Situation & Challenge
Arizona is a state diverse in landscape and culture and is naturally appealing to international visitors. It is neighbored by highly competitive states, such as California, Utah and Colorado, which all offer non-stop international flights.
Like most states, Arizona’s legislature needs to approve the budget every year, and since the economic downturn in 2008, budgets have been steadily reduced. While major international airlines evaluate air service to more affordable airports like Phoenix, regional industry partners are challenged to provide adequate marketing support in multiple countries and multiple languages.
Condor and Lufthansa airlines provide air service to Phoenix for the leisure markets, and the Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) was asked to provide measurable results to demonstrate the German market using these air services for business and leisure.
Strategy
Herrmann Global approached this project by starting with SEO. We analyzed what the German market was searching about the Western US, finding content we could create that would drive the decision to fly from Frankfurt to Phoenix directly. Secondly, we created testing ads via Facebook to understand when and what content would resonate best among the German audience.
Based on our research and findings, we created two German-language landing pages on the Arizona Tourism website with optimized visual content. These pages inspired the AOT’s target market, via a travel story and a story-based itinerary, to choose the non-stop flight to Phoenix in their travel planning.
Finally, we developed a state co-op that gave local and regional DMO partners an opportunity to be promoted to the same German audience. We opened this strategy up to smaller partners via Facebook ads testing, which were followed by optimized stories and micro-itineraries in German. This highlighted each community as a unique German experience, leading to an overall itinerary for the entire state of Arizona.
Results
- Total reach of the German market
- Average engagement on content
- Increase of web traffic from Germany by 243%
- Strengthened tour operator partnerships and PR efforts in Germany
