Meet Plymouth Citycoach

A coaching holidays and travel company under the international Go-Ahead Group. Having utilised only more traditional marketing methods, the company setup a meeting with us to see if we could strategise a way to start implementing more digital marketing solutions into their business.

The problem was their lack of new customer communication. Having only sent out a brochure to existing and older customers, there was a severe shortage of new customer acquisition, especially of a younger demographic. Quickly, it was identified that Plymouth Citycoach just hadn't been marketing themselves online. A possible solution that could have many benefits...

Not only was this an opportunity to stand out in an industry that is typically behind others in digital marketing, but also a chance to start growing a presence and developing customer relations in an area that is highly un-tapped for Citycoach while focusing on a demographic that is of interest to the company.

The strategy? An experience-driven content approach focusing on two primary social media networks to begin growing and communicating with a new audience.

Read more about the specifics of the project below:


Social Media

Plymouth Citycoach was starting from the ground in terms of social media. With little work done on any presence, the strategy was going to be more involved in order to start using social media effectively. Because of this, we split the strategy into two phases, beginning with an initial setup and growth solution. In this phase, we would look at setting up, planning and scheduling daily experience-driven content on both Facebook and Instagram that showed off the fantastic destinations and experiences a customer could have on a holiday with Citycoach.

We identified two main KPIs, to begin with, brand-awareness (reach) and visits to the website. With the presence being so young, it was important not to sell to the audience, but instead, make them aware and make them want to follow along with the content that the company was posting about. Although it may not generate any sales necessarily as well as direct selling, what this method of experience-driven content would provide is brand loyalty and an audience that keeps on visiting Citycoach, if not just for the nice imagery and copy. If all the content was purely direct advertisement, the viewer is far less likely to explore the company further and just move on.

Next, mix this in with competitions, giveaways and other posts that do sell and you're likely to have an audience that is much more welcoming of adverts and is more likely to book.

Along with daily content, we implemented organic growth strategies and a small amount of paid advertising to help the digital presences along as much as possible.

The result? Two fast-growing communities on both Instagram and Facebook in terms of audience size and reach. See our social stats below:


Total Reach:72,368 people per month.
Total Reach (Facebook):15,000 people per week.
Total Reach (Instagram):3,092 people per week.
Primary Audience (Facebook):35-64 years old (60% of audience).
Primary Audience (Instagram):18-44 years old (74% of audience).


Now, with a solid and consistent audience growth on both Facebook and Instagram, Plymouth Citycoach is ready to move onto phase two of the strategy which branches out content type across the social networks as well as addressing other identified issues with the existing digital footprint that the company already has. For example, the website.

This is an ongoing project, so follow along for updates...


Brochure

Although not part of the original project, Barr Media was offered the opportunity to tender for the design of their latest holiday brochure. As a company, we saw this as a fantastic chance to extend our vision of a much more beautiful and experience-driven brand on social media.

With ideas surrounding a more magazine based design, with articles, beautiful imagery and simple, modern graphics - we were excited to begin the process. Fuelled with ideas, Tab, our head designer lead the project. Below are images of what she and the team came up with, compared with the original brochure.

The concept creates a far cleaner and lifestyle-driven design with an eco-friendly angle that can help combat the increasing awareness of climate change and the negative impacts that large vehicles like coaches have on the environment.


OUR BROCHURE CONCEPT:


EXISTING BROCHURE DESIGN:


The tender winner hasn't been announced yet, so, we're all fingers crossed over here at Barr Media. We're so excited to be working with Plymouth Citycoach on their digital marketing strategy, however, we truly believe being able to extend our vision across all marketing would be so powerful for the brand...

Check back in soon for updates on the project!