Cornish Traditional Cottages, a self-catering holiday cottage lettings business based in Wadebridge, Cornwall, primarily required digital marketing support for social media and email marketing.
The business had just launched a new website, and Google Analytics research showed a clear drop in traffic since the launch. We were asked to help improve the performance of the website, with a short term goal of returning traffic to its previous level within six months.
Our integrated digital marketing campaign featured content creation for social media, emails, and website copy, as well as SEO work and social media advertising campaigns.
Our dominant content strategy was to focus on Cornwall as a destination. After discussing with the team, we put less emphasis on individual properties, as the majority are three and four-star properties with less of a focus aesthetics in comparison to some of the Cornish cottage competitors. This meant the main unique selling point was the location and attracting people to holiday in Cornwall.
We carried out a thorough review of the promoted budget spend on Facebook. We created campaigns for dog-friendly properties – an area Cornish Traditional Cottages excels in – seasonal offers, and brand awareness. A couple of page posts were also boosted each week to accelerate specific locations which needed a push.
The improved presence of Cornish Traditional Cottages on Facebook and Instagram was notable over a 15 month period, and overall engagement increased with posts consistently receiving more likes, comments, and shares than ever before. Social media became the third-highest acquisition source for website traffic, after organic and direct search.
people liked the Cornish Traditional Facebook page
increase in Facebook likes
increase in Instagram followers
of visits to the website were directed from social media
Before we started working with Cornish Traditional Cottages, the in-house team were sending emails to their database every week, with relatively low open and click through rates. We started by refreshing the email marketing template, so the design reflected the new website with a more contemporary look. We also reduced the frequency to two newsletters a month, so we were not bombarding subscribers with emails, and content was themed each time, depending on the time of year, upcoming holidays and events, and any specific offers. This increased open rates by an average of 10%, and click rates by around 1% – bringing them in line with others in the tourism industry.
In addition to the website, Cornish Traditional Cottages had a separate blog site. This didn’t help with SEO or bringing traffic to the main website, two of the main reasons blog posts are created. There were more than 300 blog posts on this separate site, so we completed an audit where we identified the 50 best performing posts, and made sure they were up-to-date and relevant. These blog posts were transferred onto the new website under a new blog section. Once completed, we set about creating new blog content based on key search terms and trends to increase website performance.
George Edward-Collins, Cornish Traditional Cottages