HomeMy WebLinkAbout08. VLMDAC November Meeting PresentationVLMDAC BOARD MEETING
NOVEMBER 18, 2020
Agenda
•Monthly Financial Report, Carlie Smith
•Approval of October 15, 2020 Minutes, Board
•2020 Metrics, Media & Website Results & Implications, Cactus
•2021 Planning Process & Timeline, Cactus
•Influencer Report, MYPR
•International PR Report, MYPR
•Data Systems Roadmap Update, Bob Brown & Jim Kellen
•Lodge Liaison Update, Mark Herron
•CSE Meeting Update, Jeremy Gross
•Other Business
MONTHLY FINANCIAL REPORT
HIGH-LEVEL ROLLING METRICS
Occupancy
Seasonal Lodging Occupancy
30.9%
Destimetrics reported May through October2019 Average Seasonal Occupancy 44.76%YOY Seasonal Occupancy is down 45%
Average Daily Rate Remains Strong
May-Oct ADR
$249
YOY ADRComparison
+6%
2019 May-Oct average ADR = $236
Lodging & Sales Tax
May -SeptemberLodging Tax
$737,549
(-13.5% YOY)
May –SeptemberSales Tax
$7,469,402
(-14% YOY)
2020 MEDIA & WEBSITE RESULTS & IMPLICATIONS
Overall Goals / KPIs
INSPIRATION CONSIDERATION BOOKING PLANNING EXPERIENCING SHARING
Media KPI’s:
-Messages
-Audiences
-Tactics
-Devices
-Time + day
-Seasonality
-Impressions
-Clicks
-Video
Completions
Website Content
engagement KPI’s:
-Site Sessions
-Site Users
-Top Level Page
Content
Behavior Tracking:
-Competitive set
interest
-Search (events,
weather, dining,
etc.)
-Channel behavior
Website Content
engagement KPI’s:
-Time on Site
-Bounce Rate
-Pages / Session
-Page content
-Newsletter sign-ups
Understand and optimize:
-RODAS
-Adara (booking
timeline, trip
details: length of
stay, spend, party
size)
-Other sources
(lodging reports,
Destimetrics, etc.)
Website Booking Engagement
-Website Lodging
Clicks
-Book Direct
Searches
-Book Direct
Referrals
Owned activity
engagement:
Website: planning
conversion ideas:
-Itineraries
-Travel
Guide
-Content
Download
In-market data:
restaurants
Movement through
Vail
Points of Interest
Social monitoring:
Engagement
Sentiment
Sharing
Shareable moments
that can inform the
journey
Encourage re-
visitation
Return on Digital Ad Spend (RODAS)
•For every $1 we spend in digital paid media, we are generating an estimated $7.85 in lodging revenue
•This is up from $7.54 RODAS reported in October
•Final summer RODAS will be reported in February following the close of the 90-day Adara attribution window
= Adara Reported RODAS x 1.72 (weighted for 28% of market)
Adara Adjusted
$7.85 RODAS
ADARA private & confidential
Growing your DMO’s data co-op results in more effective DMO
marketing
Today all the media is optimizing toward
properties being tracked in the ADARA
ecosystem.
We want to ensure our media is driving travel to
your property:
●You directly benefit from our marketing dollars
●We optimize to your travelers driving room nights for your
property as part of the destination
The only way this is possible is if your property is
participating in the Local Data Program
YOUR
DESTINATION
Independent
Independent
Boutique
Local chain
Boutique
Inspiration
Paid media completed delivery in November
Spend Impressions Clicks
$746,730 50.9M 210.6K
Completed
Video Views
8.7M
Front Range was best opportunity market
•Front Range accounted for 75% of Adara reported revenue and 63% of digital spend
•High level of awareness and proximity to Vail can be attributed to higher booking volume
•RODAS strong across all months and in most cases, it was the highest RODAS by market each month
•Front Range trip planning window averages 22-25 days as compared to an average of 35-45 days for all other markets
•Colorado made up 49% of all web traffic and 15% of all booking engagement –specifically from Denver and Colorado Springs
Implication: we will look to a similar budget allocation and media mix to support the Front Range, especially if COVID-19’s impact on travel continues in 2021
Consideration
PPC was most effective tactic across all markets
•Effectiveness of PPC is attributed to engaging consumers as they are actively looking for travel and/or Vail-specific information
•Vail terms are best booking opportunity for Front Range due to higher awareness
•Destination markets have the best opportunity on lodging and activity terms as they don’t yet know Vail is their destination
•PPC accounted for 66% of all total website sessions and 62% of all booking engagement to Book Direct
Implication: Focus on branded terms in Front Range to lean into high awareness and non-branded terms in destination markets to engage travelers earlier in their travel planning process; explore heavier budget and additional destination markets.
Target consumers were looking for local Colorado travel
•Per Adara reported data, our target travelers were also searching and booking hotels in other Colorado mountain resort towns
•Top booking hotel destinations:
•Breckenridge
•Aspen/Snowmass
•Beaver Creek
•Steamboat Springs
Implication: Explore competitive conquesting opportunities in digital channels to reach travelers searching for and engaging with content related to these towns.
Booking
Vaildaily.com was most cost-efficient booking tactic
•Able to hit a highly qualified, Vail aware audience with a limited budget and a market agnostic approach
•Minimal investment of $24K and driving a $57 RODAS –see appendix for RODAS breakouts and context by market, tactic, and audience.
•Majority of bookings came from Denver, Dallas and New York City
•Tactic had the longest trip planning window at ~50 days from first search to in-market arrival
Implication: Look to refine messaging to focus on website (i.e., events, activities, up-to-date travel information, etc.) as opposed to destination; Front-weight delivery to reach travelers in all markets who are proactively planning summer travel and already aware of Vail.
Families were most cost-efficient audience to book
•Targeting families across markets allows for our dollars to further as it requires less investment to get them to book
•For every $1 we invested in targeting Families in all markets, we are generating an estimated $14.75 in lodging revenue
•Prospecting Families through display banners was 4x more effective than reaching them with video
•Active Professionals were more likely to convert from video, which is a more expensive tactic
Implication: Given audience conversion behaviors, we’ll look to weighted tactics by audience and market 2021 to focus display on Families and video on Active Professionals.
2021 Paid Media Opportunities
Spend
1.Optimize to Front Range: with high awareness and booking volume coming from the Front Range, we will continue to focus our investments here should COVID-19’s impact on travel continue into 2021.
2.Refine tactics by audience: as we finalize the RODAS, our approach will be a balanced media mix of cost-efficient tactics and booking conversion-focused tactics by audience and market.
3.Explore market-agnostic opportunities: stemming from the success of display alignment on vaildaily.com, we’ll continue to explore channels that reach highly aware Vail travelers in markets across the U.S.
WEBSITE REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Website Goals / KPIs
INSPIRATION CONSIDERATION BOOKING PLANNING EXPERIENCING SHARING
Website Content
engagement:
-Site Sessions
-Site Users
-Top Level Page
Content
Website Content
engagement:
educate visitors
about Vail while
overcoming and
motivating
visitation
-Time on Site
-Bounce Rate
-Pages / Session
-Page content
-Newsletter
sign-ups
Drive Lodging
and Booking
Engagement (Tax
Revenue)
-Website
Lodging Clicks
-Book Direct
Searches
-Book Direct
Referrals
Owned activity
engagement:
Website: planning
conversion ideas:
-Itineraries
-Travel
Guide
-Content
Download
In-market data:
restaurants
Movement through
Vail
Points of Interest
Social monitoring:
Engagement
Sentiment
Sharing
Shareable moments
that can inform the
journey
Encourage re-
visitation
Inspiration
Baseline for unfiltered web traffic
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Site VisitorsSite Sessions
258k 209k
Mobile | Desk | Tab
66% | 30% |4%
Web traffic aligns with Paid Media
June 1 –October 31, 2020
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
100,000
June July August September October
Sessions Users
Consideration
Filtered website engagement baseline
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Filtered, non-bounce traffic data
Pages / SessionBounce Rate
21%3.1
Avg. Site Session
2:55
Benchmark Bounce
Rate:
Excellent: < 25%
Good: 26% -49%
Average: 50%-65%
Benchmark P/S:
Excellent: 3+ p/s
Good: 2 p/s
Average: 1 p/s
Benchmark TOS:
Excellent: 3+ min
Good: 2+ min
Average: 1+ minute
While organic grows, paid and referral sources are vital
Spend
•With a recently launched website, with a new URL, and new content it will take time to index on search engines and grow consistent organic web traffic. Web traffic volume is important for driving data into our system.
•Paid and referral sources are vital to our success, driving 81% of web traffic while our new website grows organically.
•Paid traffic accounts for 62% of all booking engagement clicks
•Referral traffic accounts for 30% of all booking engagement clicks
•Vail.com –15% of referral traffic, 15% of all booking engagement
•Vailgov.com –13% of referral traffic, 9% of booking engagement
•All partners should be actively linking to DiscoverVail.com
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Traffic Source Breakdown
June 1 –October 31, 2020
3k
Referral (15%)
Paid (66%)
Direct (13%)
Organic (2%)
Social (2%)
Email (1%)
Source Examples:
Paid: PPC, display, video, Vail Daily,
etc.
Referral: Vail.com, VailGov.com, etc.
Direct: users typing directly into
browser
Organic: users searching in Google,
Bing, etc.
Social:Facebook,Instagram, etc.
Our users want timely, fresh content
Spend
•Our visitors are most engaged with current conditions and want to know what’s happening in-market and what’s available, especially given the current climate.
•Vail Strong (7+min), Open Restaurants (5+ min), Dining (4+ min) are the most engaged content
•Top content followed by booking engagement includes: Surround yourself with fall, on the Water in Vail, Scenic Gondola, and Gardens & Parks (not including top-level pages)
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Booking
Website Engagement KPI’s YTD
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Website BookingConversions
On-site Newsletter Sign-Ups
599 5,692
Book DirectLodging Searches
8,429
Book DirectLodging Referrals
5,254
User action on
DiscoverVail
User action on
DiscoverVail going
to Book Direct Page
Users searching for
Lodging on
Book Direct page
User action on Book
Direct to go to
Lodging properties
Website drives booking action
Spend
•Over 5,000 website lodging engagement conversions and over 5,000 Book Direct lodging property referrals
•For non-bounce traffic, our booking engagement conversion rate per user is 9.68%. This is the measurement we’ll use moving forward for improvement. For a brand new site with a shortened COVID-19 season, this is a good start.
•Not surprisingly, Home > Things to Do > Lodging is our most common user journey for engagement conversion, but this still indicates there’s a significant portion of traffic landing on our site with lingering questions and needs before making a decision
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Booking Breakdown by Traffic Source
3k
Referral (30%)Paid (62%)
Direct (5%)
Organic (2%)
Social (2%)
Email (1%)
June 1 –October 31, 2020
Source Examples:
Paid: PPC, display, video, Vail Daily,
etc.
Referral: Vail.com, VailGov.com, etc.
Direct: users typing directly into
browser
Organic: users searching in Google,
Bing, etc.
Social: Facebook,Instagram, etc.
2021 Website Opportunities
Spend
1.Growing our content: adding relevant, strategic content is needed to improve digital visibility, organic growth, referral growth and increase user volume. Our upcoming UX and Content audits will support organic, social, and referral traffic sources.
2.Continue to optimize for mobile-first experience: mobile device traffic makes up a majority of our traffic (70%). Optimizing the mobile web experience will improve our booking engagement, website vitals, and enhance our ability to educate and convert potential visitors. This includes mobile-friendly content optimizations and site speed optimizations for cellular data load time.
3.Conversion & value points: strategic content layers and links that provide value to users at each step of their journey –planners, maps, itineraries, etc.
June 1 –October 31, 2020
2021 Additional Opportunities
Spend
1.Short-term Rentals: validate consumer shift to short-term rental market in order to identify opportunities for the board and partner groups.
2.Extending the user journey: planning, in-market, sharing –how do we grow data collection at the planning and in-market stages? How do we collect data from partner groups?
3.Data Maturity model: integration with work being done by Brown Analytics and Open Space.
2021 PLANNING PROCESS & TIMELINE
2021 Planning Timeline
Dec
16
Strategy + Comms
Approach
Develop
Creative + Comms
Briefs
Jan
21
Final
Tactical + Creative
Presentation
Existing Assets Prep +
Launch
Feb
18
Mar
18
Nov
18
INFLUENCER REPORT
2020 Influencer Strategy
•Due to COVID-19, shift focus to Front Range influencers
•Where possible, identify cross-over media/influencers
•One targeted destination influencer, focus on teen family travel
Posts with Most Engagement
Posts with Most Engagement
Results
•171,200 users reached
•77% women
•55% between ages of 25-35
•Top Skill –Adventure
•823,000 impressions
•$103,400 earned media (5:1 ROI)
INTERNATIONAL PR REPORT
Overall Results
•No. of Clips –26, Tier 1 media outlets.
•Circulation/Reach –21M
•Key Messages
•Traveling to a place with outdoor activities during the pandemic.
•What to do in Vail during the summer.
•Safety protocols.
•Cultural offerings –dining/art.
•Inspiration location, post confinement.
•Mexican celebrities and personalities in Vail during the summer.
Sample Coverage
Sample Coverage
Social Media
Media Changes/Closures
Market Intelligence
•Most moved to beach and leisure houses during quarantine.
•Three main destination visited this summer –NYC, Vail and Miami.
•Most Mexicans who spent the summer in Vail stayed at owned and
rented houses/condos.
•Most travelers were between 23 and 38 y/o.
•“Workations,” longer stays.
•Many staying until schools go back to in-person learning.
•Economy and security in Mexico worries citizens.
•According to Forbes, “Mexican tourists are the first to travel abroad
from all Latin American markets after the pandemic shut down and
61% of Mexicans had the US as first choice of international
destinations.”
Market Intelligence
•54% of Mexicans plan to take a trip during the last quarter of 2020.
•It was hard letting press companies in Mexico know we were not
doing a formal marketing activity nor buying media. Everyone
forecasted Mexicans would travel to outdoor destinations like Vail.
DATA SYSTEMS ROADMAP UPDATE
Objectives
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
1.Understand who our customers are: enable targeting and personalization by growing acquisition of customer data
2.Drive visitation growth (tax revenue) through increased marketing personalization and improved targeting
3.Obtaining customer data at each point in the customer journey
4.Take an iterative approach to leverage small investments to show ROI and inform larger investments
Status
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
Step 1: Current State
Maturity Model
•Evaluate current capabilities
along the 5 building blocks
•Target: 11/20
Step 2: Roadmap
Summary
Development
•Develop key themes by time
period and develop 3-year
roadmap plan with tasks
•Target: 12/11
Step 3: Roadmap
Detail Development
•Define additional detail
around each roadmap task
with costs/effort required
•Target: 12/23
•Conducted 5 workshops with TOV and Cactus teams
•Sharing maturity model output today
•Have kicked off roadmap summary development step
Organizational Collaboration
Defining ownership of CRM and ensuring staffing and defined responsibilities to
deliver on goals
Marketing Data
Evolving information on customers to leverage as a
foundation for all data-driven efforts
Analytics / Insights
Understanding and leveraging performance and
motivations at a customer level
Marketing Strategy
Align with VLMD goals and provide north
star for all data-driven investments
Automation / Execution
Develop capabilities to execute on the vision across all marketing
channels
Maturity Assessment
•Green = Solid capability
•Yellow = Room for improvement
•Red = Capability gap
•5 workshops with both TOV/Cactus
•Discussion of current state for each item
•Alignment on color assessment
Organizational Collaboration
The fundamentals of the partnership model work well in the current state. But as the role of VLMD evolves, there will be an increasing burden on alignment and coordination.
Marketing Data
We have solid management of our existing data sources, but the amount of data is limited. These gaps in data capture across all guest touchpoints will hinder analysis, segmentation, and targeted marketing efforts across channels as we move forward.
Analytics / Insights
Within each silo of data we have this capability, but no capability exists to tie together information across guest touchpoints to really understand what our visitors are doing, what their value to the town is, and how to target them in marketing efforts
Marketing Strategy
Plans are developed collaboratively at the beginning of each year, and then the drift begins where each silo manages their efforts independently
Automation / Execution
Due to the lack of coordination across silos and the top-of -funnel positioning of the VLMD, there is limited coordinated cross-channel design, execution, analysis, and continuous improvement of marketing campaigns
Maturity Assessment
Next Steps
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
1.Address any follow-ups or questions from this meeting
2.Develop and share Roadmap Summary
3.Develop and share Roadmap Details
LODGE LIAISON UPDATE
Lodging Liaison Report
•Invitation sent to 200 lodging professionals
•Presenters:Vail Resorts, Vail Valley Partnership, Vail Local Marketing District and Vail Chamber and Business Association
•Topics:Destimetrics -industry and local view, lodging trends, air & flight trends into Vail Valley, updated covid-19 operating guidelines, Vail Resorts central reservations and upcoming lodging sales, Vail mountain update, Epic Mountain Express Transportation, Town of Vail events, presenters Q&A
Vail Lodging Winter Roundtable November 18, 3PM
Tool Kit
•Lodging tab to include: Lodging Promotions, Special Events, COVID-19 Guidelines, Lodging Community Forum, Announcement/Awards
Lodging Liaison Report
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
•Questions to be created with the VLMD
•Survey to be sent to every lodging partner
•Results will be tabulated and shared
•Create short term road map for Winter Season
•Create two-year roadmap that outlines specific KPI’s and deliverables based upon the outcome of the SOAR analysis review
SOAR Analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results)
CSE MEETING UPDATE
BOARD OPENINGS
Commission on Special Events
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
•4 vacancies exist on the commission
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdKaCMJIZ_3yTJC_qU3V7lk-
UcJM7Y_DrVF52gLhzpb8EswHw/viewform
Contact Jeremy Gross jgrosss@vailgov.com for more information.
VLMDAC
(-25% YOY)(-24% YOY)
•The Town of Vail is seeking qualified applicants to fill four openings; all are two-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2021 and expiring Dec. 31, 2022.
•To apply, email lgladitsch@vailgov.com with your resume and any qualifications and questions.Applications due 5 p.m. December 4
•The 9-member Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 8:30am.
•This volunteer board is responsible for making recommendations to the Vail Town Council, which serves as the Vail Local Marketing District Board, for summer and shoulder season marketing programs funded by a 1.4 percent Vail lodging tax.
•Anyone interested in serving on the Advisory Council must be an owner of real property or taxable personal property in Vail. Corporations or entities that own property within the Town of Vail may forward a designee from their corporation or entity to be considered on the Ad isor Co ncil
Thank you!
Upcoming Meetings:
VLMDAC Monthly Meeting, December 16, 2020; Vail Town Council Chambers
APPENDIX
RODAS by MarketStaggered rollout of paid media throughout June to Front Range and Dallas
Shifted destination focus to PPC only to capture those actively looking for travel informationFamilies drove majority of Chicago + KC bookings; family targeting tapered off in Aug.
RODAS by Tactic
Vail Daily driving booking efficiency
Display, video + PPC are driving booking volume
Shifted remaining spend to Front Range markets
RODAS by Audience
Initial paid media rollout focused primarily on display to Front Range families
Increase stemming from focus to Front Range families and active professionals
Book Direct Referrals
June 1 –October 31, 2020