Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?At first glance, Brookings, South Dakota, is a Midwest college town that’s not so different from your average small Midwest college town. Except that it is. With nature areas, family-favorite attractions, superb shopping and a spiffy little downtown, Brookings has an awful lot to offer. But their website didn’t. Visit Brookings wanted their new site to leave a lasting impression, welcoming visitors in and inviting them to learn more. The new site should inspire travel and inform residents, tourists, event planners and even university students. The goal: create a new website for Visit Brookings that would increase engagement while providing the tools for people to plan and book trips. First, we created travel personas and stories to map how people would use the site. For example, Katie, a mom of two searching for a summer getaway, is looking for different information than Whitley, a twenty-something in town for a Jackrabbit game day. With unique users in mind, we added a fresh navigation menu – with drop-down buttons to help visitors find what they’re looking for fast – helping people jump from the home screen into relevant pages. We added approachable content, bringing Brookings hospitality to life through stories, blogs and targeted itineraries. Accessible and inclusive language helped VisitBrookingsSD.com speak to various audiences, mixing in high-impact imagery for engaging inspiration. Clear calls to action guided users, seamlessly connecting them to conversions. For bookings, that included easy-to-find links to hotel pages, a simple process for a streamlined experience. Similarly, meeting planner page tools helped Visit Brookings cater to their vital events audience, helping businesses and groups with an interactive events guide.

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)The new website made an immediate impact on Brookings’ peak travel season. After launch, VisitBrookingsSD.com saw a 53.4% increase in page views. For conversions and engagement, we welcomed 33,890 more users in 2021 – a 123% increase year over year. Users stayed on each page longer (3.2% increase in average time on page) and hung around the website longer, too (20.4% bounce rate decrease). 6,182 web visitors interacted with business pages. 1,344 website users interacted with lodging pages. 291 users downloaded itineraries. 1,173 users interacted with attraction pages. The new site also drove conversions. The paid media conversation rate for bookings was 15.59%, more than quadruple the 4% goal.

Budget: Please include total budget vs. total actual cost. How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?Total budget for the new VisitBrookingsSD.com was $60,139.

Project Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the project and your company efforts to demonstrate good corporate citizenship in the areas of community involvement, environmental, or socially responsible practices.

Objectives and Goals: What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project in CSR? What were the goals you set to measure your success?

Results: How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve? Please be as specific as possible and share the full impact of your efforts in CSR.

Leadership: Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility in the travel and tourism industry?

Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals and audience. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)

Budget: Please include total budget vs. total actual cost. How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the original initiative and how it evolved as conditions changed from pandemic to recovery.

Goals: Clearly state your goals. What did you strive to achieve with this initiative and how did your goals change over time?

Results: Which of your goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the initiative?

Objective(s): What problems did the sales, marketing & guest satisfaction, or revenue optimization technology aim to solve?

Innovative use of technology: The extent to which new directions are charted or old challenges are resolved by using the technology in a new way.

Implementation & creativity: How was the technology implemented so that it was easy to use, solved a manpower problem, streamlined a function, or fueled recovery?

Results & Evaluation: How did the technologiy move the department or business foward to achieve goals, revenue or otherwise?

Goal: How did you demonstrate that you are committed to advancing diversity in your organization through your marketing?

Initiatives: Describe the promotion. What was your organization's message and how does it foster diversity? How was the target audience channel developed/pursued?

Results: Please describe how your organization was purposeful in advancing diversity through this initiative. Please describe the metrics you used to judge success. What were the forecasted and actual outcomes described in your Key Performance Indicators (KPI)? What impact did the initiative have on your organization and for your customers?

Goal: How did you demonstrate that you are committed to advancing diversity in your organization through your campaigns?

Initiatives: What was your approach to this campaign and how was the organization purposeful in advancing diversity through it? What types of data did you use to support your plan? How many locations were involved in the campaign? How did you effectively reach diverse audiences? What was the message?

Results: What metrics are you using to evaluate diversity (soft and/or hard metrics)? Were you successful at meeting forecasted goals? Was it limited to a specific promotion or across multiple creatives? What impact did the campaign have on your organization? How did this campaign change your brand’s perception amongst travelers?

Entry TitleVisit Brookings Website

DivisionDigital Marketing - Web Site

CategoryDigital Marketing