Folly Farm Website, 3d Character, iphone Application, SEO Campaign

Transcription

1 Writemedia Presentation re Folly Farm Digital Marketing Slide 1 Folly Farm Website, 3d Character, iphone Application, SEO Campaign Thank you for inviting me to speak about the web development work and digital marketing for Folly Farm in 2010 / 2011.

2 Slide 2 For Writemedia, the Folly Farm project has been a great success and we are delighted with the response it has received. It would be easy to assume however that a project of this type commanded high budgets and guaranteed success. True to say that investment over has been significant, and the website is very complex in many of the components within and has benefitted from a good and supporting digital strategy. However good use of available budgets and good design and programing are not only associated with large projects. Since meeting with Pembrokeshire Tourism and with the recommendations from Folly Farm we have now worked on a great variety of exciting projects in Tourism which range from clients such as

3 Slide 3 The Really Wild Festival

4 Slide 4 Ritec Valley Quad Bikes

5 Slide 5 Gwili Railway

6 Slide 6 The County Show Each project commands its own bespoke proposal, management and maximisation of available resources both in terms of our client s available man hours and available budgets.

7 Slide 7 Zoe, who I m sure many here know, is the marketing manager at Folly Farm. In the first quarter of 2010 we discussed with Zoe that the main issue with the website and website presence was in the ability to upload content and keep the website up to date. It was obvious that they needed a content management system which will allow them to do this easily and effectively. They also needed to get unique visitors stats down and to encourage return visits to the site. At that time web stats showed that approximately 80% of the visits to the website were unique and never returned to visit the site.

8 Slide 8 It was also important to improve the user experience with better navigation, more impact and more sticky content. The scope of activities at Folly is amazing and it was important to show that it is a fantastic all weather attraction with indoor and outdoor activities. We wanted to show quickly to the website visitor that not just a petting farm, Folly Farm has a vintage fun fair, a Biaza accredited zoo, as well as adventure play areas.

9 So the proposal was written with a financial breakdown for our suggestions - our web fantastic list. - some of which were immediately achievable and other which were put forward to a second third stage of development. A word on budget. No matter the size of the budget for web development we believe that all budgets should be established and adhered to. We know budgets are not finite no matter what the size or scale of the project. So it was important for us to deliver costs centres against each aspect of development so we could establish priorities over time and give our client confidence that we would deliver to target and in budget. Cont

10 Slide 9 The content management system is very important also in respect of budgets. If we can produce a content management system which is intuitive and allows our clients to manage their website updates inhouse, this preserves the overall budget in the long term plan.

11 Slide 10 Available budgets are therefore not depleted on external procurement for day to day updates. We would rather use available budgets on improved functionality for our clients.

12 Slide 11 From Zoe It's so easy that I do all but the most complicated stuff myself. It's given us complete control over the content and images on our website reducing costs and speeding up updates. Here s a quote from Zoe on the CMS It's extremely user friendly and I'm not technically minded. It's so easy that I do all but the most complicated stuff myself. It's given us complete control over the content and images on our website reducing costs and speeding up updates. I'm essentially the in house web editor and it's vastly improved the way we communicate digitally.

13 Slide 12 Through the content management system backend Zoe can update all of the content

14 Slide 13 She can add images, text, and video, for example in the masthead.

15 Slide 14 She can choose CSS templates according to which aspect of the park she's promoting and seasonal events and appearances. For example Peppa Pig.

16 Slide 15 She can manage social networking sites and two blogs.

17 Slide 16 A typical example of how the system could be extended is in the 3-D map which appears on the website. Tim the Zoo keeper needs to change where the animals reside at the park as he needs to have them on rotation. No problem - animals can be relocated through the CMS and published to the new position.

18 Slide 17 Demo of Big Wheel Bonanza game available at The Folly Website has a high level of Rich media. Because we were able to preserve available budgets to improve functionality rather than manage web site content, we were able to add value to the site with more rich media and sticky content.

19 Slide 18 The site features games,

20 Slide 19 Price calculator

21 Slide 20 Calendars of events

22 Slide 21 a 3d talking character - Farmer Glyn

23 Slide 22 and some fantastic video sequences featuring Alex Winters of CBeebie s fame.

24 Slide 23 The website system features many facilities to leverage any opportunities for Search Engine Optimisation. And in this we had some learning to do, for example. Our original thought was to dispense with the newsletter mailshot and work harder to drive visitors back to the site rather provide communications great in theory but actually many people still wanted the newsletters, so in addition to the many tools for social engagement the newsletter was re-instated at the latter part of 2010.

25 Slide 24 The Blogs have a fantastic tone of voice and are regularly updated by Zoe and Vicky in marketing. There s quite lot of scope here for producing Blog features but we have also noticed that Zoe has some great tricks up her sleeve if there s nothing particular to blog about from a news point of view..

26 Slide 25 For example her fantastic A- Z of features. This one promoting Pembrokeshire

27 Slide 26 Twitter Facebook and Twitter have been extensively utilised

28 Slide 27 facebook Over 2011, Facebook interaction has improved significantly with a fully engaged audience of more than 2,500 fans of which 80% are decisionmaking females between the ages of

29 Slide 28 Another component of the overall web development initiative was in the SEO campaign which comprised initially in setting up social, presences and looking at the overall website strategy for SEO, to maintain and improve position through; Initial Web Stats Analysis and Site Plan Vetting, Keyword Research Investigating Target Niche / Competitor Analysis Website Optimisation This was followed by a link building program which lasted for an initial 6 months, at reasonable intensity and after this time has been steadily maintained and reviewed.

30 Slide 29 Another aspect of the digital work down was in the development of the Zoo Keepers App. We realised that Folly had an existing database on their zoo animals with details about each animal and images to support this. When we inherited this database it occurred to us all that it would make a fantastic mobile app. Both for use at the park and for people to download for general knowledge

31 Slide 30 Zoo Keeper Tim The App features video of Tim the Zoo Keeper talking about the animals

32 Slide 31 There s photos and general facts and information about each animal.

33 Slide 32 As new material becomes available or new animals are added to the park.

34 Slide 33 More Figures Website traffic has increased by 25% in the last year and for some weeks in August had increased by up to 125% peaking at 14,000 in one week. I mentioned some stats re Facebook earlier. Stats are obviously some measure of the success of the program and the partnership between Folly Farm and Writemedia. Website traffic has increased by 25% in the last year and for some weeks in August had increased by up to 125% peaking at 14,000 in one week. The return visitor rate to the website has increased to 30% from 20%. We are aiming for 40%.

35 Slide 34 Another measure of Folly s great success was the wining of two awards at the 2010 Welsh National Tourism Awards. One for Best Day Out and the second for best Digital Marketing, which we were obviously thrilled about.

36 Slide 35 Even More Figures Year on year trade is up 5% Folly set eight all time visitor records on the character appearance days with 7600 and 7300 in on the days Peppa Pig visited in August Visits to the park are probably the most important measure of the overall success of the hard work by hard work by Folly Farm Another quote from Zoe. Year on year trade is up 5% in what has been a challenging trading environment for tourism in West Wales this year, an excellent result. We set eight all time visitor records on the character appearance days with 7600 and 7300 in on the days Peppa Pig visited in August and digital marketing undoubtedly played a huge part in this success through the blogs, SEO and online advertising driving extra visits to our site. So convinced are we of the future of digital to our marketing strategy that we are now embarking on a project to deliver online ticketing to try and convert the 25% up lift in website visitors there and then into actual visitors!

37 Slide 36 So in conclusion. Back to my opening note. Not all the work in the overall digital strategy for Folly Farm was done in year one at the outset and as Zoe has indicated more is planned for True to say not all Pembrokeshire Tourism members will have the time and the resources to manage newsletters, blogs, social networking sites, so it s important to understand what the aspirations and priorities should be. The main objective is to get to a good foundation from which your web presence can grow, with a good CMS foundation and as much SEO work as you can effectively sustain. From this premise it is possible to build on that and grow year on year.

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