Derry City Council Case Study
Integrated offline and online marketing strategy helps Derry˜Londonderry win the UK’s first City of Culture title, bringing in approximately £40 million additional annual tourism revenue.
Ingredients
- An integrated digital marketing strategy to engage, enthuse and encourage citizens to support the bid.
- Creation of graded tasks, allowing the citizen and Diaspora to engage with the campaign at their own level.
- Buy-in of four highly connected digital networkers in Northern Ireland, who were willing to reach out to their contacts and champion the bid.
Preparation
Derry City Council, iON and the four Connectors hosted two events inviting 50 of the most influential bloggers, tweeters and Facebookers in Northern Ireland. At the events they were provided with content and armed with actions. It was agreed the online activity would launch on Friday 21st May, the same day as the written bid deadline. Under the banner of Snow Patrol’s hit song, this became the Just Say Yes campaign.
Method
1. The Connectors reached out to their audience and asked them to support the bid through a series of graded tasks such as adding a Twibbon to their Twitter and Facebook profiles, writing Just Say Yes on Social Media, using the hashtag #derry2013 and most importantly encouraging their friends to do the same.
2. An email marketing campaign was executed to enhance citizen and Diaspora engagement for the bid. This was extremely successful, with an average open rate of 31.48% across the seven ezines. Throughout the campaign there were only 11 unsubscribers, showing the level of loyalty to the campaign.
3. A ‘Get Involved’ section was created on the website to provide businesses with downloadable banner ads, website badges and email footers for all digital correspondence. They were then encouraged to share how they are supporting the bid by emailing the campaign and posting on social media.
4. The blog was launched ahead of the bid deadline on Friday 21st June. As well as general bid updates, the blog also provided a platform to reward and congratulate citizens who had supported the bid. The content was then repurposed for email newsletters and links were posted on Social Media.
5. A free app for the iPhone and iPod Touch was developed by Paper Bag Ltd, providing users with all the latest developments about the bid. It was downloaded by users not only in Derry but across the UK, America, Japan and Chile.
Results
- On Thursday 15th July Derry˜Londonderry was named UK’s first City of Culture for 2013. It has been estimated that the city of Derry will see annual tourism revenue quadruple from its current £9 million to almost £40 million, with international tourist numbers expected to rise from 90,000 to a quarter of a million.
- The Derry˜Londonderry 2013 Facebook Page received 3408 interactions on the day the winner was announced, which far exceeded the other nominated cities, and the number of fans increased by 10% in one day.
- The video clip of the celebrations at the Guildhall in Derry was posted onto Facebook and received 250,000 views in 24 hours.
- As a result of the Connectors events, on Friday 21st May there was a spike in online engagements. Facebook had 630 interactions from fans on that day alone and on Twitter the Derry2013 followers increased by 65% from the previous week.
Profile
Derry~Londonderry is the first UK City of Culture for 2013 which will see the city host a series of events celebrating its culture to local and international audiences.
Vital Statistics
- On Thursday 15th July, Derry~Londonderry was named UK’s first City of Culture for 2013, bringing jobs, investment and regeneration for the city and Northern Ireland as a whole.
- As the winning city, Derry City Council expects to see annual tourism revenue quadruple from its current £9 million to almost £40 million, with international tourist numbers expected to rise from 90,000 to a quarter of a million in 2013.
Personnel
- Niall McKeown, Managing Director
- Andrea Clarke, Digital Content Editor
- Suzi McAfee, Designer
