brand loyalists.

Brilliant if I may say. Fairmont has a storied brand history, an consumer segment that is passionate about the brand, beautiful historic properties – and ‘stories’ to tell which may just be why building a specific brand social media community will work for them. Fairmont’s www.everyonesanoriginal.com social media community has just recently launched.

fairmont's www.everyonesandoriginal.com social media community recently launches

What I like specifically about this article is that it focussed not on the “What” the big hotel brands are doing but “Why.” It is clear that Kimpton Hotels and Resorts, Morgan’s Hotel Group and Fairmont have clearly laid out strategy, deployed testing, feedback from their customers and have determined their key measurables for both Brand loyalty and ROI. This is clearly not a result of which chains have the largest budgets – and a good lesson to the industry as a whole.

Chris Breikss Super Fan Vancouver Olympics 2010

The newest chick in the coop has inspired me to get back to my Blogging roots as I have moved towards micro-blogging sound-bites on twitter instead of taking time to muse about all things online. Thanks Patti for a fantastic guest Blog entry this week and thanks for the kick in the butt to get blogging again!

I can’t help as a proud Canadian to reflect on Vancouver’s achievement in producing an amazing Winter Olympic Games. We were truly watching the first ever Digital Olympics with this one – and I am happy to say that I think that Canada was well prepared for all of the media channels that were watching this country for the 14 days of the games. It will be interesting to hear now how the traditional media outlets faired.

Although millions were glued to televisions as Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal for Canada in overtime against the US hockey team (could not help but mention that one – that would have been so un-Canadian) – I wonder how many millions also watched events via live streaming video, or through a twitter stream of Olympic athletes tweeting updates live from events, ceremonies and from the general festivities that surrounded the games.

It will be interesting to see also how many downloads there were of the Olympics iPhone Apps, and how many Flickr streams there will be posted by athletes and athletes families from inside the Olympics Village and other “behind the scenes” places.

I must say that viewing photos live from a hockey game such as this one of “a young russian hockey fan” posted by my friend and colleague Chris Breikss after Russia lost to team Canada. Chris enjoyed many an Olympic moment on behalf of 900 of his Facebook friends- and I enjoyed seeing updates live on my mobile facebook app from friends as they experienced some of the winning Olympics moments live.   It allowed me to feel like a participant in the stories like no television broadcast has ever been able to do.

Kudos to the organizers, to the city of Vancouver British Columbia, to the Canadian Tourism Commission, to the media and bloggers, the athletes – and to all of the fans who tweeted, posted, blogged and text messaged your experiences of the games…the first digital Olympics was a great success!

All I can say is I guess so! I am of the opinion that it isn’t whether or not Ad dollars should shift online at this point – but where online is the best place to focus those dollars.

The report does also does suggest that Social Media and Mobile will be the channels to focus on – but until 2011 we should keep our bucks in Google Adwords, email marketing and Display advertising.

I would say you better get “cracking” (could not help the Chick reference) with all online media based on your target consumers sooner rather than later.

If your target audience spends their time on LinkedIn – you better join the conversation now. If your target customer is sharing travel tips on Facebook – no time like the present to start joining that conversation. (so is now a good time to encourage you to become a Facebook Fan of the Chicks?)

In the meantime – stay focussed on what is working to drive leads and sales to your cash register not the latest and greatest technology that may not be right for your business.

Source: e-Marketer 2009

Frommers Survey sample:
1324 online travel consumers – asking what influenced their travel decisions,
inc. what determined where they go, what content they looked for when planning and booking a trip,
and what would improve their experience.

A Chicks’ Summary:

1. Needs Change depending on place in the buying cycle:
-Pre booking: images and written description of the destination important (DMO’s/Hotels – this is a key point)
-post-booking a map of the destination was the essential item of content, with travel tips,
weather, events and activities information and local dining and attractions. (Think post booking sales opportunities hotels…customers are already sold and looking for more information).

2.  Online Research most influential in making Travel decisions in 78% of survey
-Friends Recommendations next most influential factor 74% (note importance of social media as the ultimate word  of mouth)
-Travel books 54%
-newspapers 20%
-Travel agencies 4% (ouch! Consider the sample here though)

3. 85% of respondents said Price is a key factor in deciding on a travel Destination
*** 84% of survey looking for destination information during the pre-booking stage (this shows us how important the Destination marketing/VCB website is to the buying decision for a destination)

4. Good information on Destination websites (ie detailed travel guides and content) effect on decision to book:
-56% More likely to book with detailed content (stories/travel guides)
-43% No effect on booking (lower than I would have thought)

5. Important Content to Planning Cycle:
-Images:
-Info on Activities and Events
-Written descriptions of the destination
-Maps
-Weather
-Travel info (currency/border info. etc.)
-Video Content: (lower in importance – only 25% of respondants *note: Video is not considered important to research, but may act to make the website more engaging.)

7. Negative Experiences online include:
Confusing websites: 65% (make sure you are focusing on Website Usability best practices and test your site for ease of use)
Insufficient photos: 51%

**Content not bookable online only 35% felt this was a negative

Conclusions/Summary:

• Content is still king: add good content to sites to not only inform and inspire customers but also to attract them through natural search. Content also plays an important role in the user’s experience on websites, which impacts on conversion rates and loyalty.

• As users continue to embrace social media to connect with friends, and view friends recommendations as very influential in making travel buying decisions-  Social media will have a role to play in how friends can influence each other’s travel plans. Through Twitter’s “what are you doing?” Facebook’s status updates, Flickr’s photo sharing and beyond, it is getting increasingly easy to share experiences and thereby influence the travel plans of others.

A Chicks’ Summary:

1. Needs Change depending on place in the buying cycle:
-Pre booking: images and written description of the destination important (DMO’s/Hotels – this is a key point)
-post-booking a map of the destination was the essential item of content, with travel tips,
weather, events and activities information and local dining and attractions. (Think post booking sales opportunities hotels…customers are already sold and looking for more information).

2.  Online Research most influential in making Travel decisions in 78% of survey
-Friends Recommendations next most influential factor 74% (note importance of social media as the ultimate word  of mouth)
-Travel books 54%
-newspapers 20%
-Travel agencies 4% (ouch! Consider the sample here though)

3. 85% of respondents said Price is a key factor in deciding on a travel Destination
*** 84% of survey looking for destination information during the pre-booking stage (this shows us how important the Destination marketing/VCB website is to the buying decision for a destination)

4. Good information on Destination websites (ie detailed travel guides and content) effect on decision to book:
-56% More likely to book with detailed content (stories/travel guides)
-43% No effect on booking (lower than I would have thought)

5. Important Content to Planning Cycle:
-Images:
-Info on Activities and Events
-Written descriptions of the destination
-Maps
-Weather
-Travel info (currency/border info. etc.)
-Video Content: (lower in importance – only 25% of respondants *note: Video is not considered important to research, but may act to make the website more engaging.)

7. Negative Experiences online include:
Confusing websites: 65% (make sure you are focusing on Website Usability best practices and test your site for ease of use)
Insufficient photos: 51%

**Content not bookable online only 35% felt this was a negative

Conclusions/Summary:

• ‘Content is still king’: add good content to sites to not only inform and inspire customers but also to attract them through natural search. Content also plays an important role in the user’s experience on websites, which impacts on conversion rates and loyalty.

• As users continue to embrace social media to connect with friends, and view friends recommendations as very influential in making travel buying decisions-  Social media will have a role to play in how friends can influence each other’s travel plans. Through Twitter’s ‘what are you doing?’ Facebook’s status updates, Flickr’s photo sharing and beyond, it is getting increasingly easy to share experiences and thereby influence the travel plans of others.

[tags]frommers travel survey, tourism marketing statistics, travel marketers, tourism marketing, social media marketing,destination marketing, web marketing, website usability[/tags]

Here is my list of Twitter Tips:

1. Your Website: Before you start tweeting, make sure your company’s website is up to date, optimized for search engines and has a call to action to close the sale. You will also need to install a web monitoring program like Google Analytics; a free program that monitors traffic on your website. This way you will be able to benchmark your success once you have started tweeting. (You can look for Twitter as one of your traffic referrals once it is up and running and you want to determine if Tweeting is worth your time).

2. Put a name on it: When creating a twitter page for your company or brand, make sure you are using a real name in the bio for transparency. Your twitter page should feel like a conversation and followers need to feel as if they are talking to a real person. Using first person in your tweets or the collective ‘we’ also makes your company seem more credible and engaging to potential customers. Ex: “We’re dropping prices tomorrow!”

3. Follow, follow: Following is one of the most important aspects of twitter. A fast and easy way to find potential customers is to visit a competitor’s twitter page and follow their followers. You should also search your company’s name in a “twitter search” to see who’s talking about you and then add them. Other people you should follow include: other employees, people in related companies and industries, related brands, journalists and competitors. Following people related to your company helps get the best followers for your twitter page – and gives you some relevant content to read!

4. Tweet Content: Make sure your tweets are not entirely sales or company related. If you are constantly talking about a sale or a new product that just arrived, people will not see the value in following your company. Talk about things happening in the media, post links to interesting stories related to your industry and upload twitpics. This way, when you talk about the odd sale or new product and post links to your site, your followers will actually be interested.

The points above are the very basic elements to consider when looking at Twitter as a marketing vehicle. I would suggest that more than a marketing vehicle, Twitter is an excellent PR/Communications tool and many successful brand Tweeters are using it as a means to have a “conversation” with their customers.

With this post a renewed commitment to continue Blogging more than 140 characters at a time – this was therapeutic!

[tags]twitter for business, marketing, tweeting, social media, Twitter tips[/tags]

The article also highlighted that JetBlue has 132,000 “followers” on Twitter, while Southwest has 64,300 “fans” on Facebook.  Wow!  So now you are thinking “I don’t have the marketing budgets that Jetblue or Southwest Airlines do so what am I supposed to do now that I have an entire new media channel to manage”?

I have been seeing many articles as of late in media both online and offline that seem to be warning marketers to jump in now or miss the boat. (remember the initial .com bust?) Although many are talking about the social media phenomenon, there is not a great deal of actual step by step guidance about how to build and effectively manage an online community (or a group of communities that may exist on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, You Yube and Linked In), but simply pointing out that it is time to jump in or else.

I did like this article I read online by the Lake Tahoe Daily Tribune (a local print newspaper) that outlined some real world social media marketing examples such as the Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course which has a Web site, but also manages accounts with Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.  Good for the Tribune for highlighting some local real world success stories and good for the Edgewood Golf course for stepping into social media marketing but also pointing out that this new marketing channel is time consuming (and therefore not free or easy).
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In saying all of this, I have been tardy with my Blog updates as of late as  I have been actively tweeting and managing communities for both A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing and Online Revealed on Facebook, Twitter. (Patricia took LinkedIn – this is no job for one chick!)  We are also just finishing up Part Two of our article Series Moving your Social Media Strategy to the Suburbs which will break down our approach to creating a true social media community.

Our 4th annual Online Revealed internet marketing conference is also less than one month away! We are holding this year’s event in Niagara Falls, Canada and will have real people speaking about real case studies and how-to tactics to using social media (and other online marketing strategies) to market your business. We are really excited to have speakers from Google, Tripadvisor, and from real world companies (no offense to our friends at google and tripadvisor!!) like Sequel Hotels and Resorts (a small management company specializing in boutique hotels in Canada), and other operators who will share tips about successful tactics they have used to market themselves online.

[tags]social media marketing, tourism marketing, travel weekly, social networking, twitter, new media, social media community [/tags]

I have been building my network of those I am  following and those who are following me (really it is not as creepy as it sounds). I can now say that I get the concept and how Twitter has gained its popularity so quickly.  I have made some interesting connections with people, and I have gained some great insights into topics I am interested in. It is a really fun networking tool and it can really help bring traffic to your web assets because let’s face it, at the end of the day we need traffic to our cash registers.

A few things that I have uncovered that get lost in translation in the world of Twitter:
-Facebook profile updates and Tweets are not the same thing and do not translate well (I have had many Facebook friends ask me what language I speak when I am posting a note from Twitter to my facebook profile).  (I have since removed that application).
-It takes time to build a network of people worth following
-there is a lot of  noise between good posts
-it can be very distracting to monitor and engage in a conversation that never ends!

Using social media tools such as Twitter can offer marketers direct access to a base of customers that they may not otherwise be able to reach.  With the economic times as they are however, I would recommend resources to be allocated towards the following online tactics, and in this order before starting a full out social media marketing strategy that includes Twitter, facebook, YouTube or any other channel.  Without a solid foundation, and a solid transactional asset (the website), the new tools can be simply a distraction.

1. Ensure the Website is fully optimized for both search engines and users. (look at SEO programs and ensure all content and creative is up to date, search engine friendly, and most importantly leads your consumers to transact).
2.Set up or spend some dollars looking at your Web Analytics data to ensure you are capturing your users, engaging them, and then leading them to transact. (You may still have some work to do to ensure that your website is strong before you start developing a Facebook group)
3.Get a solid Web distribution strategy in place for the year (with resources allocated to content development, SEO, search engine marketing tactics such as Pay Per Click or Google local, and online PR to generate buzz for your company and or your widget).
4.Ensure that your ecommerce tools are working.  Does your online booking system need an upgrade? Is your e-newsletter working effectively to drive business? It is great to get a whole whack of new traffic, but if they are leaving your shopping cart to early what’s the point?

Now that I have finished writing this post, I will update my Twitter page and my Facebook profile with a link to the post.  I should really also update my Linkedin profile…and then maybe take a nap, all of this social networking is exhausting and I haven’t even spoke to anyone in 2 hours!

[tags] twitter, social media marketing, SMM, web strategy, internet marketing tactics,online PR, online marketing[/tags]