Consistency is key when it comes to digital marketing success. In this presentation, you'll learn: • The best ways to gather customer insights and turn them into an effective content strategy • The benefits of a proactive yet adaptable digital marketing plan • How to create consistency across tactics, from e-mail campaigns and web ads to video and social media • Best practices and real-world examples to inspire your next campaign

1. Creating a Cohesive
Marketing Message
Tom JohnstonJason Anthony Montilla
10/22/2015

2. Presenters
Vice President of Technology
Company: Innovative Attraction
Management, LLC
jason.montilla@i-amllc.com
President of Ascedia
Company: Ascedia
tjohnston@ascedia.com
Jason Anthony Montilla Tom Johnston

3. In This Session
• Learn from your customer
• Develop a strategy
• Create consistency across tactics

4. Learning About
(And From)
Your Customer

7. Seeking Inspiration
• 65% of leisure travelers start online
• Top sources: search engines and YouTube
• 57% start their shopping process with search
• Majority of leisure travelers go in undecided
• Internet is #1 source used by families for family vacation
research
Source: *Google Travel Study, June 2014

8. Planning Phase = Brand Opportunity
• Comparison begins during planning
• Majority consider multiple brands
• No destination in mind, yet

9. Information-Gathering Pitfalls
• Collect all of the data…
…piles of data…
…but then act on none of it
• Marketers unable to empathize with target audience
• Singular approach to multi-faceted audience and marketplace

10. When (How) Are You Gathering Information?
• Before you launch
• User testing
• A/B testing
• During launch
• A/B testing
• Surveying
• Site analytics
• Post-launch (better luck next time)
• Site and campaign analytics

11. User Testing
• Tap into third-party panelist networks
• Qualitative and diverse
• Test feelings
• Test prototype messaging or site features
• Test new web/ad designs
• Test competition
• Difficult not to lead your testers
• “Explain how this ___ makes you feel” vs “Do you like this ___”
• “Would you go to this waterpark?” vs “Which waterpark would you
spend your own money at?”

12. A/B Testing
• Throw it at the wall and see what sticks
• Takes away personal bias
• Multiple applications
• Subject lines
• Ad creative
• Headlines
• Imagery
• The kitchen sink
• Doesn’t necessarily mean twice the expense

13. Surveying
• Instead of third-party panels, use your actual audience
• Low-cost alternative to paid research
• Approach can be two-fold
• Uncover aspects of your target audience
• Collect opinions on messaging / content perception
• More than just a pop-up
• Can be leveraged in marketing campaigns
• Wrap a survey into a promotion you already were going to offer

14. Site and Campaign Analytics
• Analytics is the measurement and analysis of website traffic broken
down by geography, language, and, in some cases, age group.
• Knowing when customers access your website and when they are
doing it is an effective tool for measuring campaign effectiveness and
helps expose your optimal website layout and flow.
• Browser statistics can also be measured which helps you see what
devices and browsers customers are using to access your site. You
always want to make sure the customer has a positive experience
regardless of device or browser.

15. Developing an Agile
Content Strategy

16. Agile…Development???
• Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of useful software
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress
• Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
• Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstance

17. Agile Marketing!
• Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of useful messaging
• Welcome changing marketplaces
• Working copy/creative/etc. is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Close, daily cooperation between marketers, operations and vendors
• Campaigns are built around motivated individuals or partners, who should be trusted
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
• Working campaigns are the principal measure of progress
• Sustainable promotion, able to maintain a constant pace
• Continuous attention to campaign performance and good design
• Simplicity is essential
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstance

18. The Opportunity
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferrooney/2014/04/15/applying-agile-methodology-to-marketing-can-pay-dividends-survey/

19. Developing an Agile Content Strategy
• Worst: Wing it at the last minute
• Worse: Do what you did last year
• Bad: Create an entire year’s worth of messaging. Set it and
forget it.
• Stop: Just let an agency come up with it all and walk away and
hope for the best…
• Better: Develop a rolling two-to-three month rolling calendar
with multiple versions of message. Automate what you can, A/B
test when you can, monitor while it’s happening and adjust
based on the data where possible.

20. Targeting
• Know thy target audience
• Don’t jump straight to promotion/book now
• Watch your competition
• But know that other waterparks aren’t your only competition

21. Planning
• Most marketers don’t plan well enough in advance
• Planning allows for baseline through the “knowns”
• Two- to three-month rolling calendar is optimal
• Content strategy shouldn’t be too rigid

22. Pivot Your Message
• Iterate through your messaging
• Failure is a good thign

23. Pivot Your Message
• Iterate through your messaging
• Failure is a good thign thing
• Chance to re-examine your
• Target
• Copy
• Behavior you want to elicit
• How you are speaking to your customer
• You can’t set it and forget it

24. Considerations Across
Digital Channels

25. Typical Customer Touch Points
• Touch points are the places where a customer has any interaction
with your product or company.
• A billboard or advertisement might be the first touch point a potential
customer will see to get them interested in your business.
• Your website or app is a touch point that a customer might frequent
to keep up to date with updated pricing, news and reactions from
campaigns.

26. Typical Customer Touch Points
• Social media is a very important touch point for customers that,
in some instances, is overtaking traditional website traffic.
• Word of mouth is a very important touch point that helps drive
customers to your locations, websites, and social media. Often,
this is fueled by promotions.
• It is a good practice for every business to figure out all of the
potential touch points their particular location has available to
customers and potential customers to help predict behavior and
make the points equate to sales.

27. Desktop – Tablet – Mobile
• According to KPCB mobile
technology trends as of
July 2015, users in the
USA are looking at mobile
devices (including tablets)
51% of the time compared
to 42% of the time via
traditional desktop web
browsers.

28. Desktop – Tablet – Mobile
• The common
methodologies for
creating modern
websites are “mobile-
first” and “responsive.”

29. Desktop – Tablet – Mobile

30. Search (Organic and Paid)
• Test with paid, then leverage findings in organic
• Ideally combined to complement each other
• Organic – higher perception of credibility
• Paid – more specific brand/promotion/content control
• Treat them like building blocks

31. Search (Organic and Paid)
Source: Data from Google’s “Impact Of Ranking Of Organic Search Results On The Incrementality Of Search Ads” Report

32. Search (Organic and Paid)
• Paid search and organic – both
highlight key features of park
• Can choose what NOT to include
as sub-links of paid result
• Room & Suite Options tie in nicely
with list of specific rooms under
organic result

33. Email
• Email marketing is effective
because it is tends to reach
the widest audience;
almost everybody has an
email address.
• Email format, look and feel,
and language is important.

34. Email
• It is very important to
put easy unsubscribe
links in your email
campaigns.
• How do I stay out of
the junk mail folder?

35. Display Ads

36. Display Ads
• Don’t think outside of the box, yet…
• Same rules apply – know thy audience
• Correct your expectations about display
• Simple ads with complex targeting

37. Display Ads

38. Social Media
• Social media is a major player
in marketing
• Social media is a moving target
• Blogging can be an effective
way to drive customers to your
social media and/or website

39. Video
• Video is an important, effective
way to get people involved in
your parks.
• Customers pay more attention to
video than they do plain text. Video
appeals to customers with images,
sound, and text. They are less
likely to be distracted by something
else while watching a video.
• People tend to “share” videos on
social media more often than plain
text or HTML website pages.
• Video is important to any
marketing campaign, regardless
of business.

40. Video
• Video is easy
• There are free options for
hosting, streaming, and even
editing video online.
• Quality is important, but low-
budget video is completely
acceptable because of the rise
of home-made video programs
on the internet.
• Keeping up with video “shows”
provides customers with an
ongoing relationship and helps
maintain brand loyalty,
especially if you have a local
competitor.

41. Key Takeaways
• Learn from your customer
• Develop an agile content strategy that allows for pivoting
• Create consistency across all digital channels

42. Thank You!
Jason Anthony Montilla
jason.montilla@i-amllc.com
Tom Johnston
tjohnston@ascedia.com