Charleston Beaches Launch

If you live in Charleston or have visited our beaches, you know they’re awesome. With 5 unique beach towns, each with their own style and flavor, there’s tons to do if you’re on vacation for a week or just swinging out for an evening to watch the sun set.

However, not everyone knows how awesome our beaches are. And, believe it or not, lots of potential vacationers skip right over Charleston on their way to Myrtle Beach.

So, we recently launched a project with the Charleston CVB to showcase Charleston’s beaches and convince vacationers to trade in the leather shops and high-rise condos of Myrtle Beach for a gentle, crowd-free stroll down any of our wonderful beach towns.

The situation

• We needed to convince potential visitors to choose Charleston over a competing beach vacation trip.
• We also needed to help shore up resort, hotel, and rental bookings during a couple specific times of the year.

The solution

Based on interviews, research, and early planning, we set out to position Charleston as a better beach vacation than competing destinations by:

• Highlighting (and differentiating) our beaches’ unique features & vibe.
• Reminding beach vacation planners that Charleston is world-class destination.
• Emphasizing the quality and selection of lodging.

Secondly, we wanted to generate additional revenue and bookings for our lodging partners by:

• Increasing traffic to partner sites via our own beaches site.
• Increase overall number of visitors during “need seasons.”

Using Google trends and keyword research, we identified the three core lodging areas to focus on, and were also able to pinpoint regional search interest that could later be used in targeted search engine marketing campaigns.

At the center of these marketing efforts would be a new, dedicated site for Charleston’s beaches.

Working from our strategic foundation, we designed and built a site that would deliver on our goals.

1. Highlight and differentiate our beaches’ unique features & vibe.

• New photography (an ongoing effort that will heat up this summer) that is
  big, bold, and in your face
• The site’s main navigation is focused on each individual beach
• Each beach page has a “vibe” carousel that visitors can flip through, along with events that speak to the different

Carousel highlighting the “vibe” of each beach

2. Remind beach vacation planners that Charleston is world-class destination.

• On nearly every page, we reinforce Charleston’s recent award as the “top city in the US”
• We also highlight the ease of access to downtown from each beach

Highlighting Charleston’s status as a Top City

3. Emphasize the quality and selection of lodging & increase visits to partner sites

• A page dedicated to each lodging segment highlights our partners in each beach area
• Exclusive beach lodging packages are featured prominently in the site navigation

Highlight our key lodging partners

We also wanted to develop the site for multiple devices. Using responsive design and development techniques, the beaches site responds works perfectly across phone, tablet, and desktop devices.

We haven’t stopped now that the site is live. We’re launching a targeted Google Adwords campaign and ramping up our search engine optimization efforts. And the tracking framework we built in allows us to report back to our partners with specific data points on visits and interactions with their brands.

Event Tracking Framework

Hope to see you at the beach in Charleston.