6 Innovative Things We're Doing on the Web

Five Minute Meeting Planner

Since 1986 — when we published the Denver Conventioneer — Weaver has researched the meeting planner business exhaustively so that our suite of meeting-oriented products can deliver results for our CVB partners.

As technology has evolved, so have we, and what we discovered is this:
A.) Meeting planners increasingly want venue info, maps, and a direct link to the CVB at their finger tips, and
B.) They’re always pressed for time.

However, delivering this information online has been a risky proposition for bureaus. Put too much information online and the organization runs the risk of allowing planners to forego the CVB’s convention sales team. Provide too little, and you run the risk of them finding that information directly from the hotel, or from a national search tool like Starcite or Cvent.

From this lose-lose scenario, Weaver has created a win-win situation for our clients. Beginning with its launch for the Austin CVB in March 2010, the Five-Minute Meeting Planner has served its end-user audience while at the same time providing a secure, permission-based platform to deliver leads to the convention sales team.

Hosted as a microsite that launches off the CVB website, the Five-Minute Meeting Planner asks five simple questions about the planner’s meeting parameters. From there, it gives them a qualified list of businesses that match, and provides three different ways for the Bureau to engage with the planner.

The Five-Minute Meeting Planner’s lead generation, ease of use, and depth of information has our clients lining up for its development in 2010, including Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle and Vancouver.

SEO For the Win

Los Angeles is one of the most competitive media markets in the world, so when it comes to providing destination content to potential visitors, our friends at LA INC. have a unique challenge: Ensure that discoverlosangeles.com stays on the first page of major search engines like Google.

Part one in tackling this challenge is to use their website as a regularly updated source for fresh content on the L.A. visitor experience. To accomplish this, LA INC. has turned to Weaver to be their primary content providers for their website. With a forward-thinking content plan that is flexible to each month's marketing initiatives, Weaver has consistently provided quality content that speaks to the visitor and raises their awareness of LA INC.'s member businesses.

Google “los angeles free things to do” or “la what's new” and LA INC.'s website consistently appears on the first page, above other such websites as Frommer's, Citysearch and even the L.A. Times.

Philadelphia's New Website

Fulfilling the brand promise of the Philadelphia CVB online was no small task, especially considering the very specific needs of their audience: meeting professionals and group tour operators.

That was the mission in fall of 2009 when Weaver redesigned the Philadelphia CVB website and served its content on our new CMS platform.

Specifically, the new website had to showcase:

The abundance of restaurants, attractions and hotels within walking distance of the convention center — a huge selling point for major conventions
Clear and concise trip ideas to extend the stay of meeting attendees, and build compelling itineraries for group travel planners
An accurate representation of the city to an ever-expanding international audience
Easy access for engagement through popular social media platforms.

Utilizing our web service and design teams in tandem, Weaver collaborated with the Philadelphia CVB on a web design that represented the city as an urban playground, a haven for cultural enthusiasts, a green metropolis, and a place to successfully conduct business.

From there, Weaver structured an intuitive site navigation that associated relevant content across the website, a practice that ensures more page views, and a more useful user experience. Pairing this new navigational structure with search-engine optimizing techniques was a deliberate effort to build the site’s traffic and engagement.

The site launched in October 2009 and has demonstrated remarkable results: in February, page views for the meeting planner section had risen by more than 200% compared to March of the previous year. The group tour section also had significant page view gains of more than 150% in the same time frame. Furthermore, PhiladelphiaUSA.travel consistently arrives on the first page of search engine results for such key terms as "Philadelphia," "Philadelphia map," and "Philadelphia meetings."

Weaver has further enhanced the site by building the PlanIt Philly module off the meeting planners section, an extension of our Five-Minute Meeting Planner venue search platform.

Curating the Social Web

Creating destination-centric social media channels is a must for any DMO. However, making the most of each platform — Facebook, twitter, flickr, YouTube — can be a real resource drain on your staff, and with limited returns.

Our strategy for the social web is to be its editor-in-chief for you. Rather than drink from the fire hose of user-generated content, we offer a solution that curates the best content, and invites targeted, structured contributions from your most loyal fans.

In Los Angeles, we regularly invite fans of their Facebook page to contribute their ideas on what to see, do and taste in the city. With more than 100,000 fans and growing, we get inundated with suggestions, and then cherry-pick the most interesting and construct content around it.

For Wyoming Travel & Tourism, we not only oversee a statewide blog but also engage their fan pages and regularly curate the social conversation on Wyoming trip ideas.

No One Knows Like a Local

It’s the most sought-after opinion in travel: the local. They live and breathe your destination everyday, and know its ins and outs like nobody else. So how do you turn them into a willing advocate for tourism?

Our integrated content programs place a special emphasis on tapping into the local’s knowledge base and enthusiasm for web content that is credible and compelling.

In the lead up to the 2010 Winter Games, Weaver collaborated with Tourism Vancouver on infusing the authentic, local voice into their web content. Over the course of the year, our content team recruited local bloggers to produce a series of topical articles on the Vancouver experience. Weaver’s content staff then coached each blogger on Tourism Vancouver’s mission, style guide and parameters, an approach that balanced the inevitable tension between authentic recommendations and membership neutrality.

As 2009 gave way to the build up of the 2010 Winter Games, Weaver populated Tourism Vancouver’s website with such articles as 20 Reasons I Love Vancouver, 10 Hidden Gems in Vancouver, and a Foodie’s Fantasy Meal. The local’s perspective content was subsequently promoted on Tourism Vancouver’s social media platforms, and its performance was tracked by our content team. On a consistent basis, these articles were some of the best performing pages on their website, both in terms of unique visitors and time spent on page.

Today, Weaver is utilizing local writers in Los Angeles, Colorado and Wyoming as well, to help bolster their online content with fresh, authentic and credible content, straight from the most trusted source in tourism: the local.

Win-Win Online Advertising

Opening the door to digital advertising on your website doesn’t have to be like opening Pandora’s Box. At Weaver, we know that your brand is priority No. 1, and that any online advertising on your site needs to be done in a way that providing visibility for your local businesses without detracting from your site’s functionality and design.

In Colorado, we have designed a forward-thinking program that allows the best of both worlds. Ad units for COLORADO.com were recommended based on best practices within IAB guidelines, but also to ensure they didn’t interrupt the Colorado brand or distract from the site’s user experience. For example, our formatted banner at the top of the allows for customized text and a consistent photo across all article pages.

Weaver took the same approach to Colorado’s e-newsletter campaign, designing opportunities for industry participation — such as value-oriented deals and timely discounts — that not only provided prime visibility, but also ensured higher click-thru rates than the industry norm. The result is an integrated advertising program that keeps Colorado’s brand front and center, while still providing an opportunity for Colorado-based businesses in the tourism section prime visibility.