Lunch & Learn Maximising Opportunities from Tourism NI Marketing Campaigns Autumn 2024
hello and welcome everyone uh I'm Patricia Kingston I'm the corporate events officer at tourism ni um so thank you so much for joining us H for today's lunch and learn webinar session and we're absolutely delighted to be joined H by tourism ni social and digital manager Paul Coleman um over the next half hour or so Paul will share an update on upcoming marketing activity and the target segments campaign timings and the channel approach for the Autumn campaign and we'll also be explaining how you can drive bookings by supporting um and ex uh extending the Campion through your own marketing channels so um I'm not going to hold anything up but if you have any questions for Paul during today's session just pop them into the question box at any time during the presentation we'll pick up as many of these as possible at the end and I'm just going to hand straight over to uh Paul Coleman Paul over to you thanks very much Patricia perhaps you could move the slide on there for me Barry if you just want to click on the screen again that might just give you back control there we go thank you so thank you very much Patricia and good afternoon everyone as Patricia mentioned my name is Paul Coleman and I am social and digital manager for tourism Northern Ireland and part of my role is to support you our industry through the delivery of marketing campaigns and a wider program of activity that runs across the year and that promotes Northern Ireland across the island of Ireland and it's good timing the latest data that we've seen last week shows that Northern Ireland has achieved record numbers of visitors in recent years with five .4 million overnight visitors in 2023 of which 1.3 million were from the Republic of Ireland but obviously we can't afford to rest on our Laurels and tourism ni are now ruling out our Autumn campaign in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and we are also working hard to bring into focus our plans for the spring campaign which will be in Market just after Christmas so this afternoon I will give you a bit of a flavor of the Autumn campaign and what's in market now and what's rolling out over the next couple of weeks and also opportunities for you to get involved with that and be part of it um before then though and and as always really it's it's time well spent to take a few minutes just to understand the very latest Market intelligence that our insights and our intelligence team are reporting because those insights obviously inform the approach that is in market now if you could slide on for me there okay so the latest wave of our consumer sentiment research which was in Market over the summer does show a softening in demand for travel to and within Northern Ireland from consumers in the domestic market and also from consumers in the Republic of Ireland and this reduction in travel intent that we're seeing is potentially linked to the impact of of continuing cost of living pressures which are being felt very keenly and also I think a reduction in the pent up demand that was very evident following Co and the pandemic over the last number of years if you could move on to the next slide for me please so just to reiterate cost of living personal finances we're seeing those coming through quite strongly in the research at the moment as being barriers for people from both markets taking a short break in Northern Ireland over the next six months however on the plus side consumers in both markets continue to rate Northern Ireland as a better value for money tourism destination than both the Republic of Ireland and GB so we continue to be widely perceived as offering good value for money across the tourism offering particularly for eating out accommodation and shopping and that value for money piece is something that we intend to dial up throughout our campaign in Autumn and looking forward a little bit further in into spring as well so if we could move on to the next slide please the timings for the campaign then um so recognizing the pressures that are being felt by some parts of the industry we've brought forward our campaign by approximately a month and we are already in Market in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland a lot of our activity went live three four weeks ago at this point and this current burst of activity will continue until the middle of November before our spring campaign begins immediately after Christmas I'm going to talk a little bit about segments and the segments that we are targeting with this particular campaign but just to call out at the bottom of the screen if you really want a little bit of a deeper dive into the segmentation approach for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland please do visit tourism and.com marketing campaign you be able to download our campaign toolkit and within that you'll find pen picks and profiles for the market segments and lots of links to further information on tourism and.com where you can go off and spend some time really getting quite a deep understanding of both markets and the approach that we're taking if we could move forward just to the next slide then I will talk a little bit obviously about the particular segments So within the Republic of Ireland our our primary focus for the Autumn campaign is open-minded explorers and the open-minded explorers they have medium to high levels of intention to visit Northern Ireland in short term and they have a higher propensity to visit during the Autumn period so it makes sense for us to aggressively promote Northern Ireland to that open-minded Explorer segment at the moment and and who are they well we we know that they're interested in the natural environment they're interested in Scenic attractions they're motivated by culture they're seeking unique experiences and as we see as we we go through this value for money is very important for open-minded explorers good food high quality accommodation is also very important for this particular segment we're also targeting indulgent relaxers and we know that the indulgent relaxers their percentage of the market is smaller than open-minded explorers but they're relatively High spending and they've High intention to visit Northern Ireland in the short term and we've seen this segment grow and grow really over the last couple of years they are the segment most likely to take a romantic break as their next short break they love large comfortable hotels they love to indulge themselves on a short break as well so we have a program of activity to activate that segment and drive awareness and consideration of Northern Ireland across the Autumn and then finally within the Republic of Ireland we're also targeting active maximizers with a short burst of activity ahead of half-term and active maximizers they're obviously the largest segment in the Republic of Ireland but they're also the youngest segment and increasingly a significant proportion of active maximizers have young families so it makes considerable sense for us to Target that segment ahead of half term when we know that families in particular will be thinking about activities that they can put together together to entertain their kids during half term um they love a packed itinerary these guys they're they're very very active on social media and they're all about sharing those unique experiences that they find in Northern Ireland so we're we're we're very focused on delivering some activity targeting that segment and then with regards to the domestic Market market and we saw in the NRA figures that were published last week that the domestic Market still accounts for 40% of overnight days so the domestic Market remains hugely important for Northern Ireland and we don't want to rest on our Laurels we want to continue our work in promoting Northern Ireland within a domestic context so first and foremost we are focusing on the natural quality Seekers and they're similar in profile in many ways to the open-minded explorers in the Republic of Ireland they're a little bit older the their average age tends to be 55 plus but the research would tell us that short breaks are a very very important part of their lives the quality of the accommodation is hugely important for this segment they love the plan they love itineries they like to have all of that mapped out in advance so they spend a huge amount of time researching um they're nature lovers they they enjoy the outdoors but their preference typically is for gentler outdoor activities as as opposed to something that's a little bit more energetic and action-packed um and in the same way then that we're targeting active maximizers in the Republic of Ireland in the runup to half term we'll also have a small burst of activity focused on aspiring families in the domestic Market because we know that obviously [Music] um they they they will be particularly active in the market at that time they have a very very strong Family Focus activities are very very important for this segment including activities to suit young children specifically but as well as the whole family and again these people are planners they they they they love to sit down and map all of this out in advance and they spend a huge amount of time putting together itineraries in in advance of short trips and in general terms obviously we we we're showcasing within our campaign a range of attractions and experiences and events as well as ideas on accommodation so we really want to encourage visitors to choose Northern Ireland for an an awesome short break we want to create that IMM medien SE and that urgency and encourage people to book now um and and as always The Campaign Will build knowledge of what Northern Ireland has to offer particularly within the Republic of Ireland Market where we need to continue always building that knowledge campaign after campaign and and also really deliver very compelling reasons to book which will include utilizing the offers that many of you have submitted to the Discover Northern Ireland website over the last couple of weeks if um if you could move on just to the next slide please so without perhaps going too far into the weed of everything that is in market now what I wanted to do here really was just give a little flavor of what is going on and and and what activity will remain in Market until the middle of November and then ramp up again immediately after Christmas so our search and our social media have been live in both markets since the beginning of April and we deliver those activities on and always on BAS is right across the year and we dial them up particularly during our campaign periods and the rest of our activity has begun to go live since mid August and within that mix which will remain in Market until the middle of November obviously we we we have a broad range of activity including linear TV broadcast V premium subscription TV out of home radio print uh quite a big digital footprint as well across display advertising programmatic email marketing um and and also increasingly a focus on PR and influencer marketing and working in that space to bring influencers and members of the media to Northern Ireland on F trips to Showcase all of the many great things to see and do if we could move on there [Music] please as as always when when we deliver these campaigns we will again be focusing on specific regions and areas of Northern Ireland on some of our channels at different points throughout our campaign and and and and we recognize really the the importance of that balanced Regional approach we receive a lot of feedback from the industry to say that you see value in that approach and that you find it helpful in planning and scheduling your own activ so I I wanted to just draw a little bit of attention to that and the different timings that we've put in place as part of this campaign so with with this week and and going live from yesterday we have a particular focus on cosway coastal route next week from Ana and terone the following week Dairy London Dairy as we get to the end of the month then in September MNS and strangford and then as we head into the first two weeks of October Arman down and then uh Belfast week beginning the 12th of October so during those particular period we'll have a destination focus on some of our channels including email marketing social media print ads various activity where we will just dial up a particular focus on specific destinations whilst The Wider larger program of activity obviously continues in the background as well if we could move on to the next slide please we'll talk just a little bit about the toolkit and the toolkit is um something that we produce alongside each campaign and it will provide to the industry an overview of the campaign and what is happening at particular times but it's also a very good resource to give a flavor of The Wider program of marketing activity that tourism an delivers right across the year and within the toolkit you will find practical information there's advice and content to help you get involved you can download photography you'll find links for video and social media assets you can download the Embrace a giant Spirit brand book and understand how you can bring our experience brand to life on your own channel um the toolkit itself is downloadable from tourism and website tourism.com slmm marketing campaign and within the toolkit you will find a link through to our content pool which is where we house all of the downloadable assets that you can use across your own channels during this particular burst of activity now across the Autumn um you can follow the link you can create a free account on the content pool and download any of the assets which you can use right across your social channels websites anywhere you want to use them um and yeah just just more broadly I think to reiterate whilst whilst we will typically deliver two campaign each year in Autumn and spring there is a much much bigger wider program of marketing activity that runs across the year and that includes everything from PR to influencer marketing to social media to email marketing and typically within that we're we're very keen to work with the industry where we can we're very keen to hear from you and understand how we can better support you so within the toolkit you will find contact details for our PR teams in Belfast and Dublin our social media teams our teams who are managing influencer engagement so please do download the toolkit please do find within that the contact details for the relevant people and please do get in touch so we can understand how how we can work work with you if you could move on just to the next slide a really good example of probably an important first step for a lot of businesses is the Discover Northern Ireland website and the the website really is is a trusted source of inspiration information and support for visitors to Northern Ireland we typically attract around 4 million visitors a year to the website and we have a program of search and social and display advertising constantly running in the background in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to drive visitor numbers to the website um so if you're a certified accommodation provider if you're a visitor attracted if you're an experience if you're an event a listing on the Discover Northern Ireland website is a very good way to Showcase your business a big Focus for us with the Discover Northern Ireland website obviously is driving referrals from our site out to Industry websites and Industry channels so if you haven't already done so I would encourage everyone to create a business listing on Discover Northern Ireland you do that by visiting tourism ni.com and following
the links to allow you to create that listing and once you have created it it's your listing to manage you can log into it 52 weeks of the year here and update it as you wish and internally obviously a lot of our activity will point back to the Discover Northern Ireland website so I would encourage everyone to to take that first step if book ability is something that is of Interest we can through our partnership with TX GB make your St on the Discover Northern Ireland website bookable as well and from a cost perspective tourism and I don't charge any commission to our industry for bookings through the Discover Northern Ireland website you will pay a 2 and a half% booking fee to txg but you won't pay any Commission over and above that if you could move on just to the next slide please and perhaps maybe just move on again if if if we were to maybe ask people coming off the call today to think about things that they can do immediately to be part of the campaign but perhaps also more importantly to be part part of the wider program of activity that runs right across the year I I I would probably suggest number one you know create your business listing on Discover Northern Ireland if you have an existing listing but perhaps haven't had the time to update it for a while jump on get it up to date um if book ability is important as I've said then then let's have a conversation about how we can help you become bable through Discover Northern Ireland or how we can help you through our partnership with txg become bookable through your own website if you currently aren't bookable or how you can use that technology to also access third party routes to Market whether that OTAs some of the council websites in Northern Ireland which are also using this technology to facilitate bookings for the industry if you're an experienced provider we can give you access to Unique distribution platforms like visit Brit shop for example so again plenty of information on tourism and.com about becoming bookable and using that that technology if it is something that is of Interest please do get in touch and we we we can certainly help you with that um download the marketing toolkit as I said it's got plenty of contact information in there for all of the relevant people in the marketing department you can also use that toolkit then to to access lots of downloadable assets with your house on the content pool whether that's video photography social media cover photos Etc um please do down that and it will give you a sense of of how you can get involved now if you're posting content on social media please use hashtag my giant adventure we carefully monitor that hashtag we curate a lot of the content that's published we pull it through onto the Discover Northern Ireland website we push it back out through our own social media channels to amplify the reach of that content so the first step is is please use that hashtag hash myy giant adventure and finally I would also say you know if if you haven't already done so please make sure that you register on tourism.com it's a fantastic website full of great resources for the industry subscribe to the industry newsletter if you haven't done so and you'll hear about upcoming events like this inperson events you'll hear about opportunities for support and how we can work with you to support you and your business and I think I think if we move on just to the next slide Patricia will will probably step back in now and hopefully you've had an opportunity to submit questions as as we've gone through and I'll certainly do my best to to answer any of those questions now or or indeed pick up offline with anyone if if you prefer to get in touch directly please do feel free to do that as well so I'll P pass back over to you at that point Patricia thank you so much thanks Paul and thank you so much for um that update that's really useful and um I'm sure a lot of people will be been scribbling some notes there as they've been listening to you so um thank you so much again Paul and um just to let everyone know at this stage um we will be sharing a recording um of Paul's live presentation um along with a link to his um slides um as well uh later on and anyone who signed up for today's session we'll receive um a link to access that um via email once it's all ready so um uh if you are um watching a recording of the session you can um go and access the supporting materials um on our lunch and learn Hub on the website so that's a tourism and.com lunch learn um so if you were to head there um if you happen to be watching the recording of this and you're not on that that registration list then you can still absolutely access the slides and things as well so um uh I'll as Paul said I'll be shortly sharing your questions with him um so if you have any questions that you haven't popped into the question box just yet there's still time and just pop them in now we'll cover as many as we possibly can here um today uh but just before we get stuck into those I'm going to do a couple of very quick pools um uh just to see how everyone's find today's session so far um many of you'll be already quite familiar with uh with these pools but the first is how would you rate today's session um in terms of your overall satisfaction uh today so that's just a score from one to five with um five being extremely satisfied so I'll let you guys all uh submit your answers there I'll give you a second for that last to Stringer first um secondly how would you rate today's webinar in terms of content and relevance to your business so again on a scale of 1 to five that's with five being extremely relevant give everyone a chance to submit their response there okay and our final question is just as simple yes or no and do you plan to take any action within your business as a direct result of what we've heard from Paul today thanks so much we really appreciate your feedback and uh we will also be sending out um with the uh link to the recording and the slides a little evaluation link and if you can take just a few minutes to fill that in and there'll be some open-ended questions there if you have any other comments you'd like to make or anything else you'd like to see uh from us in future um then do take that opportunity to let us know at that stage as well um but without further Ado uh we'll get stuck into some questions here Paul if that's okay with you absolutely yeah H so uh the first one I have is it's um it's it's quite General but um uh hopefully you can pick up on it so someone's wondering how can they get their specific business promoted and shared more widely are there any specific steps that they can take to achieve that I would recommend the first step in that journey is becoming listed on the Discover Northern Arland website and there is a process set out on tourism ni.com
that will help industry Partners create and manage that listing that I would say is is the first step outside of that and if you download the marketing toolkit you will find lots of information around the program of work the tourism and I deliver across the year in areas around PR influencer marketing email marketing and I would encourage everyone to seek those contacts reach out have a conversation and understand how we can support you through all of the various activity that is going on all year long but certainly the first step and probably the most important step is create that business listing on Discover Northern Ireland so we are able to then begin to refer back to that and hopefully Drive some referral traffic over to your own channels as well brilliant thanks so much Paul um uh we have um we have someone U wondering here um so whenever they submit an offer what happens next and where and when is that likely to appear and would it appear on Discover Northern ireland.com for example or are you able to share some insights on that yes so the the within the last maybe month or so you may have received a request inviting you to upload offers to the Discover Northern Ireland website and indeed we we amplify that call out through our colleagues in the councils to make sure that as many industry Partners as possible are aware of that and have the opportunity to submit an offer and offers are extremely important for us particularly in the current climate where demonstrating value for money is key and we see that coming through through time and again in our consumer sentiment research one of the ways that we can demonstrate value for money particularly versus the Republic of Ireland for example is to put offers in front of consumers and let them get a sense of the value for money that's available within Northern Ireland so again First Step there is upload those offers into discuss over Northern Ireland and then our second step I suppose is is is to understand how we can push those offers out and put them in front of consumers who we know are in the Market at the moment for a short break that might be social media it might be email marketing we'll always try and incorporate some of those offers into activity like PR for example when they oper opportunity allows so certainly if if industry partners are submitting offers we will work hard to try and push those back out into the market and try and put them in front of the people who we know are are keen and are looking for this information at the moment okay great um someone was wondering here about contact details um so if they want to get in touch with someone in the team about um Autumn offers um who what's the best way to contact or what's the most up toate contact is there a generic email for that Paul or what's their best option there the generic email I I would use is marketing at tourism.com and if you drop an email through to that we will make sure to root it through to the right people internally and they will pick up then with you to understand how we can get that content online for you and published on site okay okay fantastic that's great and is there someone's wondering if they maybe have a listing on this discover nor irand at the moment um on the website is there any way to find out how many people are viewing a specific listing or how how popular your listing is is that something that people can find out is there a way to see that certainly we can have a view of those listings within the site that are enjoying good traction um if if that person wanted to reach out directly again we we we could certainly put them in touch with the right person on our side and we could do a little bit of work just to understand how much traffic is landing on particular listings and indeed then whether there's an opportunity to refresh the listing or add new imagery or update copy or think about different approaches that might generate a little bit more traffic ensure a bit more visibility acoss acoss the site but if if if that business owner would like to get in touch certainly we can we can have a conversation there and understand what's possible super um we've had quite a lot of questions about the about the website um and and listings on the website um someone's actually wondering here if there's if there is any cost to list um an experience on the website um on Discover Northern Ireland no so it's it's it's entirely free for a business to create a business business listing and list their certified accommodation visitor attraction experience event that's that's entirely free um if you would like to make that listing bookable we tourism Northern Ireland will not charge any Commission on that booking you will pay a two and a half% booking fee to TX GB who are our technology partner but but obviously that's only applicable at a point that you make a booking but if you if you simply want to create a business listing on the website it's entirely free to do that there's no cost whatsoever that's absolutely super okay um and um someone's wondering here if you have if they have an event which is approved on the business Hub would it automatically appear then on Discover Northern ireland.com maybe a more technical question it's it's probably a little bit outside my knowledge but what what I could do again if if if we could speak with that person directly we we can obviously connect them with the person who can advise regarding those workflows and processes in the background yes no problem at all I thought that was a bit of a technical one I don't know myself so um when um someone's wondering here when is there a particular time that you would be pushing advertisements for the natural quality Seekers specifically um is is so we are in market now with our campaign targeting natural quality Seekers and our reason for doing that at this point in the year really is that we know that generally speaking they have a high propensity to visit Northern Ireland the research would say that they have a higher propensity during Autumn so quite often they will be the focus of our aam activity but more broadly outside of campaigns we are pushing out messaging to these segments year round but with particular reference to Natural quality Seekers we know that Autumn is a very good window to speak to them so we we we tend to focus a lot of our activity during September October November window for that segment very yeah great and someone's wondering saying how would I be able to get onto the mailing list to be able to send offers but essentially um am I right in saying that that that would be um if um on boarding and and registering at tourism.com in order to do that next step is that correct Paul that that's exactly correct Patricia so again as part of creating that business listing to appear on the Discover Northern Ireland website you will be able to access functionality to allow you to do that we also work very closely with the councils in that regard and typically when we are reaching out to the industry to invite industry to submit offers we will always try and amplify that through our Council colleagues as well to make sure that everyone is aware of the opportunity but first step again is is register through tourism and.com yeah that leads quite nicely
actually um there's a question here wondering so if they upload something on the tourism and i.com is that automatically sent them to other areas like for example n morning and down Council or or other various councils so should they maybe focus on making sure the tourism and listing is up to date as opposed to having such a focus on their the local Council sites um just I suppos to save a bit of time and just their admin or are they best to still go to the local councils as well it it's it's probably a good conversation to pick up offline but in general terms how that works nine of the 11 local councils are using the same technology platform that tourism and I are for our visitor facing websites and that collaboration creates a lot of economies of scale when it comes to coating product listings and data and what we will try to do obviously is where product listings are coming through from the council websites we will understand if we can then surface those on Discover Northern Ireland so it it it's worth potentially having a conversation around that with that person just to understand how their Council and their particular particular region or uploading information and then just understand the automated workflows in the background as as to whether or not that can be published on Discover as well yeah absolutely Paul you've been absolutely in the hot seat today we've had so many questions and thank you so much for everyone who submitted a question um we've been we've been in undated so if there is a question you've submitted and we haven't been able to come back to you live today and we will a to follow up with people um afterwards and we have contact details for anyone who has submitted a question so I'll be sharing them all with Paul and we'll try and uh come back to any queries that we might not have been able to pick up here the I keep wanting to say this morning today this afternoon um and just a reminder as Paul said earlier the toolkit um uh for the campaign is available no at tourism and i.com marketing campaign so that page is live and that tokit is there ready to download if you do want to visit that page um today right away before we even have um the other materials ready um and uh I I'm going to do a Shameless plug for our next we inar our next head experts webinar is actually just next week um and I hope some of you'll be able to join us at then so we're going to be hearing from um industry expert Alan mcau um on strategic pricing for your business so during that session we're going to help you set and review pricing strategies and to maximize sustainable growth and looking of course at the potential pitfalls of short-term pricing strategies and and the the importance of having a longer term um strategy in place so that one's next Monday the 16th of September at 10:00 a.m. and if you'd like to join us at and you haven't uh registered just yet there's still plenty of time that's the beauty of a webinar uh so um we don't need to know how many teas and coffees to order um so tour.com um is where you'll be able to find H full details and a link to register for that if that's of interest to you um lots of other exciting activity coming up as part of the 2024 25 um tourism Enterprise development program so do keep an eye on your emails as well in the coming weeks for more upcoming opportunities um and if you're not already signed up to tourism i.com
um as Paul Nao said it's really really worth your while H to do that so not just um for your listings but also uh to ensure you can uh access our dedicated e-learning platform which has been uh specifically especially developed to support the industry here um and also to make sure you're not missing out on any upcoming opportunities or events and webinars as well so um I'm like a broken record but if you had to ch.com there's a little um sign up or login I think on the top corner and just click in there and put in your details and a way you go it's very straightforward um so All That Remains now is to me say thank you so much Paul for your presentation but also for um uh one of the one of the longest q&as I've had in a while there so um thank you so much um and thanks also to Barry and Eden at eventful who are working behind the scenes and and monitoring all your questions and send them through DM and keeping everything flowing uh on the technical side so thank you so much and thank you most importantly to everyone that has joined us here today and we're delighted to have a fantastic uptake for this session so um hope you all find it really useful and hopefully see you again soon thanks so much bye-bye now bye
2024-09-18 07:19
