February 2017 San Diego Sales & Marketing Highlights

Below are some of the sales & marketing highlights from various departments during the month of February 2017.

SALES & MARKETING HIGHLIGHTS

Special events in February focused on the whale watching season, Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras.

CONSUMER MARKETING

Most Engaged Facebook Post

Most Engaged Twitter Post

Most Engaged Instagram Post

Most Engaged Google Post

Most Engaged Sub-Region Post

The social media team, in partnership with Casual Fridays, launched the following campaigns: Sights on San Diego Sweepstakes for the North Inland Region, Swoon for San Diego User Generated Content for the North Inland Region, Oceanside Surf Museum (North Coastal) for Museum Month.

B2B DIGITAL MARKETING

EMAIL:

The February B2B Postcard was delivered to approximately 6,700 meeting planners and featured unique meeting opportunities on Coronado Island. The open rate for the B2B Postcard was 18.6%, which represents over 1,228 meeting planners. Some highlights of the email included meeting and conference hotels as well as boutique hotels without facilities.

LINKEDIN:

The most popular B2B LinkedIn posts reaching our professional audience included:

A video of Sr. Vice President of Sales Margie Sitton being interview at IMEX by Smart Meetings Magazine.
Announcement of the SDTA Hospitality Golf Open at Sycuan Resort

LinkedIn grew by 1% from last month to 5,410 followers, earning over 4,457 impressions. Year-over-Year the LinkedIn Audience grew by 15%.

Where We Stand
LinkedIn followers compared to similar organizations:

TWITTER:

@SDTAConnect Twitter base grew by 2% from last month to 3,112 followers. There were 54 tweets during the month.

This month, the tweet with the most exposure (14,285 impressions) was a promotion for the Breeders Cup coming to Del Mar in November. This was also the tweet with the most engagement.

ADVERTISING

LEISURE ADVERTISING

The San Diego Tourism Authority continued its Spring Spot TV rotation with :30 and :15 Brand and Family spots in Seattle, Chicago, Dallas and New York at a cost of $879,552.80 with 33,164,000 impressions delivered.

SDTA continued its digital video campaign in February featuring digital video and companion banners running on ABC, CBS, Hulu and Google/YouTube at a cost of $252,079.71 with 18,826,186 impressions delivered.

The Adult Spring Digital campaign continued with native content, digital banners, video, and social units (carousel/slideshows and canvas) running with Buzzfeed, Nativo, Sojern, and Facebook/Instagram for a total cost of $200,497.24 with 15,067,684 impressions delivered.

The Family Spring Digital campaign also continued with native, custom units, digital banners, video and social units (slideshow/carousels) running with the New York Times, Meredith Digital, Family Circle, Time Inc. (T+L, People and Real Simple), Sojern, and Facebook/Instagram; total spend was $187,879.01 with 9,585,768 impressions delivered.

The Foundational Social campaign continued on Facebook with paid promotion of organic posts for the Engage layer, carousels and single image ads for the Always On layer, carousels/canvas units running for the Adult/Millennial Impact layer, and carousels running for the Family Impact layer; total spend was $81,680.00 with 1,761,522 impressions delivered.

Finally, February marked the launch of the Insight Spring Digital campaign with digital banners and native content running with Adara, TripAdvisor and TravelZoo. Total spend was $255,748.00 with 44,156,610 impressions delivered. The total Leisure Advertising spend in February was $1,857,436.76 with 122,561,770 impressions delivered.

SUB-REGION VALUE AFFLUENT ADVERTISING

SDTA ran an affluent ad and advertorial in Bon Appetit magazines at a media cost of $50,000 with 1,518,622 impressions delivered. Value ads ran in Family Fun and Sunset magazines at a media cost of $89,208.00 with 1,544,242 impressions delivered. The total Sub-Region Advertising spend in February was $139,208.00 with 3,062,864 impressions delivered.

INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING

San Diego Tourism Authority continued its Canada digital campaign with digital video running across Google/YouTube and Facebook/Instagram; pre-roll video running on CTV and Global TV; standard and rich media banners running with Sojern and TripAdvisor; and social carousels/slideshows running on Facebook/Instagram. Media spend for Canada digital was $189,463.62 including a BUSA contribution of $21,754.02 with 12,904,416 impressions delivered.

SDTA continued its UK Spring Digital campaign in February with standard and rich media display banners, and video running on Sojern, TripAdvisor, Quantcast, Teads, Google/YouTube and Facebook/Instagram, and social carousels/slideshows running on Facebook/Instagram. Total spend in February for the UK campaign was $197,430.00 including a BUSA contribution of $22,995.01; 16,849,229 impressions were delivered.

SDTA participated in a British Airways Partnership in February at a media cost of $5,000; the number of impressions delivered is not available yet. The total International Advertising spend in February was $391,893.62 including a BUSA total contribution of $44,749.02 with 29,753,645 impressions delivered, excluding impressions from British Airways Partnership.

MEMBERSHIP

Ad Sales
$151,870 in new ad sales contracts.

Revenue Development

Deal memos were signed with Tipsy Elves and Bay City Brewing. Tipsy Elves is in the fun clothing market with items like ugly Christmas sweaters, fun ski clothing and more. They were successfully featured and funded on Shark Tank and are headquartered in downtown San Diego. Bay City Brewing is a San Diego craft brewer and SDTA Member. Bay City will work with SDTA on a signature brew for distribution.

12 Members attended the Open Office Hours on the 24th to learn how to best maximize benefits.

5 New Members joined in February, $2.200 in annual dues revenue. The SDTA welcomes our newest members:

HOTEL SALES

The Hotel Meetings Sales Team converted 50 bookings, generating 14,220 Room Nights in the month of February.

Throughout the month of February, members of the Hotel Sales Meetings team attended Luxury Meetings Summit in Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando, FL, Denver, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT.

CITYWIDESALES

FY17:
Definite bookings: 2
Attendance: 12,500
Total Room Nights: 29,075

Fiscal Year 17-To-Date: 399,004

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Communications traveled to London to hold deskside editorial meetings along with the Black Diamond PR team. While in London, the team met with leading outlets including Waitrose Food, Suitcase, The Guardian, Vice, Escapism, Attitude and others.

In partnership with Visit California and the launch of their Kidifornia campaign, Communications hosted four influential mommy bloggers on a two-night San Diego visit highlighting our region’s family offerings. Also in partnership with Visit California (Japan), Communications hosted five Japanese travel journalists representing 10 different media outlets on a San Diego visit highlighting our region’s fun family offerings. In partnership with a leading Chinese travel service, Communications hosted a popular Chinese TV program and top Chinese media platform.

Showcasing San Diego to Chinese team at Balboa Park.

In partnership with Condor Airlines, Communications hosted three top German media outlets on a four-night San Diego visit highlighting our region’s outdoor recreation, cool neighborhoods, unique culinary and dynamic craft beer scenes, and exciting nightlife.

Key media coverage generated in February included features in Forbes, California Meetings + Events, Midwest Living, Sunset, Vancouver Scape, and several leading Chinese websites.

Clipping Total was $ 4,588,712
Impressions were 27,197,670

International subtotals from this grand total are:

International Value: $1,466,794 (includes Canada and Mexico)
International Impressions: 9,615,882

TRAVEL TRADE

In February, our German Representation firm, MSI, attended the FRAPORT industry training event. The event, co-hosted by Condor Airlines and Brand USA, highlighted all the destinations that Condor flies directly to and from Frankfurt – with special emphasis on their new destinations for 2017. In total, 26 local travel agents attended the event to learn about Condor’s latest destination – San Diego!