Hurricane Katrina, the recession and the Gulf oil spill strengthened New Orleans’ understanding of the importance of tourism to the local economy. In 2011 they established an aggressive tourism growth goal of reaching 13.7 million visitors per year by 2018.
Our team was hired to manage their online marketing based on our willingness and ability to provide performance guarantees regardless of uncontrollable circumstances. We integrated display advertising, search marketing, lead generation and an e-dialogue program tailored to meet consumers with messages appropriate to their stage in the planning process, plus initiated audience segmentation for the organization.
In the first two years, we helped to double the email database, increase organic site visits by 50% and twice increase intent to visit by more than 60% through display advertising. Most importantly, independent research documented a 236 to 1 ROI as measured by spending from incremental visitors over marketing costs.
