MARKETING

COVID-19 Response:

In response to COVID-19, South Walton has taken steps to adjust its marketing strategy. Currently, we’re focused on keeping potential visitors up to date on businesses, new regulations and answering any safety concerns related to COVID-19.

For those in market already, our focus is on how they can help keep our community safe, as well as information on which local businesses are offering adjusted services or are open for business. 

As we continue to navigate through these tough times, we will continue to help keep South Walton top of mind with our guests by providing up-to-date information, virtual experiences and opportunities to help South Walton employees and small businesses.

COVID-19 Travel Updates Page Stats:

The main VSW COVID-19 Travel Updates page launched on March 18 and has seen 40,739 Page Views (for March and April), 31,560 of which were unique Page Views, meaning the page was viewed 9,179 times by users returning to the page for another reference. The majority of this traffic originated from Organic Search (44%). Users spent an average time of 2:09 on the page. 

Virtual Beach Vibes:

Want to enjoy the beauty of South Walton without leaving your couch? With travel restrictions still in place, we've created our Virtual Beach Vibes series to bring a slice of the beach to your living room, no matter where you call home. Utilizing South Walton’s social media channels, this series is meant to achieve two objectives: first, to support South Walton partners including musicians, artists, chefs and bed-tax collectors, and secondly, to provide a respite for fans around the country, allowing them to feel part of the South Walton experience while at home. 

Our Virtual Beach Vibes series has received more than 19 million impressions on Facebook, and more than 7 million impressions on Instagram. During South Walton's beach closure, our “South Walton Cares” video explained the closure and reminded our visitors that we would be waiting for them when it was safe to return. That video was seen more than 1.3 million times across various platforms.

Want to learn more? Check out our Virtual Beach Vibes page.

Interested in getting involved? Reach out to Catie Feeney, our social media specialist, at Catie@visitsouthwalton.com.

March Website Stats:

• Users & Page Views: 
  • Users who visited the site in March were mostly females (60.6%), between ages 45-64 (39.8%) and new visitors (72.7%). While new visitors and returning visitors both exhibited decreases, returning visitors had a larger decrease this month at -54.8% compared to a decrease of -44.4% for new visitors. Due to a decrease in the ability of our visitors to plan trips, and a freeze in paid marketing, the number of Page Views decreased, as expected in March.  
  • Month over month, traffic to the site has decreased — with sessions down by -48%, users by -46.8% and Page Views by -37.3%. While acquisitions decreased, engagement metrics exhibited considerable improvements largely due to the significant increase in Organic Search traffic this month which tends to have better engagement metrics. Traffic trends throughout the month were low during the first half of the month, but increased considerably around April 16th due to a large increase in traffic from Organic Search sources which increased in sessions by +60.8%. Other notable channel increases were seen in Referrals which increased by +41.7% and Videos which increased by +69.8%.
• Geography:
  • Most sessions to the site came from Georgia this month. Texas had a substantial decrease of -66.4% making Texas the state with the third-most sessions the month. Out of the top 10 states, Mississippi was the only state to show an increase in session count this month.
• Top Areas viewing our site: Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Nashville, and Dallas-Fort Worth.
• The most viewed pages:
  • The most viewed pages on the site in March were the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa page, the Home page, and The Pearl Hotel page. Of the top 10 pages, those with the largest increases in Page Views were the Beach Safety page (which increased by +530.1%) followed by The Pearl Hotel page (which increased by +413.1%). 
  • Of the top 10 viewed pages, The Pearl Hotel page showed the longest average time on page  at 3:38 (which increased by +15.1% this month) followed by the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa page at 3:31 (which increased by +21.1%). Both pages had higher entrance and exit rates, suggesting that most visitors were sent straight to the pages, stayed on the pages to consume the content and then didn't feel the need to explore any additional pages on the site.
• March eNewsletter: Overall, there were 5,483 new email subscribers gained in March, a 5.6% increase from the previous month. While the open rate decreased, click-through rate was 9.39% this month which exceeds the 7.02% industry standard. The majority of clicks within the email happened on the main picture and headline.