The July 27 City Advertising and Promotion Commission meeting was an opportunity for the city to see how the CAPC partners with 121 Digital, a digital marketing consultant based in Fayetteville, to not only spread word to the world about Eureka Springs, but to make the effort specific and effective.
Executive Director Mike Maloney told an audience of 30 or so that Internet advertising is the tool everyone uses, and two years he began working with 121 Digital to refine the CAPC’s reach into the etherworld. He said the CAPC works with six 121 Digital staff, and introduced Kiesha Doss, digital sales operation manager, who, in explaining how she works with CAPC staff, gave the audience a tutorial on Internet marketing.
Doss explained that her work with a customer begins by describing how to achieve a strong web presence foundation, emphasizing, “Digital is constantly moving, so content must be updated regularly.” She said Google searches leave behind sites that have not been updated recently.
She commented that mobile-friendly sites are critical. The purpose of using Internet marketing is for potential customers to be able to find you, and mobile-friendly sites are more likely to be listed in a search. “You’ve got to reach out and tell customers, ‘I’m here,’” she said.
Doss spelled out strategies for optimizing use of social media, such as timing ads and making posts matter by using effective ad words, but in the end it comes down to how much you are willing to spend on digital advertising.
Doss said her team assessed the CAPC site saying it had good content and photographs, and strong optimization for search engines. She said they agreed early on to make the eurekasprings.org site the place to go for information about the town and a site that Internet searches would grab onto.
Re-targeting is the strategy of sending ads to users who looked up certain events or activities, such as sending an ad for Blues Weekend in Eureka Springs to someone in Fayetteville searching online for blues music. “If there’s a blues festival in Eureka Springs, put an umbrella over northwest Arkansas and tell everyone about it… give them the option to look at you,” she said.
She mentioned how 121 Digital uses precision targeting to send an ad to users who searched in these eight niche markets: wedding, LGBT, culinary, arts, outdoor, family, lodging and entertainment.
Doss said according to statistics in her industry, the average rate for click-throughs from an ad to the site is .08. The click-through rate to the wedding page of the .org site is .24 on mobile devices and .18 on desktop computers or tablets. For Blues Weekend, the rate on mobile devices was .21.
“We put an ad right in front of their faces,” Doss contended. She said Maloney had asked about a campaign targeting folks who wanted to visit Branson. After looking up Branson, they began to see ads about Eureka Springs. She said, “The click-through rate was 1.6. That’s crazy high! That’s powerful.”
In response to questions from CAPC board members, she remarked her company could track a conversion rate of individuals who click-through to eurekasprings.org and then actually visit.
Next regular meeting will be Wednesday, August 10, at 6 p.m.