The MCC-funded “Conservation Destination” campaign reaches over 6 million people through social media, education and a sweepstakes to raise awareness for Namibia’s exceptional conservation-based tourism assets. Four animated characters were used as ambassadors for the campaign.

Launched on Earth Day 2012, “Conservation Destination” wasdesigned and implemented by Solimar International for the Namibia Tourism Board  as an innovative social media and inbound marketing campaign to raise awareness of the country’s diverse tourism products – specifically wildlife-oriented travel opportunities.

For six weeks, a high-profile sweepstakes and rich educational content about Namibia’s conservation activities and the role they play in creating exciting travel opportunities were pushed through Facebook , Twitter , and the Namibia Tourism Board’s blog.

The campaign led to significant growth in the size of the NTB’s online communities, over 6 million global impressions, and nearly 3,000 new sales leads.

Namibia’s excellent conservation record offered a competitive advantage when considering destination branding. Market research indicated that travelers are more likely to select a destination that preserves its natural, historic and cultural sites. Highlighting “wildlife conservation” rather than just “wildlife observation” as a travel activity also allowed for broader outreach to communities in non-traditional tourism marketing audiences such as zoos, wildlife conservation and non-profit organizations.

In order to strengthen the of the campaign, Solimar enlisted the support of four groundbreaking Namibian conservation organizations: Cheetah Conservation Fund , Nambian Coast Conservation and Management Project , Namib Desert Environmental Educational Trust  and the Save the Rhino Trust . These organizations added significant global credentials and supported the development of unique content for the two elements of the campaign: a conservation-focused sweepstakes and cross-platform educational engagement activities.

The unique content, contest and conversation were promoted through several online channels:

• • “Conservation ambassador” characters were created on Facebook and Twitter to represent each partner and highlight real-life conservation issues while driving traffic to the NTB Facebook page and sweepstakes.

• • Over 30 blog entries, 100 Facebook posts and 200 tweets were created to ensure that the country remains the world’s “greatest conservation story ever told.”

• • 53 campaign distribution partners such as international tour operators, environmental non-profit organizations, world-renowned zoos, were enlisted to help spread the “Conservation Destination” message.

• • Facebook advertising was used to target specific groups and interests within the Facebook community such as wildlife conservation and safaris.

Needless to say, wildlife conservation is a topic that inspires people all around the world. Namibia’s commitment to conservation and the tangible results that enhance the visitor experience have inspired a new global audience interested in traveling to the country.

• • The tourism board’s Facebook community size grew nearly 3000% over the duration of the campaign – welcoming nearly 3,000 new members into Namibia Tourism Board’s online family.

• • The number of individuals interacting with the Facebook page – those stopping by to read an article or watch a video – was over 8,000.

• • The campaign’s reach – the number of people exposed to the campaign as a result of the NTB’s Facebook activities, was 1.6 million.

• • Including the community reach of the conservation partners, the campaign’s total reach was over 6.4 million.

• • More than 2,700 new “leads” were created from individuals who registered on the website, allowing the NTB to continue to supply the new online community with targeted messages about Namibia – driving them from interest to bookings.

Luckily I have been out of the dating scene for over 13 years, thanks to my wonderful wife who I somehow convinced to marry me. I use the term “lucky” not just because I married a woman out of my league, but also because I am glad to be out of the dating scene which seems way more complicated today than it was 15 years ago. Thanks to social media and online dating sites, today’s dating world allows people to learn about each other with a few clicks of a mouse.

It’s fascinating to watch how dating sites have adapted the offline dating process to an online environment. These sites facilitate introducing strangers to each other so they can initiate a conversation and move-on to a real world date. What they don’t do is encourage users to place bold call to actions like “Marry me!” on their sites even if that is the ultimate reason why people use online dating.

Tourism marketers could learn a thing or two from these dating sites. Why are so many tourism marketing efforts focused on creating awareness and driving travelers to a website where they are only asked to “Inquire or Book Now?” Our ultimate goal to convert website visitors into real visitors or customers, but that process can’t be rushed. We need to get to know each other first. Why is your destination or tourism business right for me? You haven’t even asked me what I like or what I am looking for in a vacation. How do you know if I should visit your destination?

As tourism marketers, we need to act more like singles on the dating scene. We need to attract strangers and then convert those strangers into leads, leads into customers, and finally, satisfied customers into promoters of our destination or tourism business. This is called inbound marketing and it’s how Solimar can help your tourism destination or businesses stop marketing and start marketing with a purpose.stop marketing and start marketing with a purpose.

Here are four essential steps of tourism marketing described in a dating context:

1) We need to attract strangers to our site. Through keywords, search engine optimization, blogging, social media, and good website content, we can attract our defined target markets to our website. It’s similar to getting ready for a night out on the town – you want to do everything possible to present yourself in the best light.

2) We need to convert website visitors into leads. “Call-to-Actions,” targeted landing pages, and a good customer relationship management (CRM) system can capture a website visitor’s contact information by offering the content they want or need. If you want to keep communicating with someone you are interested in, you’ll need their contact information.

3) We need to turn leads into actual customers or visitors. Is it too soon to call? Have I waited too long to call? These questions often cause anxiety in daters. Marketing is no different. Once we have a lead’s contact information, we need to be sensitive about how and when we communicate to them. At Solimar, we recommend a three-day rule before sending the first pre-defined work flow email. These work-flow emails should be designed to help your lead get to know you, trust you, and ultimately want to do business with you or visit your destination. We also recommend “contextual marketing” emails to make sure that the messages you are sending are related to the information that the lead has shared with you or the pages they are looking at. You wouldn’t spend a second date talking about how great your Van Halen and Def Leopard collection is if your date already told you they hate 80’s music.

4) We need to convert customers into promoters. Once a relationship has started, you need to continue to nurture it. As tourism marketers, we must also conduct marketing actions that ensure our visitors or customers become advocates for us and tell their friends and the rest of online world about how incredible your destination or product is. This is done through social media and additional contextual email workflows – deliver content that your existing customers love and they will share and promote it!

In summary, there is a lot tourism marketers can learn from the dating scene. We need to learn how to “ask for the phone number,” take the time to get to know our leads, and do a better job communicating based on what we know about them.

One of the most comprehensive services that Solimar International offers is our Integrated Marketing Program. The model entails a tailored, uniform marketing strategy across all platforms that highlights and meets the goals of a certain destination or business. We recently saw great success using this approach in our Namibia North American Destination Marketing (NADM) project, in which Solimar was asked to raise awareness of Namibia as a prime African tourism destination for North American travelers. The success of the NADM integrated marketing program led to an increase in North American arrivals and double the number of travel trade selling Namibia. Natasha Martin, the project’s leader, gives a more in-depth analysis of the strategy’s impact.

What were the reasons for selecting an integrated marketing program method in Namibia?

We knew we needed to match the changing landscape of online travel marketing with whatever solution we proposed. And we had a limited budget, so using non-traditional marketing helped us stretch the budget further. As you know, it’s easier to target whom your messages reaches online because the tracking is so much better.

What were the first components you identified for launching the program?

We started in late 2011, so we identified a blog, Facebook, Twitter. But as the campaign progressed things changed. And we had to bring in Pinterest and Instagram. These were especially good for reaching niche markets.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in developing the strategy and how were they overcome?

The biggest challenge was probablytime management, you can spend forever digging deeper and deeper into social media communities, having one on one conversations, etc., but you can lose track of priorities. Having a content calendar really helped us to manage time and thematic posting, and ensure consistency.

As you’re wrapping up the project, in what ways do you feel the integrated marketing strategy has been effective?

It has increased awareness of Namibia, it has shared the key messages of the country – so that it’s not just “a country in Africa” but “an adventure destination” and hopefully more people can associate with its assets. I really feel that before we started the project there was much less awareness about Namibia, and now its on the adventure travel map. We appealed to a wide range of travelers from culinary tourists, adventure travelers and families as well.

Looking back on the program, what would you say were the keys to success with the Namibia campaign?

Flexibility, and the ability to make changes to the program (for example, when Facebook apps became redundant, we stopped making them).

What are the advantages of using an integrated marketing program strategy?

A multi-pronged approach is always better; otherwise you put all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

Through this approach, Solimar was able to expand existing and create new itineraries centered on a community-based tourism strategy, significantly increase the number of North American tourists traveling to Namibia, as well as double the number of North American tour operators offering trips to Namibia, speaking to the value of a practical and effective Integrated Marketing Program.

On October 8, Solimar supported the Namibia Tourism Board launch a new online marketing campaign to increase awareness of the country and generate tangible new sales leads for tour operators.

“Share My Namibia” uses innovative Facebook applications and the National Georaphic Geostories platform to highlight Namibia’s iconic destinations through the eyes of local Namibians.

At the core of the campaign are 11 storytellers, artists, adventurers, and community leaders that provide in-depth discovery of their home and why it is a must-see attraction. These rich narratives are complemented by great images from Paul Van Schalkwyk intended to inspire travelers about Namibia’s cultural diversity and its breathtaking natural assets.

The Share My Namibia App features a National Geographic Geostory that highlights the 12 iconic destinations, a link to enter the sweepstakes, and a link to the NTB blog.

The Win A Trip/Share My Namibia App is the entry for the sweepstakes currently offered for North America.

A set of applications are currently being customized and syndicated by over 70 tour operators, travel agencies, media outlets and non-profit organizations in Namibia, Europe and North America. This app is similar to what appears on the Namibia: Endless Horizons Facebook Page with a banner that includes and itinerary or community’s Namibia-focused work. With the use of Wildfire‘s technology, Solimar wil be able to track individuals that click through to specific itineraries and provide that information to trade partners.

Trade partners also receive weekly emails that include great content that they can push directly to their customers – increasing demand for the Namibia products they sell.

This campaign goes beyond awareness building for Namibia – the end goal is to generate consumer sales. Solimar recognizes the importance of targeted, effective online marketing. The destination needs to stay top of mind among potential travelers – this means going beyond one mailing, email, info packet distribution or Facebook post.

Solimar is supporting the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) to transition potential new travelers interested in travel to Namibia into potential sales leads. Using inbound marketing techniques, NTB online properties provide ongoing outreach to consumers, gather key intelligence and pass along qualified leads to trade partners that can generate actual bookings.

“Share My Namibia” will run through mid-January.

For 8 weeks from October 8 – November 30, Solimar designed and implemented the Namibia Tourism Board‘s “Share My Namibia” campaign. This cross-platform effort used engaging stories, photos, and videos to highlight Namibia iconic attractions from a personal, local perspective.

Namibia is a a great destination to market. The amazing landscapes and incredible wildlife almost sell themselves. What we wanted to do with Share My Namibia was to breathe new life into how potential travelers understand Namibia’s well known and (a little-less-well-known) attractions.

Share My Namibia had three main goals:

• Raise awareness of Namibia as an exciting travel destination full of diverse cultural experiences
• Significantly increase the size of Namibia Tourism Board’s online communities among high-value audiences
• Use incentives and great content to move the global audience through the “sales funnel” towards travel planning.

At the core of Share My Namibia were 12 great stories from local Namibians about where they’re from… places that also happened to be incredible tourism destinations. Each destination was given a landing page full of rich images that were meant to inspire.

Share My Namibia Facebook App

 To drive traffic to the site, we designed a Facebook app that used the National Geographic GeoStories platform to highlight the 12 destinations and provide a gateway to landing pages on the NTB website featuring additional information. After viewing the content on the App, users were invited to enter a sweepstakes by creating their “dream” itinerary of 3 of the iconic destinations they’d like to visit.

The sweepstakes was “fangated” – meaning the users had to “like” the Namibia: Endless Horizons facebook page. This was key to growing the Facebook community size: use the sweepstakes as an incentive to create a larger audience for social media content. We also collected the users’ email address at the time of entry so we could provide leverage future email marketing that would bring the user back to the website.

Travel Industry Partners

To maximize the reach of the Share My Namibia campaign, we syndicated a customized version of the Facebook app to 62 companies and organizations that maintain strong online communities, such as tour operators, non-profit organizations, affinity travel groups, media organizations, and travel gear/outfitters. Each app included a banner unique to that organization highlighting their Namibia itineraries or activities.

It was a win-win situation: the NTB received an additional outreach of over 14 million and the partners had the opportunity to co-market and co-brand with the Namibia Tourism Board while providing high-quality content to their online audiences.

Each week of the campaign an e-blast was delivered to participating partners with promotional Namibia content that can be easily adapted for their Facebook pages, blogs and newsletters – further engaging their partners’ online communities, keeping Namibia “top of mind” and increasing their exposure to the Share My Namibia campaign content.

The Sales Funnel

Share My Namibia campaign showcased Solimar’s Marketing with a Purpose and full integration with the HubSpot software’s call-to-action and lead nurturing functionalities.

The great content and incentives developed for the campaign served as top-of-the-funnel awareness building activities. Each page view was CTA-rich in order to provide the extra “one more step” designed to drive the user down the funnel closer to booking a Namibia holiday. Each activity completed and call-to-action clicked was added to a significant list of potential leads.

A total of 1893 high value leads were generated through the Share My Namibia campaign.

Unique referral codes were used to track sweepstakes entries generated from Facebook advertising as well as from the partner referral pages. Each partner received a list of sweepstakes entries that originated from their app. Other leads generated were passed to Namibia Travel Specialists for follow-up.

Entering the sweepstakes triggered an automatically generated email to the user that included additional calls-to-actionto drive them back to the website or online community for further engagement. The open rate for these emails was 39% and click through rate was 6% – higher than industry standards

These contacts remain in the NTB’s database and will continue to receive ongoing engagement. As they return to the site, we’ll be able to gather more specific intelligence about their travel desires and can continue to provide them with continually more specific, targeted messaging around their interests.

Destination Marketing

As more travelers discover about destinations through online sources, new tactics to reach them are essential. The Namibia Tourism Board has eagerly incorporated innovative social media marketing into their arsenal of successful traditional promotional activities. These tactics have allowed Namibia to generate additional awareness among important target markets that would not have otherwise been reached through other means.