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With the Greater Raleigh CVB’s advertising and marketing communications agency of record, Avenir Bold, continued to expand as well as optimize year-over-year a robust ad plan with leisure visitor, local/visiting-friends-and-relatives, meeting group and sports event-planning markets that especially leveraged various new video ads. Avenir Bold placements generated more than 53 million destination impressions (24% streaming tv/video, 60% display) with potential leisure visitors and linked them to the visitRaleigh® brand. Epsilon net economic impact data tracked $21.3 million in messaged visitor spend in Wake County as of July 2024.
With Avenir Bold, developed and deployed for the 2023-2024 fall/holiday season the ad theme “Let’s Make It Happen,” which tied together destination pillars, video ad scripts and more under a straightforward call-to-action around trip planning; also applied this theme to Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance (GRSA) ad media, supporting consideration of Wake County with sports event planners. Throughout the fiscal, developed and produced ad- and content marketing-related assets for multiple tactics with the area’s meeting planner audience under the heading “Nobody Out-Nerds Raleigh.”
Exceeded the newly established (Google Analytics 4) goal for website users and served destination information to 3.1 million users during the year. The department’s ongoing content marketing efforts continue to stimulate most site traffic, with traditional advertising and paid search efforts attracting additional new and repeat users.
The Bureau continued with a content marketing strategy that puts a heavy emphasis on connecting with consumers via insider articles published to visitRaleigh.com. This content helps answer frequently asked questions about visiting the Raleigh area (where to get brunch, how to use local greenways etc.), plus provides trip inspiration designed to be shared with friends and family (upcoming events and new attraction openings, for example). It also allows for the shaping of the narrative around the destination brand, plus heightens the Bureau’s reputation as the official source of tourism information in Raleigh, N.C.
Distributed via owned (website, email) and non-owned (social media, native ads etc.) marketing channels—plus playing a significant role in SEO—approximately 100 published pieces of content that attracted 1.4 million users during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, accounting for nearly half of all user visits to visitRaleigh.com.
Contracted with Destination 2028 ally P1t Inc., which supports small/nascent businesses when starting to offer leisure tourism experiences and brings Raleigh area creatives, makers and growers to established hospitality businesses to activate them with new programming that attracts new patrons/repeat visitors. The company offered 12+ prescheduled experiences monthly, alongside 30 uniquely local experiences made available for custom booking by groups, and served 1,600 visitors during 2023-2024; microentrepreneurial earnings reached $60K, a 71% increase year-over-year.
Social media continued to evolve quickly during the 2023-2024 fiscal year. There are now two very clear platforms and use cases for the Bureau to focus on in reaching consumers with targeted marketing messages.
On Facebook, the Bureau publishes content from visitRaleigh.com with the aim to drive users to the website. During the most recent fiscal year, the @visitRaleigh Facebook account earned 23.8 million total impressions and generated more than 600,000 link clicks to visitRaleigh.com.
On Instagram, short-form video content has become an incredibly valuable way to connect with consumers. The Bureau published (or co-published, in partnership with hospitality partners and third-party content creators) 155 videos to Instagram and earned a total of 18 million video plays during the fiscal year (a nearly 300% increase over the previous year). Instagram posts from @visitRaleigh were shared by users nearly 400,000 times during this period, a number that surpasses the total number of times social media posts from the Bureau—across all social media platforms—had been shared during the previous 10 years combined. The @visitRaleigh Instagram account also grew at its fastest rate ever, jumping from 50,000 to 72,000 followers during the year, and this platform appears to be the top social media priority for many hospitality businesses in Raleigh, N.C.
Because of this newfound ability to make a significant impact via short-form video, the Bureau hired its first ever social media coordinator, Abigail Bekele, in January, and has added a new social media measurable performance objective to Tourism Economic Development Reports and the Business Plan. As consumers continue to rely more on social media for finding travel tips and inspiration, the Bureau will continue to invest in meeting audiences on these platforms.
For 2024, transitioned the Raleigh Beer Trail program, successful as a leisure sales incentive for nearly a decade on paper, to a mobile-exclusive, digital Passport with GPS-confirmed check-ins at the Raleigh area’s 40+ breweries and integrated, electronic submissions for prize redemption. Relaunched annual promotional efforts for the trail (as well as a new Outdoor Mural Trail created by the CVB’s Destination Data and Technology Department). Again with custom-publishing partner Compass Media, printed 100,000 copies of the Official Visitors Guide to Raleigh, Cary and Wake County for distribution during 2024.
With the Bureau’s contracted consultant Development Counsellors International (DCI), conducted a six-month research project reassessing Wake County’s tourism brand and documenting adjustments to make the currently deployed destination brand strategy more effective across all markets; the project uncovered significant tweaks verbally/visually and minor tune-ups for Bureau marketing strategy ahead. The DCI-updated brand strategy will underpin new marketing communications as well as set off a 2024-2025 series of consultative meetings with our 12 municipalities.
Hired design manager Amber Harmon in Oct. 2023 to manage the Bureau’s graphic design projects, with GRCVB’s longtime creative director retiring in December, and as mentioned above, hired social media coordinator Abigail Bekele in Jan. 2024. Hosted summer 2024 intern Jackson Beam of Goucher College for a summer project on area arts/culture tourism partner relations. At the N.C. Tourism Leadership Conference, Nov. 15-16, brought home four Tourism Achievement Awards, including the year’s Best of Show Award; also received a Silver Telly Award for 2023 production of the GRSA®-brand anthem video “Greater Raleigh: A Premier Sports Destination.”
