In four shoots throughout the year, Forge Apollo captured dedicated content for each property in ICONA’s portfolio. This included both photos and video assets in various formats for use across every marketing channel. We spread the shoot schedules throughout the year to capture properties throughout every season and bolster marketing efforts in the “cozy season” (fall, winter, and early spring).
One of ICONA’s goals was to improve its social presence across its brands with high-quality content. Our scope includes posting on Instagram and Facebook accounts for its seven hotel properties, four restaurants, and weddings. Posts include a mixture of static photos, carousels, graphics, Reels, collaborative posts, and stories. Most of the properties had never posted Reels before our strategy, or utilized collaborative posts. We’ve also added new content pillars that aim to increase saves and shares as well as incorporating trending content and UGC where appropriate.
When we first implemented our strategy with ICONA’s existing assets, we saw improvements in the first three months, such as an increase of 236% in reach and 3,175% in net followers on the ICONA Diamond Beach Instagram account. When we implemented the assets from our shoots, we saw additional gains, like a 160% increase in shares on the ICONA Avalon account, a 121% increase in engagement on ICONA Diamond Beach’s Facebook, and a 74% increase in saves on Mahalo Cape May’s Instagram.
We took over running ICONA’s digital paid PPC ads from another vendor. When we evaluated the account, we realized that the previous vendor had not been tracking results in Google Analytics 4 properly, therefore showing inaccurate ROI and ROAS. We created new GA4 accounts and re-configured all of the conversion tracking tied in with ICONA’s booking engine. Now we have accurate data to calculate ROI for paid ads plus other channels. When ICONA moved to a new booking engine, we also ensured that tracking was still flowing correctly.
Previously, they were running only static display ads. To help their ads stand out, we also added HTML5 ads to their strategy and gradually increased the creativity in ad design by incorporating new assets from our content shoots.
ICONA felt that their previous designs for marketing assets weren’t creative enough and didn’t reflect the brand well. Forge Apollo provided fresh graphic design for multiple assets, including websites, Google Display, social ads, emails, and print ads. Designs utilize a combination of existing assets and new assets from our shoots.
The ICONA team felt that some of its existing website designs felt “stale,” and they wanted to move away from an industry-specific CMS to something more user-friendly. Forge Apollo redesigned icona.com and iconameansbusiness.com and developed a new website for ICONA weddings. We migrated all websites, including mahaloresorts.com, from their existing CMS to WordPress.
We create a weekly email alternating between the overall ICONA and Mahalo brands. When we started, each brand was using separate software for their emails. Mahalo’s software provided suspiciously low open rates, so we moved them to ICONA’s software. However, the email functionality of ICONA’s software was outdated. So, when their contract ran out, we assisted ICONA in moving their email marketing to a new CRM/email marketing software, Cendyn. This included warming a new domain with the assistance of the Cendyn team. We also continued testing new designs, topics, copy, and send times to find what works the best with each brand’s audience. Within two months of using Cendyn, open rates increased 28% for ICONA and 23% for Mahalo on Cendyn compared to the average open rates in Amadeus.
As ICONA prepared for the launch of a new restaurant, Avalon Prime, it needed custom branding. This included a logo, brand colors, and fonts. Forge Apollo went through a thorough process with multiple phases of customization and refinement to craft the perfect branding standards for the restaurant.
Fresh, helpful content is necessary for a website to provide value to users and thrive on search engines. Forge Apollo researches strategic topics that are helpful for ICONA’s audiences within different content pillars. We write two blogs per month for the ICONA Resorts and Mahalo Resorts brands and one for ICONA Weddings. Within ten months of starting blogs, the average position for strategic keywords on the ICONA Resorts website increased by 5.12 positions and 4.12 positions on the Mahalo Resorts website.
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Effective marketing for travel brands requires a comprehensive approach including high-quality content and expert strategies. If your travel brand’s marketing needs an upgrade, contact us today.
