!! CaseStudy!:April2014!...Exeter Edinburgh 3 T: +44 (0)1392 757 450 T: +44 (0)131 5830 022 45 Queen...

Exeter Edinburgh T: +44 (0)1392 757 450 T: +44 (0)131 5830 022 45 Queen Street Exeter Devon EX4 3SR 20a Manor Place Edinburgh EH3 7DS [email protected] / destinationcms.co.uk . Registered in England No.8350394

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Case Study : April 2014

Background: In 2012, DestinationCMS trialed and launched a unique software solution – Mall-‐to-‐Mobile (M2M).

More than three years in development, M2M provides a seamless service for shopping destinations, gathering information on every tenant to showcase their offer, sharing it with customers through a new, dedicated responsive website as well as via Social Media channels … seven days-‐a-‐week.

It provides clients with all their Digital, Social Media, PR and Online Customer Service in one, simple contract … together with independent evaluation to demonstrate a return on investment.

Crucially, it is a ‘cradle to grave’ integrated service, with every aspect managed and delivered by one company – including the collection of information at each centre by DestinationCMS’ own staff, known as their ‘Brand Makers’.


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Development: M2M proved its worth with several of the UK’s leading shopping centre owners and managing agents – and continues to do so.

Across all measurable indicators, the service delivers:

• Improving web traffic -‐ especially from hand-‐held devices

• Improving Facebook engagement -‐ increasing likes as well as interaction and reach

• Improving Twitter engagement -‐ increasing followers, interaction and reach

• Pinterest -‐ launching each client on the relatively new platform

• YouTube -‐ launching dedicated channels to aid each client’s promotion

• PR -‐ integrating daily social media delivery for improved PR support

It also improves retailer relationships with each centre’s management.

In late 2012, DestinationCMS began negotiations with town and city centres to consider whether the M2M model could expand to provide the same service for a wider destination. Those discussions included conversations with the Association of Town & City Management (ATCM).

In April 2013, Leigh Brown, City Centre Manager in Perth, met with DestinationCMS to consider a pilot project.

The timetable for the project would be key: launching in the autumn to cover the crucial pre-‐Christmas activity planned by the City in support of their business community as well as the support of those businesses ‘direct’ through integrated social media management.

During the summer of 2013, DestinationCMS developed their successful M2M service, adapting it to be able to meet the demands of a more diverse destination.

This case study looks at the pilot -‐ now complete -‐ its objectives, delivery and results.


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Objectives: from the outset, SOCIALiSTREET was designed to assist town and city centre teams (whether in local authorities, BIDs or Town Teams) to provide integrated comms to best support their business community, shoppers and visitors.

The Perth pilot was no different.

The key objectives were to:

1. Manage daily social media engagement (Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest)

2. Grow social media audience, interaction and reach – against monthly targets

3. Ensure businesses included in the pilot are met and that their products/service feature monthly via social media engagement

4. Launch a new responsive website to provide support for the project, businesses, events and the wider community primarily via:

a. integration with social media channels

b. data capture opportunities

5. Provide media coverage through PR support to at least match the pilot’s value


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The countdown: Perth City Centre Team, part of Perth and Kinross Council’s Regeneration department, identified 120 businesses across the city’s retail core that would be covered by the pilot:

• Details of the businesses were shared with DestinationCMS and content was loaded on the SOCIALiSTREET operational App, as well as on the licensed Content Management System to enable the capture and sharing of content

• A ‘meet and greet’ event was staged by the City Centre team to introduce the pilot’s business community to the concept of SOCIALiSTREET … as well as to its delivery team

The launch: the process was slow to start as the service was new and unknown. Many businesses were sceptical – “why is someone visiting my store to help promote my products and services?” But the launch was supported by PR that won coverage in local, regional and national media. Subsequent communication – especially ‘word of mouth’ played its part to soften initial cynicism.


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Meeting Objectives: from a standing start in the first week of October 2013, the service has delivered:

1. Weekly Visits from Brand Maker:

a. DestinationCMS’ own, trained Brand Maker has visited every week through the project, engaging with businesses and capturing content on each visit.

b. The Brand Maker is tasked with capturing content that best reflects the shopper/visitor experience – as well as requesting business input to help drive relevance

c. Content is based on five keys: news, events, commercial (i.e. offers, promotions), ‘fun stuff’ and trends

2. Daily Management: all content is fed via DestinationCMS’ App to their Content Management System. Their Operations Team – all PR practitioners – take the content, plan, schedule, post and interact with customers seven days-‐a-‐week between 0700-‐2300, covering:


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3. Social Media Management:

a. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/perthcitycentre : throughout the pilot, delivery has averaged 10 posts per day. In the final four-‐week period, the Facebook activity reached more than 6,000. The three-‐month target for ‘likes’ was 250. At the end of the pilot, ‘likes’ stood at 932.


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b. Twitter https://twitter.com/perthcitycentre : delivery has averaged more than 10 tweets per day across the five months. In the last four weeks of the pilot, the daily twitter activity reached more than 45,000.

The target for new ‘followers’ was 250. On completion of the pilot, more than 2,200 accounts are following the City on Twitter.


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c. Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/perthcitycentre/ : no targets were set for Pinterest; for the first time, the City has a dedicated account and 13 photo boards ranging from ‘Heritage & Culture’ to ‘Shopping’ have been created. They are attracting low, initial levels of interest.


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d. YouTube: a YouTube account has been created to enable the City Centre management team to host and show videos of the city’s events/promotions.


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4. Online: the new responsive website (http://perthcity.co.uk) launched just eight weeks into the pilot. It is managed via the licensed Content Management System.

At the pilot’s completion, it is attracting more than 125 unique visits every day with over 10,000 page views in the last four-‐week period.

5. Viral: no database existed before the pilot, so numbers of data capture are small but growing; when an agreed ‘critical mass’ is achieved, monthly e-‐shots will be part and parcel of the process, keeping customers informed on news, events, commercial (i.e. offers, promotions), ‘fun stuff’ and trends.


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6. PR Support: the campaign has won significant levels of PR support, including national TV coverage in Scotland.

The Operations Team has also won considerable support and coverage for the City Centre’s pre-‐Christmas events through blogger engagement, primarily focused on Perth’s Chocolate Festival. The PR delivered has more than equaled the pilot’s value.


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Results Summary:

SOCIALiSTREET is now a reality and is supporting businesses and visitors … seven days-‐a-‐week between the hours of 0700-‐2300.

As headline stats, it has out-‐performed against all set targets:

• Facebook Likes: 300%+ above target

• Facebook Reach: the service is reaching the set monthly target every week

• Twitter Followers: 500%+ above target

• Twitter Reach: the service is reaching five times its set monthly target


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Business Testimonials:

McEwens in Perth is one of the UK's last independently owned and family run department stores. Lesley Beange, Marketing

Manager at McEwens is "very happy" with the support the store is receiving from SOCIALiSTREET, saying: "We have found it a very useful service – enabling us to share content from our many concessions. The resulting presence on the city's social media channels is excellent."

Provender Brown is a gourmet delicatessen in Perth. Diane Brown, their owner, has used SOCIALiSTREET throughout the pilot project – and saw "real benefit" in promoting their hampers in the countdown to Christmas. Diane explains: "The service certainly spreads the word, not only to a wider audience but importantly to an audience that is wishing to engage with Perth and the businesses in it – and that is great for specialist independent like us."

THE SHIP INN Tina McLaren, manager at The Ship Inn in Perth, made use of SOCIALiSTREET to help boost their publicity for the pub's charity campaign – Women's Aid. Tina says: "The SOCIALiSTREET team proved really helpful – listening to what we were trying to achieve and supporting us by getting news out on us and the charity."


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Perth and Kinross Council Testimonial:

This has been a very worthwhile pilot. SOCIALiSTREET has demonstrated the importance of integrated digital and social media communication across a city.

We are engaging with thousands of people every week – and supporting our core business community with a service that would just not be possible to manage internally.

As the first city to adopt the service, we know there are qualitative areas that can and will be improved – and we have worked with the delivery team to share our thoughts.

It has more than delivered on the PR front – especially helping us to better engage with the blogging community. Crucially, SOCIALiSTREET enables the City Centre Team to focus on our core work. We can dedicate 100% of our time to what is important knowing that the SOCIALiSTREET team is taking care of all our digital and social media communication, day in, day out.

Leigh Brown, City Centre Manager, Perth


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Summary

SOCIALiSTREET is now a reality. It has been borne out of the success of Mall-‐to-‐Mobile. In Q1 of 2014 alone, three new shopping centre portfolios have signed up to the M2M service. It is now delivering daily digital, social media and PR comms for centres in eight UK shopping centre portfolios and has just been shortlisted for a prestigious BCSC Purple Apple Award.

The Perth pilot has beaten all targets. As a result, DestinationCMS has been appointed to deliver SOCIALiSTREET as a fully-‐fledged service for the City.

The results of the Perth pilot have been shared with others in field of town and city centre management. SOCIALiSTREET has now been adopted by one of London’s largest BIDs and has also been launched to support a unique project, run in partnership with a commercial property company in Bristol.

Simon Baldwin, the man behind the development of Mall-‐to-‐Mobile and SOCIALiSTREET explains: “Over the coming weeks, we will continue to share information on SOCIALiSTREET’s development. We knew it would deliver tangible results as we had more that two years of data to show that Mall-‐to-‐Mobile was succeeding on every measurable level. The Perth pilot has not only corroborated that evidence, but it has also demonstrated that the daily management of digital and social media demands a professional and integrated approach.”

!! CaseStudy!:April2014!...Exeter Edinburgh 3 T: +44 (0)1392 757 450 T: +44 (0)131 5830 022 45 Queen...

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