We Won! We are pleased to announce that The Stockade Bed and Breakfast won the coveted Louey Award for Accommodation of the Year/Bed and Breakfast given by the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association (LTPA). The award was presented to Janice DeLerno on January 28th at the Annual LTPA Meeting held at the Cypress Bend Golf and Conference Resort on beautiful Toledo Bend in Many, Louisiana.
Janice serves as a board member for the LTPA as well as the President of the Louisiana Bed and Breakfast Association. Her serving on both boards is important in that it brings the entire bed and breakfast industry to the forefront of travel in Louisiana.
The Louey Awards honor and showcase individuals and organizations which have made outstanding contributions to the Louisiana tourism industry and/or created innovative, results-producing marketing strategies or customer service programs that attract visitors to our state.
The Stockade won the award based on their creating a Social Media Marketing Campaign to promote The Stockade as a lodging/event facility to travelers worldwide.
The publicity to support the events through social media, Constant Contact and accompanying blogs about The Stockade Bed and Breakfast helped to generate an additional 10% in occupancy and thousands of dollars in revenue for the year of 2013 and first half of 2014. We have continued to see a higher rate of return for 2014 and believe that 2015 will be even higher. The Stockade has become an integral part of the tourism economy of Baton Rouge in a niche market that is underserved in the community.
This campaign focuses upon the introduction and management of the following:
- Consistent posting to the social network accounts of The Stockade including Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus and LinkedIn.
- Quarterly Constant Contact newsletters to current customer database.
- Consistent updating and introduction of fresh content of The Stockade website www.thestockade.com.
- Regular blogposts on www.thestockade.com.
- This campaign is ongoing and a dedicated employee has been hired to post to and maintain Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus and LinkedIn social media accounts as well as to write the newsletters and blogs which highlight informative, engaging facts about bed and breakfast travel, fun and interesting things to do while visiting Louisiana, topics of general interest related to cooking, decorating, art, gardening, sports and all local events associated with the same. New updates to the website are regularly scheduled to keep www.thestockade.com ranked high in the search engines. Since bed and breakfast travel is a niche market which has come into its own by attracting new clients from emerging markets such as the Gen X’ers and Millennials as well as the original Baby Boomer market, there is a wide range of interests to entice clientele.
- Along with increased posting and blogging came the need for more to write about. Activities were created at the Stockade, therefore giving more subject matter for postings. Other annual community events were more rigorously promoted through social networking.
Thanks for reading!
And, hey ya’ll, can I get ya a glass of sweet iced tea before ya mosey on down to the plantation? Au Revoir!
(Award photo by JToliver Photography)