The team at Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau was no exception. Known for their beautiful beaches, the destination has seen impressive recovery numbers over the last few months as visitors seek a safe, outdoor escape within driving distance.
But with COVID-19 case numbers still rising all over the country, the team at Panama City Beach (PCB) knew they wouldn’t be able to host their annual Pirates of the High Seas Fest this year — at least not in its traditional format.
Rather than cancel the popular leisure event, the team decided to create a fun and interactive online experience that visitors could experience from the comfort of their own homes. As a result, they partnered with Simpleview’s digital marketing team to help bring their ideas to life.
Simpleview’s designers concepted the overall design of the campaign, including hand-drawn pirate and treasure map illustrations. (In the end, PCB was so pleased with the creative, they plan on using the pirate design in future marketing efforts!)
The CVB also wanted to create a virtual treasure hunt, in which website visitors would navigate through their website, using clues in order to find hidden treasure. Participants would be eligible to win pirate-themed prizes such as foam swords, eye patches and pirate tattoos.
The treasure hunt was a huge hit with visitors, who took to social media to express their delight. But perhaps more importantly, it also served as a great way for the CVB to get visitors to check out pages of their website that they might not otherwise visit.
Additionally, the campaign landing page hosted a sweepstakes and showcased several pirate videos. Another element was a virtual costume contest, which actually generated more online entries than last year’s in-person event. To enter, participants simply uploaded a photo of themselves through the website.
The Results
During the week-long campaign, there were more than 5,250 sessions on the various pages related to the Pirates of the High Seas Fest, with an average session duration of more than 3 minutes.
Comparing the overall website YoY, the campaign helped drive site engagement. Website pageviews were up 10%, pages per session were up 28%, average session duration was up 44% and bounce rate was down 7%.
The virtual treasure hunt also contributed to a significant increase in engagement on the site, with a 13% year-over-year increase in pageviews, a 28% increase in pages per session and 43% increase in average session duration.
Social media drove the greatest number of sessions (37%), while visitors coming from referral traffic and organic search spent the longest on the website, and visits through paid search had the lowest bounce rate.
On the paid search front, the campaign saw 7,202 impressions and had a strong CTR (7.22%) and a low average CPC ($0.53).
Going forward, the team plans to continue to include a virtual component of the festival in the future, even once they’re able to safely host in-person events again.