Visit Herefordshire
Redefining A Visitor Destination
Whilst visitors traditionally flocked to Cornwall and Devon, one county had been quietly forgotten. During the covid pandemic, funding was secured to stimulate tourism. We started from absolute scratch, developed a destination marketing strategy and brand. Next, we launched the website, followed by high-profile marketing and advertising campaigns. We prioritised engagement with the tourism sector to ensure all businesses had the opportunity to get involved. Now cited as one of the UK’s Top 12 destinations by CN Traveller, we have transformed tourism in Herefordshire.
The Brief
To kickstart tourism in Herefordshire and drive increased visitor spend.
Our Services
- Branding & Design
- Website
- Marketing
- Digital Performance
To establish Herefordshire’s place in the sector, we needed to clearly define our audiences and get the proposition just right. This was not a case of ‘something for everyone’ but about targeting our best prospects.
We looked beyond our familiar assets, tracking down extraordinary things, from wild ponies to lost castles. Gathering intel from our research and those in the sector, we identified the county’s DNA. This was cross-referenced with the expectations of our audiences to establish Herefordshire’s unique appeal.
Herefordshire’s DNA was translated into a timeless brand identity inspired by familiar shapes and sights, from our Tudor villages to the River Wye. The colour palette is drawn from the landscape, such as the red soil. Our copywriting, photography and video all reinforce this distinctive sense of place.
Rich Online Experience
As the call to action across all marketing and PR, the destination website must inspire, excite and help visitors plan their trip. Sparky articles and itineraries, as well as photography, support our marketing campaigns, whilst our downloadable guides offer even richer content. Maps enable visitors to easily follow walks, roadtrips and cycle routes. The searchable directory is packed with tourism provider listings, which the businesses themselves can easily update. And the media library makes available a huge selection of images, all tagged so that they are simple to find.
Search engine optimisation from our digital marketing team has boosted our search performance, driving more users to visitherefordshire.co.uk.
The site is built in Drupal with the self-service directory developed as a bespoke web app in Laravel which provides the flexibility to integrate it into other sites, as required.
Distinctive Destination Advertising
We have raised the county’s profile through a striking advertising campaign, ranging from double-page newspaper spreads to targeted online ads. Showcasing Herefordshire on TV was an absolute dream, accompanied by a specially commissioned soundtrack by homegrown talent, The Kilpecks, for a touch of sonic branding, listen now.
Creating Reasons To Visit
Everything hinges on the stories we tell, which must appeal to visitors and media alike. Our creative campaigns do just that. The Cider Circuits invite bike rides through delicious countryside to discover our favourite thirst-quencher. Our flagship driving route, The Watkins Way, tours historical gems linked by ley lines. And classics such as the Black & White Villages Trail and The Herefordshire Trail have been revitalised for the contemporary visitor. Working in partnership with Travel Tonic, the reward is column inches, from The Guardian to Wanderlust, and visitor numbers which grow and grow.
The Proof In The Pudding
We smashed our KPIs on this project! We increased traffic to the website by 218%, with over 12,000 downloads of our rich content, 10,000 GPS walks, and we reached 8 million via our ad campaign.
Search engine optimisations have delivered 10x the number of keywords in the top three spots of Google and have driven over 4x more users to the website from search engines.
Our enhanced website tracking and analytics provides insight into engagement with directory listings such as website referrals. This is valuable information for both Visit Herefordshire and the local providers.
12,000
Guide Downloads
218%
Increase in Website Visitors
10,000
GPS Route Downloads
Why We Love
Visit Herefordshire
We are unashamedly proud of our wonderful county and couldn’t possibly resist the opportunity to share the love. Huge numbers of destinations are vying for media and visitor attention, so our campaigns must be really creative… so it’s definitely our happy place!
We sell holidays in Shropshire, Wales and Herefordshire – this year, Herefordshire has dramatically outshone the other areas for bookings (a complete reversal of normal years).
Wheely Wonderful Cycling Holidays
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