Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?In March 2021, Visit Irving launched a social media initiative to highlight the best of Irving. Local businesses were showcased through the power of boosted and sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram. The campaign was quickly coined the “Hidden Gems” campaign and highlighted unique dishes at local restaurants, exciting events, and various new and inspiring things to do around town. One of the campaign’s primary goals was to generate awareness and increase digital and foot traffic for Irving’s restaurants and attractions. Visit Irving wanted to help the community through the pandemic recovery by showing off Irving’s local gems, highlighting local spots and extraordinary food, and sharing personal stories within the Irving community. Another goal of the campaign was to increase social media engagement and reach for both Visit Irving’s social channels and those of its community partners. And finally, we wanted to drive traffic back to the Visit Irving Blog, where many of the stories of these local gems were highlighted.

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 Hidden Gems Campaign launched in March 2021 and exceeded our expectations for the program. Each highlighted post was boosted to a targeted demographic that aligned with the post’s topic. Through this targeted approach, interactions exceeded well beyond the normal organic reach. Since the start of the campaign, the sponsored posts have generated 19,302,725 paid impressions, which is a 1,550% increase from organic impressions alone. In total, the sponsored posts generated over 20.5 million impressions in less than ten months. Post engagement increased significantly as well. Visitors engaged with the Visit Irving Facebook page with likes, comments and shares a total of 526,154 times, while Instagram posts saw 168,231 engagements. The number of new followers on the Visit Irving Instagram account pushed it over the 10,000-follower threshold, which enabled the link stickers feature. Traffic to the irvingtexas.com website had a 32% referral rate from the Hidden Gems Campaign, with 31,592 website sessions coming from the campaign. The Visit Irving Blog also experienced a significant increase in traffic generated by the campaign, with 124,214 blog pageviews. Visit Irving’s local business partners have enjoyed the program, and frequently reach out with requests to be featured in future posts. Anecdotally, one local business owner commented about a recent post highlighting a local Lao dish saying, “Thanks for the post, guys, a ton of people have been coming in to try our pho this week.”

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?The ad spend on this campaign has been minimal with boosted and sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram totaling only $24,993.

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 TitlePromoted Content Campaign

DivisionDigital Marketing - Social Media Campaign

CategoryDigital Marketing