FERMANAGH District Council has revealed details of the £150,000 marketing campaign they hope will bring in overseas trade and tourism in the long term.
Speaking to the Herald a council spokesman explained how this money has been spent.
“The Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland campaign is being carried out by Northern Ireland Tourism Board and this is a bespoke Fermanagh campaign totalling £114,000.
“The first phase began just before the G8 started and ran up to the middle of July. It was followed by a classified advertising campaign in August and there will also be a Autumn campaign starting end of September.”
He continued: “The first visuals appeared just pre G8 and was a awareness creating campaign which included outdoor advertising mainly in the Greater Belfast, North Down and Antrim areas – it included 48 sheet billboards, Tsides, solus rears (on buses), adshels (bus shelter ads) and more.
“There was also a three week radio campaign in June on Downtown, Citybeat and Classic FM and a series of competitions from June to August on U105.”
This was supplemented by colourful display ads in the Northern Ireland press and an online campaign as well which included activity through Facebook, Tripadvisor, UTV and other sites as well as significant increased presence on the home page of discovernorthernireland.com which is the NITB’s consumer site.
“A large chunk of the budget was also focused on the market in the Ssouth with various media outlets targeted to raise awareness and offer deals on accommodation.
“40% of the budget is being spent in the Republic of Ireland market. Advertising has already taken place on Lyric FM, RTE1, 2FM, Dublin Q102 and Mid West Radio as well as press advertising and an online campaign.
During August the campaign moved from increasing awareness to a more tactical campaign – specifically focusing on accommodation offers and these appeared in the classified sections of various papers.”
One of the major successes of the campaign is apparent on the Discover Northern Ireland website.
The Fermanagh destination page up until July 14 showed a 218% increase from the same period the year before. Additionally the local website www.fermanaghlakelands.com recorded an increased of up to 16% in total number of visits for the months of June and July this year. This adds to the earlier good news concerning tourism figures namely at the Visitor Information Centre.
The remaining funding, approximately £36,000 is being carried out by Tourism Ireland on the council’s behalf in the rest of the UK, Germany and the USA markets.
Much of this activity will take place during the autumn and spring and will include a combination of trade and press familiarisation trips, trade and consumer promotions, advertising, online and direct marketing.
There will also be opportunities for collaborative activity with the trade.
To date Fermanagh as a brand has already been represented at the largest Irish Festival in the USA in August and there will be opportunities for the trade to participate in overseas promotions later in the year and next spring.
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