Author: Kasey Moore

Great job Teresa for your segment promoting the importance of tourism yesterday on local TV!

https://wtkr.com/2019/05/01/saluting-the-people-driving-the-impact-of-tourism-in-virginia-beach-on-coast-live/

Dawn Whittaker Barnette and Bill Barnette and Sally Noona take a quick pic during their working at Women’s ministries and something in the water!

Sherri Thadeus, with the VBCVB and Maggie Boys with Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement(WISER) enjoy the evening at MPI’s Capital Chapter Derby Days Networking Event held at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, DC on April 25th. Maggie was so excited to share her iPhone photo of the Go Beachless advertisement that has hit the DC metro stations…glad to see the marketing campaign working it’s magic in the DC area!

 

Lauren Thorstensen and her fiance Luis got engaged last weekend! Be sure to congratulate her and check out her hand the next time you see her!

 

Many people are asking how the Go Beachless campaign is performing. Below are some statistics Brad recently shared with a Town Center stakeholder that show the impact the campaign is having.  We thought you would like to see different ways marketing evaluates media performance.

-MarComm

 

“The new campaign has certainly met its objective of being a disrupter in the marketing space and it seems to be creating a lot of intrigue about Virginia Beach causing people to look further – which is what we wanted this campaign to do.  Below are some web stats from when the campaign began (March 1) through yesterday compared to the prior year.

 

Users  +92.81%

Sessions  +96.37%

Page Views  +68.67%

 

Our highest age demographic is in the 25-34 and 35-44 age range at +84.16% and +77.70% respectively.  Attracting a younger demographic has been a goal.

 

In our core markets where we are running the campaign:

 

VA  +68.99%

NC  +132.03%

PA  +101.09%

NY  +75.17%

DC  +81.47%

OH  +112.63%

 

Both NC and OH are newer markets for us so we are excited to see significant activity growth in those markets.

 

As far as source of traffic we are seeing growth in all areas:

 

Organic  +76.29%

Paid Search  +166.10

Social  +655.05%

Direct  +133.29%

 

The Town Center page has also seen growth of 15.72% in page views.

 

We also just received our latest DestiMetrics report that is showing hotel room booked for the month of March compared to last March for all future arrival dates is up by 16.5%.

 

As you know in marketing it is often difficult to point to any one marketing tactic or campaign to measure results, so I can’t say that this new campaign is the exclusive contributor to this growth although we are seeing a lot of traffic being generated to the campaigns landing page.  In addition to this campaign, we have had consistently more advertising in the market the past couple of years that is building more awareness and hopefully creating more traffic to our site and more bookings into the destination.  We have improved our SEO of our site over the past year.  We’ve taken more marketing activity in-house over the past year with more focused tactics.  So, I think there are a lot of things that have contributed to the year over year growth – but I’m sure that the intrigue of this new campaign has driven a lot of this traffic.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signs of something happening in Virginia Beach. Good progress was being made on the main stage Friday morning at 5th Street and pole banners have appeared along 19^th Street.

 

A couple of CVB retirees were seen in the halls of VBCC Friday afternoon. Parking Office originals Richard Petty and Milt Woodhouse, from the days when Resort Management also managed parking. Both were here visiting the Gun Show.

Earlier this week, CVB PR Team Erin Goldmeier & Teresa Diaz assisted Brian Solis with an interview with Janet Roach of WVEC Ch. 13. The station will be airing a news series about SITW during the week leading up to the festival. The news team also captured CVB employees at work preparing for the big weekend.

Here are some photos from the Lunch & Learn

 

On April 15^th the CVB Culture Team members,  Karen Ovalle & Michele Ogonowski held a fun & interactive “Health:  Myths & Facts” Lunch & Learn event.

On April 15th the CVB Culture Team members, Karen Ovalle & Michele Ogonowski held a fun & interactive “Health: Myths & Facts” Lunch & Learn event.

They were joined by members of the Paleo To-Go team, who presented valuable real-life info on meal prepping, the Paleo Diet…and there were even a few samples for us to try!

We gave away two gift cards for this fun & interactive event:
1st Place – Sally Noona
2nd Place – Erin Goldmeier

Congratulation Ladies

CVB Culture Team LUNCH & LEARN
“Health: Myths & Facts” and Paleo To-Go
Mon, April 15th, 2019
12:30pm – 1:30pm
CVB Board Room