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In the last 30 years, mankind has produced more information than in the previous 5000.

At the same time attention spans are down to 8 seconds and falling.

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Although there are five of us here, in reality we are only 4 (Tara and Lisa job share)

We sit alongside our colleagues in campaigns and brand marketing, destination PR and the strategy & research team. Collectively we’re known as the strategy, brand and marketing services team.

We are one half of marketing – the other half are our colleagues in the markets.

And of course, marketing is one of the divisions at Tourism WA.

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WACOM is our consumer facing website.

Year on year it attracts from 2.5m – 3m visits a year.

It’s role is to help break down perception barriers (time, distance, money value equation) and knowledge barriers (where, what, how and when) of WA as a holiday destination for our consumers.

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How do we do this?

By making information available in the languages that our consumers speak. Our site is currently available in five foreign languages for our key markets – China (simple and traditional), Indonesia (Bahasa), German, Japanese and Korean.

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By geo targeting our markets – so we are able to serve a specific website (and it’s content) to those countries and markets.

And by being accessible via mobile.

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Our modular approach is designed to showcase our destination via imagery, from full bleed to more modular images.

An image after all is worth a 1000 words.

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We also embed video content on our site like this one.

And we are able to also insert full bleed video across our headers (we haven’t done any yet because the experience can be very slow and we’re also refining the mobile version of this functionality).

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We help breakdown perception and knowledge barriers by providing a lot of content.

We roughly categorise this content into experiences, destinations and products.

Under Experiences we include content such as Must See and Do suggestions, itineraries, themes such as food and wine or indigenous tourism.

Under Destinations we include regions through to actual destinations.

And by products we mean the 1000’s of tourism destinations, attractions, events, commercial operators and visitor centres in our database.

Having a lot of content is also not enough, it needs to be presented in a way that is relevant to the user and so that it answers their need or question.

For example, for those who are looking to get a broad understanding of what there is to see and do in WA we have Top 10 lists. For those who are actively considering taking a holiday there are over 70 itineraries to help them understand where they can go, how long is required and how to get there.

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How else do we break down perception barriers? By presenting content created by fellow travelers and other people on social media.

This form of social proof offers reassurance to the consumer that WA is a worth considering and therefore worth booking.

How we do this is by pulling through curated content across social media via an API. The platform we are currently using is called Stackla.

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Still on the owned section….

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Our monthly email newsletter is called The Westerly

We also send out ad hoc eDMs as part of our tactical campaigns with co-operative partners. Toni who is talking after me will tell you more about our co-operative partners.

The role of this channel for us is to nurture our audience and to nudge them from awareness to planning.

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Working with the data to hand we monitor and test the messages that we send to our consumers.

Our plans for the near future include optimizing this channel beyond its monthly send rate so that we can become a little more personal in our approach and use technology to help us do that.

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In the earned space...

We’re active in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

The role of our social channels is to increase awareness and to inspire our audience to consider WA and beyond that to become advocates for our State.

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We’re active in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

The role of our social channels is to increase awareness and to inspire our audience to consider WA and beyond that to become advocates for our State.

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We apply similar principles of investing in our community, leveraging media and testing to our other social channels too. I don’t have too much time today to go through those in detail so do feel free to come up to me afterwards to have a chat if you need to.

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In our paid channels…

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Paid search is an effective means for us to gain traffic to our site and its content.

We are active in AU, UK, NZ, US, SN + MY as well as DE and China.

The role of paid search is to capture the consumer and drive them to a targeted destination / page on our site.

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This is a simple visual to demonstrate owned, earned and paid are actually all interconnected.

Our social content feeds into our website, our website is the key call to action for our email marketing, we grow our email database through social channels and our search activity spans across our site and our social activity.

Keep this interconnectedness in mind as I talk about how you can get involved in our digital marketing activities.

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How can you get involved with our website….

1. It is our key call to action for our marketing activities

2. So, it’s important that we have accurate and up to date content

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What can you do?

1. Update your ATDW listing

2. Use a great image for your listing

3. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate on our site – tell us.

What is this database?

It’s called ATDW and it is a national database of tourism product. Supported by all

the STOs it’s a dynamic source of content for our websites and 100s of distributors

including Tourism Australia.

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If you are an accommodation provider, tour operator, transport, hire, information service or event organizer and accredited we’d love you to list on the database. It’s free.

Details on how where to go to manage your listing and who to contact if you need any help is in the slide.

What we need you to do if you have an existing listing or two is to update your imagery (we need bigger images, description copy (do think about your target audience) and data fields such as from prices, opening hours and address.

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1. Use our hashtag #thisisWA and #justanotherdayinWA on Instagram in your caption so that we can see what you are posting.

2. We can then pick it up and either repost or select it for our social stack on our website.

3. Like / Follow us so you can see what we are doing and join in the conversation.

4. @mention us on Twitter / Facebook

5. Share videos with us!

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TWA works with a variety of cooperative retail partners to promote WA. If you are not online bookable then do seriously consider it, if you are online bookable then do consider your distribution and where possible align it to the partners that we work with.

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A quick summary on how to get involved:

- Social media feeds our social activity and our website

- ATDW a dynamic source of tourism product for our site

- Online distribution to get your product out there with our key partners

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Three key trends in 2015

Mobile

Seamless

Experiential

Why? Customer Experience is why. Consumers today are more mobile and as this space matures so do their expectations.

In 2016

Customer experience is pulling other priorities into orbit with the key priority for this year being data. It underpins all customer interaction from advertising to service. Decisions about data driven marketing should be done with the customer’s experience in mind.

Of course data is only as good as the insight that can be derived from it. Marketers surveyed have said that establishing good frameworks for collecting this insight is another priority.

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On the other side of data is content, a fundamental part of the consumer’s experience. Creating content is another exciting area for marketers.

Experiences can only work if businesses can create/ source AND deliver this content effectively. There is so much of it and it’s a complicated landscape. What this means is that people, teams and organizations need to work together better in order to be truly competitive.

By 2020 the travel world and digital will be

Unbundled

On demand

Truly mobile

Giving rise to the ‘silent traveler’. Fully independent and enabled through connectivity this traveler does not want to be sold to. Instead they are seeking a deeper connection and for authenticity in their experiences.

Skift 2020

Future of travel is at the intersection of technology + marketing and user experience + design

Forward thinking travel brands are delivering deeper experiences to travelers by focusing on inspiration, personalization and a path towards self discovery

Rise of the silent traveler (because they don’t want to be sold anymore)

The on demand economy and its impacts on unbundling travel services (ubiquity, efficiency, ease of use, connection and conversation)

Ubiquitous booking

2020 = the unbundling of everything, the on-demandification of everything, the mobility of everything.

Adobe / eConsultancy Top trends for 2015

Customer experience, content marketing, data driven business, personalization, mobile and cross channel marketing

Hotwire digital trends 2015

Unified digital experiences.

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Multiple screens, multiple methods, one story.

The content car.

Making advertising routine.

Dr Data is around the corner.

No such thing as a digital free lunch.

Tech is not so darling. Talk to the hand ‘cos the phone ain’t listening.

Movings fashion forward.

Going digital: the road to general election.

eConsultancy.

Where to best spend your money research paper.

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So, that’s all well and good to know what the key trends are and where marketers are investing their budget but how do you know which path to follow?

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There is no magical answer, no Wizard of Oz.

But you can find your own way through this digital spaghetti by:

1. Putting your thoughts down on paper but in a structured way. A widely used template is the maturity model. This simple grid can help you map out what it is that you need to do and can provide a pathway to your goals.

2. Become a modern marketer. Adopt a culture and approach to modern marketing and take things one step at a time down the right path for you, your yellow brick road.

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Maturity model

Simple grid to plot things out as you develop your (digital) marketing plan.

1. Strategy, change management, KPIs

2. Data and technology

3. People, teams and culture

4. Working practices, processes and tools

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- Soft skills: ability to embrace change, spot opportunities, passionate to learn and curious

It is essential for those with more digitally-focused skills to have an appreciation at least, and ideally good knowledge of, traditional marketing and brand skills (and vice versa). Whilst digital is changing marketing forever, classic marketing skills are still essential and those that can combine the two are well positioned within the broader organisation.

- T-shaped / Pi Shaped people

Those who have a strong vertical expertise but also wider knowledge or empathy for other digital disciplines

This is not to say that vertical expertise is less important, but more that when this is combined with that wider understanding it is increasingly valuable in appreciating the wider context of specialist work, identifying opportunities for greater collaboration or efficiencies, and seeing the bigger picture.

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- Checklist: collaboration, articulation, empathy, data/ insight driven, adaptability, creativity/ lateral thinking, action-oriented, passionate, curiosity, technophiles, project / campaign management skills

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How do you take these trends and make them real?

- Invest in digital: you have to do digital marketing to a) get to know it and b) get better at it

- Start small: empirical learning curve, baby steps, or file bullets not canons

- Never stop learning, there is always something new around the corner

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Introducing PRIMER. A new learning App by Google. So you can learn in snackablemoments.

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TCWA have range of eTourism Workshops:

• Getting Started Online

• Websites, SEO/SEM & Analytics

• Facebook Insights

• Building your brand through reputation management and influencers

• Twitter, Instagram, Hashtags and more!

Plus they offer eTourism Coaching (one on one) and Detailed Digital Reviews. Find out more on their website. http://www.tourismcouncilwa.com.au/etourism-coaching-and-digital-reviews

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Canva: to create visual content for your social and online efforts

Hootsuite: to help you manage your social media publishing activities

Zapier: automate task between web apps

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