Case Studies and Templates

The Fundamentals of Content

What exactly does content mean? Is the creation of content for a DMO a truly relevant topic? When and how does content become a story to tell? Why is it important to plan and schedule content to launch throughout the year? In this chapter, you will find the answers to these and more questions related to content thanks to an essential description of the elements that characterise destination marketing content.

Over the years, the most important question for a DMO became how it is possible to drive content to specific audiences in an effective way, thus depending on the objective of the communication. In fact, the type of content you should choose to share or develop depends on the final goal for your DMO, whether it is to drive conversion and booking or to spread the word about your destination.

Regardless of the final goal of the communication, it is important that the content is able to generate engagement. Engagement means that the audience capturing the message interact with it, like it, share it or simply stop for a fraction of their lifetime to appreciate the content. But the question then is, what drives engagement?

Engagement can be generated in different ways and there is no specific rule for this. What we know for sure though, is that the more the content is personalised and targeted to the correct audience, it’s innovative and fresh, visually appealing and it follows the latest content trends, the better it generates engagement. This is why content is so strongly connected to the products and experiences promoted, to the people promoting them, to the identity of the brand, to the moment in which the message is sent to the consumers, depending on the final goal of the communication. Every element is connected and has a purpose. For this reason content is so important, and if it doesn’t generate engagement it is not purposeful.

For the majority of destinations, providing easily shareable and likeable content is a good starting point to have high engagement rates, ensuring that consumers are encouraged to engage with content directly on the website or through specific channels. On the DMO website, seamlessly integrated social content streams are a great way of encouraging consumers to take action, whereas linking to external networks might put barriers in place for consumers and stop potential engagement.

Delivering a campaign that has an immediate and straightforward call-to-action is another opportunity for destinations to engage consumers. There are a number of nice examples of thinking creatively about getting consumers to share and post content or pick up the phone to take part in a competition. Destinations that have successfully engaged and built relationships with a large number of consumers have thought about creative and innovative ways of doing so, often being the first to come up with a priceless idea.

Regardless of the ways chosen to reach great engagement, the rule number one of content creation is having a content strategy and DMOs should define their role in the process and set objectives before even thinking of starting to create content. We will talk about engagement in the next chapter.

The role of the DMO

Whether your DMO is directly involved in the creation and distribution of content, or just coordinates external creators, it is fundamental that the role content will play for your DMO’s overarching goals and objectives are well defined and part of a clear content strategy for content.

Firstly the DMO should be the authority behind destination's brand story. That is to say, it sets the scene for content created and commissioned directly, but also working to align others to do the same. In presuming this role, the DMO can truly strengthen the combined digital footprint of the brand through content and also strengthen the destination’s brand identity with greater alignment, between themes, stories, messaging and channels.

This means that, whilst not always necessary to directly see the DMO’s role in content, for example through visuals or logos, there is true consistency in the tone and messaging.

Secondly, the DMO should make sure that every piece of content created has:

• A Brand Match: make sure there's a really good brand match. If the connection with the publisher and the destination isn't super strong, don't waste your time and investment.
• An Audience Match: make sure the content created and distributed is tailored to your audience.
• Reach and volume: Ensure that the media you choose to work with has the right reach and volume in the segments or markets you're trying to reach. Try to work out what a critical mass looks like, and thattime and budget invested is worthwhile.
• Richness and depth: Great paid content partnerships are all about delivering something mind-blowing.It is a true rarity to be able to achieve this – newspapers and other 'traditional' media are typically not so great at creativity, but this is changing rapidly, so be sure to only accept something which truly strengthens your brand.

There are so many different examples of creative approach and style in terms of content in various destinations. Ultimately, the creative approach you take comes down to how you want to shape the image of the destination, just remember that establishing tone and consistency is key. Although the content strategy differs in needs and results, a common trend right now is the creation of dedicated Content Teams within DMOs. As we have seen in many cases, people within the DMO know the destination and the brand better than outsourced organisations, guaranteeing better results. For this reason it is good to consider if having an in-house content team might benefit the DMO more than outsourcing the production of content.

In-house vs Outsourcing

Nowadays, digital creates so many opportunities for us to accomplish incredibly detailed micro-interactions, and this is especially true if branding, strategic development and content creation are kept in-house instead of being outsourced to external agencies. Notwithstanding this, over the years we have collected various examples of DMOs that have successfully built strong partnerships and collaboration between the organisation and external agencies.

San Diego Tourism Authority has developed a very efficient and effective content ecosystem whereby in- house content creators, external agencies, partners and third-party publishers all work together to communicate the San Diego brand worldwide. With a ‘brand first’ strategy, SDTA successfully achieves consistency throughout each global market, whilst still adapting to suit each specific local market’s needs.

But creating an in-house team does not mean that the DMO cannot or should not work with outside agencies. Instead, we suggest a balanced and blended approach. This may require some trial and error to establish what works best for your destination. The table below demonstrates that both directions are able to generate a positive outcome.

Our recommendation is to find a happy medium, developing a strong, multi-disciplined internal creative team alongside an ‘extended team’, comprised of freelancers and experts serving as ‘go-to’s’ for larger scale activities or those requiring a more refined talent pool.

In this sense, the role of the DMO is to recruit the right content creators, whether in-house or externally, to plan the content in advance and most of all manage the creators and the content produced by them. This ensures that the content clearly follows the brand identity and guidelines.

Hero, Hub, Hygiene

Each DMO should have a clear set-out content strategy as a roadmap for the production and distribution of content according to their defined goals. In order to help digital marketers get the best outcomes from their efforts, in 2014 Google and YouTube created the Hero-Hub-Hygiene (H-H-H) strategy that divides the different formats of content into three categories. Here at the #DTTT, we believe this approach to content still holds strong today and it should be the cornerstone of any content strategy.

It can be explained visually as a pyramid in which Hero is on the top, Hub in the middle and Hygiene at the base.

To explain it metaphorically, let’s think of it as a mountain. As we all know, the summit is the most important and recognisable image of the mountain in any postcard. It can be seen from a distance. Then, the closer we get to the mountain, the more we can learn about it until we are close enough to see its basis. If this mountain was the metaphor for a destination’s content, the summit would be represented by the most powerful and evocative image of the destination, something truly unique and recognisable and a clear differentiation from other destinations.

The middle part, the hub content would be the stories behind the people, places, and experience providers of the destination who promote the passion and authenticity of the destination to those who are actively interested in it. This is where ambassador content and deep level storytelling works great.

But the closer we get to the mountain the more we can discover the details of the destination through hygiene content, showing strong product information, reviews and strong social and user-generated content which helps validate and confirm the ‘promise’ set out in the hero and hub messaging.

Let’s see them in detail.

Hero

Hero content refers to the type of content that is aimed to provide a game-changer for your destination marketing, aimed to be relevant for a large audience and really craft the image, sparking that initial interest. Destinations are investing a significant amount of their annual marketing budgets into producing hero content, carefully crafting the destination story.

Hero content can help to attract new visitors, boosting the destination’s overall brand, image and perception, encouraging consumers to actively consider the destination for their next trip or holiday.

Hero content can help to attract new visitors, boosting the destination’s overall brand, image and perception, encouraging consumers to actively consider the destination for their next trip or holiday.

To produce the right hero content, destinations are strategically planning to ensure they are delivering a piece of content that people want to see, share on their social media and that can lead to a buzz online, reaching a larger audience through just one piece of content. In addition to the hero content, destinations will also release ancillary content to create a pre-buzz in the lead up to the release of the hero content and through smart media investments, potential visitors can be targeted with further content after having watched and engaged with the hero content. For destinations, it is critical to make the launch of the hero content and consumer engagement a success, having invested significant budgets into the production, delivery and distribution.

Although there is no recipe to make a video viral, it is the hero content that has the great potential to achieve a higher impact than other content. Hero content needs significant investment, both time and money, to work on the original idea and strategically craft, produce and seed the content. Destinations tend to produce hero content less frequently than other content, focusing on investing in one or two hero content pieces a year, if not less.

Hub

Hub content is regular, scheduled content that engages people across channels and platforms and is often distributed as serialised content rather than a standalone content piece. Destinations are using hub content to create an editorial tone of voice with a strong, distinct style offering depth on specific destination themes and targeting the interest of specific target groups. A hub content series can consist of videos or long-form content and is designed to encourage further discovery, through sequential content sets which can even exist in different forms in an omni-channel environment.

Destinations that are using good hub content can involve and engage specific target groups, getting a response to the content posted. This can give marketers and content producers in the destination new ideas on what content to produce next. For destinations looking to keep up the engagement with target groups, it is useful to share a clear release schedule or encourage consumers to subscribe to the DMO’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications about any videos that are released.

The aim here is to encourage consumers to return to the destination website, its platforms or channels and support continued inspiration.

Weekly episodes and releases have proven to be most successful when sharing and distributing content. Each hub content should also include a clear call to action to ensure consumers are sharing, subscribing or following the DMO’s channel or platform.

Hygiene

Hygiene content is regular or daily content that destinations are posting and sharing to get picked up as part of searches carried out by the target groups. The key form of hygiene continent is social content. Some of the most popular hygiene content examples are articles, how-to guides, editorial picks and lists on anything relating to specific events, activities or the destination itself. By posting hygiene content regularly across social, it is possible for them to draw new visitors to the destination’s website and improve SEO. Destinations that are producing and sharing relevant hygiene content can reap the benefits of being part of the continued conversation about their destination and at the same time build a relationship with consumers, being considered as a useful resource for all things relating to the destination.

Hygiene content has the highest frequency, but investments to produce hygiene content are low, only requiring human resources to produce the content pieces as part of editorial work. For destinations, posting good hygiene content is essential, appearing high in search engines and providing a consistent stream of content to draw in more consumers. The goal of hygiene content is to get consumers to subscribe to newsletters or following specific social media channels and platforms. Destinations can achieve this by providing authentic, captivating, destination-based value content that epitomises the unique character of a destination.

Storytelling

The rapidly changing media landscape and evolving habits of consumers are driving DMOs to rethink their marketing approach to focus on content and stories. But how do you determine the right story to tell? How do you set your destination apart from others? The answer is simple: authentic, captivating destination-based content that epitomises the unique character of a destination.

Today’s travellers demand more creative content and in-depth storytelling – moving beyond just listings to tell deeper, more compelling stories. As visitors become inundated with content they don’t want to be sold to. They are instead looking to learn, discover, and immerse themselves in a new narrative.

Storytelling allows destinations to move beyond competing on price, luxury, and other easy-to-mimic factors. Instead, it allows destinations to come alive with historical, cultural or other angles that capture people’s imaginations and invite them to become part of that experience.

Although there exist different ways of telling a story, visual storytelling – with images or videos – can help destinations market themselves in authentic and powerful ways that resonate with a generation of visitors who value the real experience and deeper participation in their own travel experiences.

Always-on Content

The challenge of the always-on consumer and increasing social media consumption means brands need to actively keep up with this need to stay competitive, increasingly fighting for feed space and trying ever-harder to create so-called ‘thumb-stopping’ content. Ultimately, brands need to be constantly creating content and this content needs to really stand out. This is where the opportunity of ‘Always on’ content comes into play. However, it is not a simple case of creating new content. DMOs should ensure that content is relevant to the target audience and distributed on the right channels at the right time while demonstrating a diversity of interests and experiences.

Becoming an always-on destination will allow you to:

• Take advantage in real-time of trending stories.
  
• Become a relevant voice in a crowded content space.
• Surfacing the brand continuously as timely, offering interest alignment.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique.

There are many examples of DMOs doing an amazing job of always-on content. There are certainly a few principles that can guide your approach yet each destination must also find the workflow that works for them.

Beyond everything, it’s about having a nimble, creative and multi-skilled content team that is ready to identify, select and react to stories as they emerge. Here, speed is of the essence, as a great story can easily pass quickly in a 24-hour timeframe.

This is the reason, you might have heard some destinations and businesses, talking about the shift to being an ‘editorial newsroom’. It’s the idea that if a story is trending in the news, you need to be able to adapt and react quickly to capitalise on its interest value with your own relevant story before it passes. Do this every week or month and you’ll find yourself a dominant voice amongst your key audiences.

Dipping into some of the #DTTT’s talks, we thought we would take an extract from 5 key tips shared by San Diego at #DTTT Global:

• Be Agile - In today’s fluid marketplace, it is important to respond quickly to new trends, changes in consumer behaviour and new technology to stay competitive and relevant.
• Trial and Error - Identify what works through trial and error. Don’t be afraid to try new things and think outside the box. Constantly review campaigns and tweak them to achieve the most effective results.
• Brand First - Identify and stick to your core brand values and align everything else to them. Your brand is the foundation of your messaging and positioning. Strong brand values mean your campaigns are always consistent.
• Constantly Optimise - Always-on content involves constant reviewing, adapting, refining and optimising - even if your content is doing well. Changes in the market may mean changes to your content.
• Personalise your Message - Adapt your content and personalise it to meet market needs – San Diego Tourism developed its presence on platforms like WeChat and Weibo to directly engage with the Chinese market.

365 Planning

Beyond always-on, a 365-day storytelling strategy can help gain support from partners in your activities. Think about creating a calendar, with different topics, and themes and guidelines as to the types of content sets, formats and themes you want to focus on throughout the year. Here, preparation is everything and having perspective on the stories to shoot, produce, compile and publish through the year is key.

Whilst content on social media can often appear as whimsical ‘in-the-moment’, in fact the best and most effective brand content is planned, curated and crafted to reflect the core brand pillars. Communication internally, between teams, markets and industry is key so everyone understands why you’re focusing on certain topics, when they should engage with you and how.

12 Month Plan

The aim of this is to develop a monthly storytelling and content focus that is in line with your brand. You will naturally promote your brand and destination throughout the year. This ensures your content stays relevant, engaging and on point - finding slight shifts in focus throughout the year helps your destination stand out from competitors.

All in all, be aware of changing trends, and adapt your content, strategies and campaigns to reflect them to ensure your brand stays relevant and ahead of the competition.

As later explained in the case studies section, the digital team of Geneva Tourism Board is responsible for utilising the market knowledge and expertise acquired in the market, digitising this in terms of content and campaigns to create the desired impact, and to reach the right audiences at the right time. The digital team also works alongside external agencies in market, bringing true expertise of the market in the market, as well as other media requirements. The Market Managers operate within leisure and business markets, and are responsible for briefing the digital team with their market knowledge, as well as managing the external agencies. The Team Geneva Tourism recognises the importance of creating a strong team as the foundation to a solid strategy. As such, three teams contribute to promoting the destination to make the best impact as possible; Marketing, Digital and Agency. Together with valuable market knowledge and digital expertise, the combination of these three components collaborating and communicating effectively, are fundamental in facilitating a strong, dynamic and transformational digital strategy.

Creators, not Influencers

In recent years, the strategy of working with creators and influencers has become a major priority for brands of nearly all sizes to incorporate into their digital strategies. Brands large and small are increasingly aware of the importance of working with content creators and influencers as a key tactic to strengthen their brand, boost their campaign success and close the loop on their content strategies.

These people have amassed a huge following through some means and possess the ability to influence thousands, if not millions, to buy into brands and communities, and to ultimately purchase products. It’s no surprise that brands are now looking to collaborate with these relevant creators and influencers, to help boost their marketing campaigns and strategies. But getting this right, choosing the right people to work with and understanding the difference between a creator and an influencer and a micro-influencer are all important considerations.

Content Creators

Creators and influencers often merge into one another - if a creator’s work gains recognition, they usually gain influence, whereas a typical influencer uses their existing followers to promote destinations on behalf of another brand. DMOs should keep in mind what the creator or influencer in question can offer your brand, or how you are expecting the influencer to help build and strengthen awareness around experiences, places, and themes which are pertinent to the brand.

Unlike influencers, whose influence is based solely on their follower count and level of engagement, a content creator may prove very useful and valuable for DMOs, despite having only a small amount of followers or engagement. After all, the reach can be bought, yet incredible content talent can be hard to come by and doesn’t always associate itself with influence or reach of the creator3. The skills of a creator may primarily focus on their passion or specific skill - they have the ability to create something great for a brand, but may not necessarily be a brand themselves - DMOs should keep this in mind and manage expectations when working with creators.

Influencers

Ideally, we would advise DMOs to work with influencers who have reach amongst a key audience aligned with the DMOs brand but are also humble enough to be a great partner in working with you to build stories. With the right relationship, you can build a set of stories together with influencers or creators and also invite them to take over social channels and really become a voice or even a true ambassador for the brand. Even if their reach is huge, boosting and targeting their content to key audiences is simply going to extend the value of that content further.

Micro-influencers

Micro-influencers typically have less than 100k followers, but are still perceived as passionate authoritative figures, and have an incredible impact upon their audience’s purchasing behaviour. Their levels of engagement can be higher than macro-influencers and are more centred around their niche, making them excellent choices for DMOs to collaborate with.

Blogger Hosting

Hosting bloggers regularly can also be a very powerful tactic for the brand, but it's important to choose the right bloggers. For those wanting to focus on year-round brand building, having a programme where bloggers, influencers and content creators can be hosted year-round is a very worthwhile strategic investment to incrementally reinforce the image of the brand. Always check their influence, audience, quality and creativity in posting. Consider paid partnerships, which should be bound by a commercial contract, hosted arrangements, an informal written agreement or as part of a routine programme.

Residency Programme

Blogger residencies are a great way to offer a hyper-strong branded programme, together with your partners who will come on-board to enhance the experience with goodies, treats and unique experiences.

Gatherings

Gatherings are a great way to organise a sense of excitement in a concentrated way. Here, it's important to design incredible experiences which are truly content-worthy. Treat your most important influencers as VIPs, giving them behind the scenes access to the best sides of your destination. At the same, consider how experiences created for influencers, might one day be made available to visitors. See them as your pilot testers and about the opportunity to co-design new visitor experiences together with influencers. For some ideas, think about going 'behind the scenes' in a restaurant, or offering a unique activity rarely ever experienced.

Overall, be selective in who you choose to collaborate with and represent your brand. Do your research, form meaningful and relevant partnerships and curate exciting and interesting content to tell stories and increase your audience.

Content Audit

Your destination's content strategy needs to help your DMO to deliver relevant and interesting content for your channels and platforms. It’s easy to get caught up in being creative or meeting deadlines but ensuring your content strategy is fit for purpose is critical to its success. Performing regular content reviews is a great way to keep your content on point.

Destinations should carefully think about their content strategy, focusing on four areas: content plan, content inventory, content distribution and content performance. This covers the most important areas, from the current plan, looking at what content the destination already has in its content pool. While both of these build the foundation for a destination working with content, thinking about how content is distributed strategically and how content performance is measured is equally important.

Organising your Content Strategy Review

Our approach to reviewing your content strategy focuses on these four areas to simplify the process of being able to review your current strategy. To make your content strategy review a success, ensure that you and the team are focused on critically reviewing what you are doing currently and where there are improvements that could help your destination to succeed in the future.

A content strategy review is useful for your destination and should be something that your content team works on together, ensuring you are critically reviewing all aspects of your existing content strategy in view of making small changes that can help you succeed in the future. Make sure you allocate time in everyone's calendar and go through all four areas of the content strategy review worksheet. While there might be more areas that are part of your strategy, the worksheet is a good starting point to review the strategy holistically and agree on the most important changes to make your content strategy future-ready.

Content Plan

For your content plan, start with reviewing your current channels. Take into account the demographics and behaviour of the user base of the content platforms and also the format in which content is best presented.Content aims should align with the strengths of each channel. Consider your current audiences for each channel and compare them with your target audiences. It’s important to centre you review around the performance of content. refine your content plan around your target audience, outline what content resonates and tailor future content to the interest you identify.

Content Inventory

Your content inventory the bank of content you have produced already. Discuss as a team the impact your current inventory is having on your audience. Based on your current content calendar, content mix and production capacity, define how you can develop your inventory and the ways your current inventory could be better utilised. Note down all content that needs to be produced to be able to tell the destination story in a rich and immersive way across channels. Perhaps content you already have could be repackaged to suit new channels or tell different stories.

Content Distribution

Next, consider how the content is being distributed across across your channels. Review how the content is performing and discuss the how the impact measures against the resources used to produce it.

It’s worthwhile to understand how your audience is interacting with your content when crafting a distribution plan. Experiment with different structures and formats such as serialised content or quick editorial pieces to define what works best for your audiences.

Performance Measurement

Each of these steps is advised by the performance of the content. Getting a good overview of how your content is performing is crucial, and most platforms offer easily accessible analytic insight tools. There are a number of factors and features to consider, especially when it comes to video content. From video length to frame ratio to style and substance, learn what performs best for your goals and adapt to the distribution channel. Moreover, take into consideration how you can actively drive content success, both in reach and engagement and how content performance and ROI are measured.

Once you have assessed all of these areas, you are ready to set out your content strategy with your whole team, defining targets, content opportunities for the year, partnerships or collaborations with content creators.

Onboard Distribution

A trend that is growing fast and that can represent a great channel to distribute content about the destination is the onboard entertainment package.

Onboard WiFi and preloaded content on specific train lines and new routes can be the means to broadcast great videos to show what is more exciting across the destination, tell the story of local people and enable discovery from the moment the visitor is travelling.Examples are railway companies like Eurostar and Southeastern, which provide access to onboard entertainment, like Amazon Prime, but could also be the right partners to provide articles to read or video series about the destination.

Streaming Media Players

The use of Apple TV, Google ChromeCast, Amazon Fire TV Stick and Roku is growing fast amongst Hospitality, Leisure & Travel Hosting Service Providers.

We see great potential in this. Why? Because partnering with hotels and accommodation providers will create a brand new channel for the DMO to distribute its content and promote the destination.

Selecting the right partners is key in this, yet even more important is the ideation and creation of a series of videos that could constitute an extremely inspirational and mesmerising content package.

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