Behind The Scenes: Coastdale Parks Hub
Enter the Coastdale Parks Hub and you’re immediately immersed in a hip, fun, free-spirited world of photos, blogs, videos, and social media.
Immediately, the cover photo makes you wish you were on a sunny beach with a surfboard in hand and your favourite person by your side.
Coastdale Parks is a family-owned company which owns four holiday parks across the UK. In their Content Hub, you can find 5 blogs covering tourism, local news, and general interest stories.
Their Instagram feed is filled with beautiful images of nature, architecture, and other fuzzy-feeling themes that simply make you smile.
Coastdale Parks also has a robust YouTube channel featuring videos of local events, wildlife, and more.
We asked Chris Welford, Head of Marketing & Design, to share some insight into his approach to marketing, content marketing, and their beautiful Coastdale Parks Hub.
Here’s what Chris had to say!
1. Why is content marketing (including social media, blogs, Flipbooks, etc.) important for your organization?
Content marketing is now a major part of everyday business life for our organization – it has to be. Customers are moving at a faster pace than ever before with services such as on demand, live feeds, next day delivery, live online bookings, live text promo updates – the list goes on.
Customers want it now and if you cannot give it to them, your business will lose out. Simultaneously, if you are not connected with your customer via social media then expect to lose them to your rival who has embraced content marketing.
Every time we post a message on Facebook, we gain likes and leads; when we posted our new 2014 Holiday e-brochure we gained bookings and our future bookings have risen by 34%. It is no coincidence that this has happened – in the past we have only had printed versions of the brochure. Sending these out in the post is a very costly and timely process. You also have no idea if the customer buys your product (unless you have a tracking database system in place). This all changed when we found Uberflip; data analysis to track leads and find trends within the data is imperative to further bookings and to increase bottom line.
2. How does Hubs help?
Our e-brochure has been seen by more people than we ever sent to print (which was 20,000 copies) as well as giving us the ability to see where the customer clicks (you can find this information on the metrics in your Uberflip account), what product is popular or what time of year the customer might wish to go on holiday.
I have also linked in my MailChimp account with an API Key so customers can sign up if they find the content interesting. The call to action is really effective in our Hub. We use these to attract customers with competitions or giveaways.
Another way the Hub helps is by connecting blogs, Twitter…not yet Pinterest, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that it’s coming soon. I have also connected our YouTube videos, giving more for customers who wish to find out more information about our brand. This will also help with Google ranking, linking, and lead building.
3. What is your best tip for aspiring content marketers out there?
Content is key. Keeping customers’ attention on your brand is a skill in itself. A large percentage of people only look at the first page on Google, find the first link, then click. If you can team up with others to create a vibrant, content appropriate e-magazine, brochure, information package or portfolio then you will increase leads.
Step 1: Idea
- Layout / trends
- Design
- Text / font
All of the above need to be looked at with detail as customers pick up on the smallest thing. Grammar and spelling is a big one for me (I’m dyslexic) so I always have a good proofreader on hand.
Step 2: Create
If you don’t know how to use Photoshop, illustrator or InDesign, don’t worry. There is a plethora of very kind individuals out there who will help (myself being one). I have links and contacts that can help you with design, content writing, and SEO (Find me on Linkedin).
- Distribute / social networking – linking each page with social media i.e. a “pin it” button or Facebook like (This will help with your Klout score. The higher your score the more people can see your brand.)
- Launch (Available Now – Mail out – use your customer database to help you spread the word)
Step 3: Promote
Once your pages are online then the fun starts to happen. Promote your content across your social networks and pay attention to the design and overall look and feel of your content.
I picked a company called VAMP Creative who organised the photo shoots at our Holiday Parks. They received a brief for colourful, vibrant images reflecting what my organization does and they came back with some of the best images, helping me create the 2014 Holiday Brochure.