Leveraging Local Markets

About Tourism Sun Peaks

Tourism Sun Peaks is a destination marketing and management organization mandated to promote Sun Peaks to the world. Founded in 1996, Tourism Sun Peaks is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization with 1,500 members representing accommodations, attractions, restaurants, retail and homeowners. Their mission is to raise awareness of Sun Peaks and increase visitation from target markets, with a vision to grow Sun Peaks’ reputation as one of the leading year-round mountain resort destinations in Canada.

Client Challenge

Tourism Sun Peaks’ challenges included holding reasonable summer and winter occupancy levels despite the global COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted to leverage the local market in lieu of international travel, with compelling marketing content to inspire Canadians to visit Sun Peaks at any time of year. Another challenge was launching summer campaigns in under two weeks. This included being active in-market with digital ads, meaning prompt asset gathering, campaign build & launch.

Our Digital Marketing Strategy

In order to leverage the local market and hold reasonable occupancy levels during the Covid-19 pandemic, our digital marketing strategy included:

Asset & Budget Mapping

In order to get to market quickly in summer 2021, we worked closely with the client on a shared asset & budget template file, so that all copy, creative and links could be easily lifted and imported to ad networks.

Highly Targeted Ad Groups

1UP’s strategy was to take a highly targeted approach to advertising – tightly focusing campaigns and ad groups by geolocation and interest (hiking, biking, snowboarding etc.), and pairing the right creative and ad placements accordingly. We had to be flexible with geolocation targeting, dialing up and down local markets in light of travel restrictions & weather conditions in 2021.

Video Storytelling

We recognized the importance of video shorts for a better visual representation of the Sun Peaks experience, so video feed ads in Facebook & Instagram, as well as 6 – 30 second YouTube ads were a fundamental part of the campaign structure.

Results

+600%

increase in search CTR

+48%

increase in website users

+93%

increase in video views

Comparing the digital marketing performance of Tourism Sun Peaks from the previous year to the new year with Covid-19 restrictions, we saw the following success:

Search

A 600% improvement in average search CTR from June 2021 to February 2022, vs June 2019 to February 2020 (pre-COVID restrictions), as a result of more tightly focused keywords and ad groups.

Website Traffic

A 48% increase in users to the Sun Peaks Resort website from June 2021 to February 2022 vs the same period 2019-20 (pre-COVID restrictions). Social media advertising accounted for almost 20% of these users.

Video

Over 8M video views across the summer and winter campaigns, with view rate highs of 93.12%.

Occupancy

Winter/Spring 2022 occupancy (February – April) forecasted at over 100% higher than 2021 levels.

Testimonial

The client service is outstanding. Sam and the 1UP Digital Marketing team are responsive, thorough and forward thinking. Our digital marketing results have improved exponentially with their help.

Amy Thompson, Senior Director, Marketing & Communications, Tourism Sun Peaks