Turneffe Island Resort Luxury Marketing Case Study
720% increase in price per night
The RunDown
Turneffe Island Resort ownership group approached DataGorilla Marketing at DEMAShow 2016. They said they wanted 30% more net profit, at a significantly larger price point, they wanted higher income customers, and customers living outside of North America. All existing clients were coming from the USA or Canada.
During our conversation, they shared that their Resort was behind pace for the year. Print marketing was no longer effective. They had lost faith in traditional marketing and wanted to outsource marketing. Current media budget of $290,000 per year.
Turneffe Island Resort wanted more customers staying in luxury, high end presidential suite. They wanted to sell upgrades to private villas. This is all traditional hotel marketing.
Next, they were willing to pay extra for us to educate their staff so that they can do this in the future. We were training our replacements. We were also spreading our influence.
The fishing charters were booked solid for 6-months in advance
Revenue came from a mix of diving, fishing, and snorkeling.
Their spa was not making money.
They were not using analytics to make decisions.
They complained that they used to convert so well that they would have “72 – 94 page views every hour”.
The owner was using Google Ads and Bing Ads. Upon inspection, the Google Ads history looked like Google Ads sales reps were managing the campaign. Neither ad platform was connected to analytics. The website did not record analytics.
Goals
• 1.3x their average sales value
• They wanted to start a fishing program
• 30% more bookings at a significantly larger price point
• Find the luxury market they are missing
• Focus on getting phone calls for luxury presidential suite customers and private villas, with groups of less than 10
• Increase quantity of luxury leads within 60 days
• Average cost per click should remain unchanged
• Want 7.2 million impressions per year to targeted demographics
• Run Site retargeting and Search retargeting campaigns
• Train existing marketing team to manage online reviews
• Train marketing team on managing YouTube and Google Images
Strategy
The scope of this campaign was a good stress test for our processes internally and externally. Simultaneously, we managed international advertising, website redevelopment, analytics deployment, guest research, and staff training.
Begin with SWOT analysis audit on the brand presence online. At the same time, create a 3-question survey and comment card. Ask staff to give them to all guests upon arrival and departure. There is no set time limit or number to give out. We are looking for patterns.
Create new paid ads campaigns and begin optimization. Focus on cities with direct flights to BZE. Test paid ads variables on various channels.
Google PPC, Bing PPC, YouTube PPC
Google Retargeting, Facebook Retargeting
Google Remarketing, Facebook Remarketing
Create additional campaigns for the rest of the world, South America, South Africa, Spain, UK, Canada. Test luxury keywords and fishing keywords. Emphasize superior service, cleanliness, 5* accommodations, private island, close to the best diving in the world.
Use site retargeting to show ads to anyone who visited the website at a cost of $0.30 per thousand ads. This highly targeted marketing shows to site visitors up to 6 times per day for 6 months.
Create search retargeting campaigns that show in the US and Canada to people looking for Belize diving trips and to pre-screened buyers looking at other resorts.
While we are working on paid ads optimization, another team will begin construction on the website wireframe. We will transition the website to WordPress, add data tracking ability with Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics, and Pinterest Analytics (In 2016 Pinterest was just past peaking). We wanted to add A/B testing to the website for testing in increments of 10,000 page views.
They had been mentioned in the Washington Post, but the article was not linked to the website. We used schema markup to emphasize it to the search engines.
We literally trained their in-house team until they didn't need us anymore. Training my point of contact to be self-sufficient took 5 sessions to start and more as-needed. Their marketing person was working in these areas every day, and her learning curve was steep. We put processes in place for Google Maps, YouTube Management, Pinterest Optimization, Winning Trip Advisor, Facebook Promotions, Instagram Management, managing the website blog, and a process for managing online reviews.
We trained their marketing person on the basics of WordPress management and learning. We created the initial content for social postings. Next, we trained their marketing person how to create it for herself. Then we trained her to use data to determine the marketing channel, best time to post, and the best channels to post on.
Obstacles
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We had to step in during an excepted staffing transition.
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They were sending international traffic to a home-made landing page that was not consistent with the branding, had a different url, and did not translate from English.
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The owner was running international campaigns using google ads.
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They were not using analytics on their existing website.
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No translate feature on website.
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They were unable to accommodate groups larger than 10.
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Non-Fishing spouses were stuck on the island watching tarpon videos. Had no plans for
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They did not have a Google Maps listing. Turneffe Island Resort had no plan to win their own home. They were 1 of only 3 competitors for high-end travelers within 500 miles of their location. This was low hanging fruit for luxury locals.
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Existing structured data was improperly deployed, see image above.
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Previous fishing program was not marketed well and went out of business years earlier. They were paying for fishing leads through wholesale tour operators.
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Print marketing was no longer effective.
Results
They said they wanted 30% more net profit. We provided over 600% more net profit over a 2-year period. They had not identified the Island Rentals as the key. After sifting through data, and testing the campaign, they put together a higher value offering. This new package featured ~$15,000 per night, all–inclusive private Island Rental. This advertised rate was non-negotiable and represents a 720% increase in price per night versus the average sale of $1,830 per night.
Very quickly, we noticed easy/fix consistent comments and complaints on the comment cards. Most of the fixes were addressed by staff and management.
Next, we helped them put together packages for bored spouses, whose husbands were fishing all day. We put together day-plans for non-fishing spouses. We asked their spa to put together good / better / best packages and day-trips for the spouses. Our mindset was that if the spouse is enjoying themselves, the guest that is fishing might want to return. We went into fishing forums and discussed places to go for non-fishing spouses.
It worked. Within 6 weeks of putting together the non-fishing spouse packages, the fishing charters were booked solid for 6-months in advance. It was so busy, they ended up having to hire a director of fishing. We turned if from a high-end dive resort to a non-fishing spouse sanctuary. This channel directly led to the discovery of high-converting outliers like the "Fishing Honeymoon" niche. By pouring through Analytics, we identified their top converting outlier keyword as “fishing honeymoon”. The non-fishing spouses filled up the spa and made it profitable in less than 60-days.
The article in the Washington Post became an additional page listed on the first page of Google for several of their highest converting keywords.
We added data collection channels to the website. Very quickly we were able to see which countries had populations that were interested in coming to Belize. We opened up ad campaigns in the UK, Spain, and South Africa that were so successful that we started separate marketing campaigns in those countries.
The Agency That Trains Its Own Replacements
We patiently trained their next in-house team from the ground up. We put bulletproof processes in place so that they can keep marketing in the hands of the people who know them best.
Providing Turneffe Island Resort marketing team with our process for responding to negative reviews forced us to write it out. You can see the latest version on our website. https://www.dg.marketing/datagorilla-method/responding-to-negative-reviews