When planning a PR campaign for a client I start with one simple question: “what do you want to achieve?” In most cases the answer is “more bookings”, so I create meaty PR campaigns that lead to extensive coverage in publications read by your target audience.
And great coverage leads to glowing reviews, referrals, awards, visits to your website, and then sales.
These are some of my recent campaign favourites:
Trevella Park
How do you make a holiday park in Cornwall stand out from the crowd?
Trevella Park doesn’t have a huge pool complex, lots of sports, bars and evening entertainment, but it does boast an wonderful location close to Crantock Beach and in the Cornish countryside.
So I worked with the team to launch Park Ranger activities, and they introduced a range of safari tents (a first for a caravan park on the Cornish coast).
To provide an irresistible offering to journalists, I also teamed up with a whole host of activity providers to offer free entry to some of Cornwall’s most popular attractions.
Press coverage
More than 230 pieces of press coverage reaching 15 million people. National coverage in the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and the Sun, plus extensive regional coverage following press trips with the Press Association and individual journalists.
An extensive blogger programme led to widespread coverage with influential parenting bloggers who have helped spread the word using #CornwallAdventure on Twitter and through video reviews.
…find out more about my video work here
Results
Trevella Park has been named one of the top three holiday parks in Cornwall by Cornwall Tourism, and one of the top 10 family holiday parks in the UK by Practical Caravan Magazine.
Press coverage helped drive traffic to the Trevella Park website and gave it a boost in search engine listings, with the result that direct traffic grew by 12% and organic search traffic increased by 37%.
Positive reviews, newspaper coverage, social media chatter, awards, videos and better search engine optimisation: all helped Trevella Park beat its holiday sales and caravan sales targets for every year of the campaign.
The Sherwood Hideaway
This collection of luxury lodges opened its doors in 2009. With super stylish interiors, sumptuous fittings and a hot tub on every balcony the luxury-Sherwood-Forest angle catches the eye, but we also teamed up with Experience Nottinghamshire to grab press interest with visits to the brand new National Civil War Centre, the new National Videogame Arcade, the hidden City of Caves and with Robin Hood tours – led by the man himself – through Nottingham Centre.
Press coverage
Coverage and recent press visits include My Weekly, Chat, the Sun, the Daily Mail, plus well-read regional newspapers including the Manchester Evening News and the Sheffield Star. A recent visit by the Press Association will generate coverage across a large number of regional titles.
Results
With some of the UK’s highest circulation titles reviewing the The Sherwood Hideaway, we were able to grow website traffic by more than 670% in two years – it is little wonder that revenue has grown by more than 60%.
Siblu Villages
How do you generate press coverage for a company that has a great product, but isn’t doing anything new or out of the ordinary?
For French family-holiday specialist Siblu Villages we developed a series of angles tailored to specific press.
The Sun was tempted to try a soft adventure in Normandy, with a fearsome luge, sand yachting and the velo rail among the activities. The Daily Mail travelled to the same region, but with the 950th anniversary of 1066 and the Battle of Hastings as their inspiration, they went to dig into the early years of William the Conqueror.
The Daily Mirror was tempted to try out France’s Vendee region, and we brought on board the region’s tourist board to arrange visits to the Grand Defi adventure park and the relaxing Jardin du Vent to add colour to their report. The Press Association was also attracted to the Vendee, however it was the angle of a family adventure on two wheels that caught their imagination, and we worked with the journalist to provide bike hire and ideas for cycle routes for their stay.
For the Daily Telegraph, a last chance to holiday with a teen ready to flee the family nest was the theme, and a visit to the historic live action theme-park Puy du Fou, and the epic Cinescenie light show, was the highlight.
French Entrée magazine wanted to write about France’s best theme parks, so we arranged visits to Futuroscope and Puy do Fou during a stay with Siblu on in Charente Maritime.
The Sunday Times, Sun and Mail on Sunday were among the newspapers writing about great deals to France this summer, including Siblu in a number of great deals round ups.
Video testimonials
Siblu also has a caravan sales business for people looking to buy a holiday home in France. They wanted to give potential customers an insight into what it means to own a static caravan in France, so I created a number of testimonial films to tell the stories of existing owners. These have received thousands of views, helping Siblu on their way to hitting their sales targets.
…see more of my video work here
To find out more about the PR campaigns I have worked on, please contact me using the form below.