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Brief
Dunas Douradas Beach Club is a 5-star luxury resort in the Algarve on the Southern Coast of Portugal. The resort has 132 apartments and 8 villas. The resort also has 2 restaurants; 2 bars; a fitness centre; aqua Spa with steam rooms, sauna, Jacuzzi, and indoor and outdoor eternity pools; and full hotel services. Its official opening was at the end September, 2008, though the website work started in May, 2008.
- The resort was a new entrant to the marketplace.
- There was no pre-launch or opening marketing.
- It had a new website and URL with no online visibility or history.
- The Beach Club faced tough competition.
- There was little to no off-season (Winter Season) demand for the Algarve.
- There was an economic down-turn negatively affecting demand.
Strategy
Our first step was to go to the Algarve to see the resort and its facilities. We also spent time speaking with the resort’s management and staff to understand their vision and strategies for the new resort. This way we could make sure that the online marketing would be an extension of the resort’s desired image and service levels and to ensure that we mimic and ameliorate their strategies into the online sphere. Also, our team:
- Analyzed the marketplace and competitors’ activities;
- Analyzed target markets for the Beach Club and made sure the website would address each market individually; and
- Clarified objectives for e-marketing, online sales and web management;
- Built the website on SEO and Search engine Best Practices; and
- Implemented other e-Marketing activities (detailed below).
- Additionally our team of experts were in charge of creating and implementing a fully integrated resorts property management system (PMS) with online booking engine which would integrate with the website.
The team worked on creating both short- and long-term activities, which would positively affect the DDBC online ranking and revenue generating potential. The following is a review over the activities and their results over the course of a year (from when the website went live in May, 2008 till May, 2009):
Execution
SEO
- Identified the most relevant keywords.
- Implemented meta data and tags to the html code of all pages.
- Added unique and fresh content in a timeline to help organic ranking.
- Created and implemented a linking strategy.
- Created a blog and updated this periodically.
- Implemented SEO best practices.
PPC Activities
- Completed a full keyword research.
- Analyzed and periodically monitored competitors keyword activities.
- Monitored visitors’ behaviours and created campaigns and ad groups according to each market segment.
- Began paid search on several search engines.
Social Media Marketing
- Created an activities blog for the resort.
- Made a Facebook group, Twitter profile and both have many followers.
- Used YouTube to distribute videos
- Monitored all online reviews and ensured responses were issued.
Created a “Social Dunas” page on the resort’s website to integrate all social media activities.
Results
SEO Results:
- Traffic increased over 350% year over year.
- Website traffic increased over 30% month-over-month in the first 4 months of 2009, despite the down-turn.
- Over 75% of all website traffic is organic (as a result of the SEO strategies and measures implemented).
- The website Page Rank increased from 0 to 6 within less than 1 year (compared with www.yahoo.com, which ranks at 7).
- DDBC traffic ranking is within 700,000 of the world’s top websites according to www.alexa.com.
PPC Results
- Maintained a PPC conversion rate between 1.6% and 4.1% depending on the month.
- Click-through rate (CTR), website quality scores, and website ranking were all higher than market average while cost per click (CPC) remained lower than market average.
- Return on Investment (R.O.I.) for 2008 in off-season was over 1,300.oo% and for the first quarter 2009 this nearly doubled to 2,442.00%.
Social Media Results
- The blog is in the top 5 to generate traffic to the resort’s website.
- The resort has received bookings and direct leads via the blog.
- The followers of these social media groups have shared news from the social channels with their friends, creating a network of viral branding.
- The videos posted on YouTube have been viewed more than a 1,000 times.
- Social Dunas page is one of the most visited on the site.
- Social websites have created a positive buzz and played an important role in expanding brand awareness in the market. DDBC is by far the most active resort in the region and the traffic ranking proves that.
Recap of Main Results
- More than 40% of all bookings are generated via the resort’s website.
- Search engine optimization implementation has increased traffic ranking and PageRank to 6 within one year.
- Pay per click conversion and click-through-rates (CTR) are above industry average even compared to the major online travel agents.
- Social Media channels and the blog have created buzz, driven traffic and increase conversion to the resort’s website.
- Website traffic has increased over 30% month-over-month since the start of 20o9.
- Traffic increased by over 350% since last year and continues to increase.
- The return-on-advertising spend (ROAS) online alone is on average 1,870.00%.
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