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The Swan Hotel

How can we introduce a new generation of customers to the The Swan Hotel and decrease reliance on OTA’s?

By using tailored content marketing campaigns.

We had two major challenges to overcome to help The Swan Hotel.

The first was to increase the number of direct bookings with the hotel, rather than through OTA’s (Online Travel Agents). Historically, the hotel had relied heavily on receiving a large percentage of bookings via OTA’s.

The second challenge was to portray the hotels unique atmosphere where family-friendly meets boutique hotel, along with the beauty of the Lake District to a new generation of customer.

We started our partnership with The Swan, by conducting a 2 day workshop at their hotel premises. We worked alongside their senior leadership team and select hotel staff to create a strategy to meet their business objectives.

We used the PROSPER Framework to create a strategy and 12-month marketing plan. The framework includes the consideration of assets, resources and competitive context as well as the more common understanding of audience. There is also an emphasis on not just measurement but on evaluation, optimisation and learning in the final review stage.

The Swan team lacked internal resource to execute or manage any digital activity. We therefore took on full responsibility for the execution of the strategy and marketing plan.

The Swan initially had two websites; one for the hotel and one for the holiday cottages. As part of our strategy we decided to merge them into one website with a seamless booking experience for rooms, restaurant and spa bookings. We then created website content that showcased the hotel and location, using striking imagery and a relevant tone of voice, optimising the site for search engines in the process.

Our digital marketing campaigns have taken a content first approach, moving away from offer-driven promotions and instead using content marketing to showcase the local area, focusing on family friendly things to do.

We have also introduced new channels, such as paid social media advertising and paid search. (The addition of these new channels came out of the PROSPER framework and our research).

91.37% increase in traffic

Since we started working with The Swan Hotel we have achieved a year-on-year increase of 91.37% in traffic to the site. In addition to this increase we have noted the average session duration has increased by 29.25% and pages per session have increased by 84.22%.

1,160% ROI on paid social

To date we have calculated a 1160% return on investment (via Facebook advertising), based on the cost of the campaigns vs direct bookings through the hotel’s website.