Statewide Meetings Marketing for Meet Hawaii
Providing meetings marketing and in-depth sales tools for a state like Hawaii takes team-wide dedication, intention and collaboration. Here’s a look behind the curtains of one of our most distinctive partnerships. This is Digital Edge & Meet Hawaii.
Author: Kerrie Yancey
THE NEEDS
Support for New Roles & Responsibilities
In 2019, the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau team (HVCB) began handling the marketing of the Hawaii Convention Center and destination sales – after years of the Center managing the marketing and sales programs. In addition, HVCB hired a new sales team led by John Reyes, the Senior Vice President and Chief MCI Sales Officer for HVCB. The team needed an agency with expertise and proven success in meetings and conventions marketing.
Understand Values Over Volume
Hawaii is a very different destination client in that the team began focusing on sustainability and preservation several years ago and prioritized that effort above visitor volume. They needed an agency of professionals that clearly understood meetings and the planner audience and would align marketing efforts with the sustainability values. The group audience targeting had to be very specific to the types of groups that best fit the product.
Perform Standout Marketing with Precision
Even with being one of the most well-known destinations in the world, Hawaii needed to showcase its positioning and openness for meetings and conventions – focusing strongly on its sustainability and culture, citywide convention offerings and incentive travel options. They needed to present the unique assets of the destination’s meetings product through intentional and concentrated sales and marketing efforts.
Elevate Efforts and Collaborate Efficiently
Meet Hawaii needed an agency that could collaborate with Hawaii Tourism Authority’s branding and PR agency, MVNP. Knowing their image and video assets inside and out and having in-depth knowledge of Hawaii and the language, the team needed Digital Edge to be an extension of their work and provide feedback and counsel based on our industry knowledge.
THE PARTNERSHIP
Strategic Marketing + Storytelling
Group Business Awareness & Acquisition
Creative Agency Collaboration
Major Sales Tools Projects
SendSites
A Ready-to-send group sales proposal from SimpleView using SendSites
- Project for six islands
- Training + Content Mapping & Build-Out
- Image/Video Asset Selections
Digital Meeting Planner Guide
Development of a dynamic digital meeting planner guide (MPG) using DigiDeck.
- Development & design + updated content
- Dynamic, interactive and engaging creative elements
- Provided the sales team with a digital MPG that their team can customize and use at trade shows, in presentations and distribute digitally.
Meetings & Moʻolelo Emails
A monthly email series in story form that broke the convention of what an email can be
- 8 themed stories
- Visual journey guided by a sales team member that transformed sales content into a visually stimulating journey through Hawaiian culture
Dual-Designed Landing Page
A campaign landing page allowing planners to journey through meetings or culture with a single click
- Dynamic, citywide-focused
- 1 meetings-focused page
- 1 Hawaiian culture-focused page
- Easy functionality
DIGITAL EDGE DELIVERABLES
Citywide Campaign Creative Package
SendSites Mapping & Consulting
Digital Media
Monthly Email Marketing
Trade Media Management
Reporting & Metrics for Partners & Stakeholders
KEY CAMPAIGN METRICS
16,700+
Total MPG Slide Views
5,970,432
Total Digital Media Ad Impressions
656,455
Social Post Impressions
19,000+
Landing Pageviews
(July-Dec ‘22)
15,000+
Landing Page Users
(July-Dec ‘22)
17,000+
Landing Page Sessions
(July-Dec ‘22)
