[vc_column][vc_column_text]In 2015 Amelia Island celebrated their First Annual Dickens on Centre, a Victorian Holiday Celebration in Historic Downtown Fernandina Beach. This free to the public event features costumed characters, themed entertainment and performances, visits from Saint Nicholas and a variety of vendors selling seasonal gifts. The event is inspired by Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and transforms the quaint city center into a classic English Village.

Digital Edge created a comprehensive and fully integrated marketing campaign to raise awareness and attract visitors to the island for these need period dates and with the benchmark of 2015 data were able to improve the campaign performance.

The campaign started with a fully optimized Landing Page that featured the main attractions of the event and internal links to blog posts. In it’s second year we were able to showcase a Highlight Video Reel of last year’s event on the landing page which also was used in Pre-Roll Advertising..

In 2015 we focused heavily on a geo-fencing campaign that displayed our advertisements on mobile devices within a 10-mile radius of holiday related events in Jacksonville, FL, Saint Augustine, FL and Orlando, FL. With these areas being large feeder markets to Amelia Island we concentrated on generating awareness during Thanksgiving weekend and holiday events leading up to the Dickens on Centre Events.

In 2016 with a bit more lead time we were able to focus our digital marketing efforts on one of Amelia Island’s largest target locations, Atlanta, GA. We geo-fenced several events in Atlanta, included a Paid Search Campaign focusing on keywords like “amelia island holiday” and “dickens on centre” (now that searchers were aware of the event from last year).

In conjunction with Amelia Island’s team we started a teaser campaign in July with a “Christmas in July” push focused on Saint Nick being on vacation, but still keeping his eyes and ears open for his Naughty and Nice List. With a small event in Atlanta we were able to build awareness and a preliminary email list by encouraging parents to meet “off duty” Saint Nick and put their children’s names on the email list. We used this email list to send emails about upcoming events and for remarketing.

Closer to the event day we sent out a personalized email (to each child) that included animated Saint Nick with reminders of Dickens on Centre.

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