The Ranch at Laguna Beach

Greater Reach and Revenue Through Social Efforts

The Ranch at Laguna Beach is one of several high end, coastal resorts that features outdoor activities, golf, a spa, fine dining and of course luxurious rooms. Activities, events and local get togethers are commonplace for this iconic resort.

The Ranch at Laguna Beach needed strategic social marketing planning as well as social advertising. Michael, our marketing director started with a detailed report about strengths and opportunities then worked with the resort to carve up the responsibilities. Michael noticed that the resort’s marketing manager was doing an excellent job with organic (non-paid) social posting but didn’t have the time to always respond to questions and requests which can lead to resort bookings or restaurant reservations.

Michael put a process in place to supplement the resort’s social communication. Monitoring what resonated with fans and friends of fans, allowed Michael to dial in the communications strategy even more. Impressions and engagement improved 30% from these efforts.

Regular image updates were made to the social channels to reflect the “tone” of the posting for the month.

Michael enlisted the help of an excellent writer to provide blog posts that were marketed on social networks. Not only was social ad performance measured, how long people spent reading the articles on the site was measured to get a better picture of what people were interested in for future article planning. Site traffic increased 35% using this blogging strategy.

Contests and promotions were also created to increase interaction with fans and the local community. Promotions kept the content interesting to fans and followers, rewarded the social community and increased engagement by 400% over the normal posting.

Social Advertising

In the first month of services, Michael noticed that the resort was not tracking revenue or using the attribution window in Facebook/Instagram. This is extremely important since Facebook can measure when people see your ad on a phone for example, then track if they book a room later from their computer. He wanted to know exactly how the advertising efforts were impacting bookings for the resort. The resort uses industry-standard booking and tracking services but social ad tracking to this extent was not something the booking services typically offered.

Michael documented the process, worked with the booking and tracking services and soon the social campaigns were able to track revenue from the spends. On a regular basis Michael saw revenue from bookings at ten times the amount spent on the ads! This excellent ROI came from testing, analyzing and adjusting campaigns on a regular basis.

Michael noticed that showing a short video of the resort, then providing a discount to people that watched the video worked well to increase bookings. All forms of remarketing were utilized to generate a consistent 10x revenue return versus spend. All of this testing allowed Michael to ramp up the spends knowing the return would be excellent.

By constantly analyzing and adjusting campaigns, Michael not only dialed in the messaging but found the exact people to market to that generated the most revenue.

Campaigns were also created to grow the Facebook community. The resort received many thousands of new fans with conservative spends due to testing and analysis. As people came in to the community Michael would reach out and encourage conversation and interaction thereby increasing the performance even more.