Best Family Online Campaign

Holidays in Pigeon Forge are awesome, with millions of lights, Trolley Tours, great food and entertainment. In its 23nd year, “Smoky Mountain Winterfest” (a series of fun events) promotes tourism from November – February. In Phase 1 of Winterfest this year, we promoted fun holiday travel to mom targets. We developed a campaign-specific microsite that promoted the events, along with a contest to win a trip to Pigeon Forge. We also collected leads for remarketing and promoted the PF Travel Guide (research shows that people who order the guide are more likely to visit AND spend twice as much in market than average). The campaign included outbound emails to targets, geo-targeted paid search and display ads on AJC.com, Meredith Group Network, Tripadvisor, CNN.com/travel, MomsForum.com (Glam Media) and Facebook promos. Weekly tracking reports allowed for optimization and reallocation if necessary. RESULTS: Over 9.5 million total impressions and 102,736 total clicks. CTR for outbound email alone was 9.6%. Winterfest is the largest campaign of the year, and outbound email drives significant traffic. The campaign received 59,040 registrations for the contest/trip, 26,686 opt-ins and 34,801 travel guide requests. Opt-ins for 2012 were up 42% over 2011 and travel guide requests were up 99%. MyPF Facebook grew 36.6% and Twitter followers were up 41%. November-December 2012 revenues for the city were up 9% over 2011.

Contributors:

Executive Director, PFDOT:	Leon Downey
Marketing Mgr., PFDOT:	Sue Carr
CCO, USDM.net:	Clifford Ward
Dir. Web Dev., USDM.net:	Jason Hays
VP, Digital Media:	Ross Ramon
Media Coordinator:	Amanda Orrell
Media Traffic Manager:	Erica Hernandez

USDM.NET

Location: USA