16 | MEDIA WORDS | Amit Katwala Investing in a digital future
RCI has been at the forefront of our industry’s move into social media and mobile technology for some time. Why does the company have mobile platforms and a social networking presence that is unrivalled anywhere else in the industry?
about the company’s digital strategy. “We have a very comprehensive
T
presence in social and mobile. It’s about fi nding new ways to engage members, owners and anyone interested in the RCI brand, and they are great channels to showcase the content that we create. In terms of the balance between targeting existing RCI members and owners and new ones, it’s probably 50/50.” “We are interested in engaging non- owners, and we’re using RCI TV to increase interest in vacation ownership and ultimately drive sales.” “The most important thing is how we’ve been able to target our social activity to benefi t with search. We’ve got a tremendous amount of experience now at tailoring content and strategies to winning particular keywords.” “We measure it by earned media
– we can look at the organic search rankings and measure what that would have cost us in paid search. There has been a tremendous return on investment, and it’s certainly not been a huge investment at all. We’ve probably had a 4-fi gure percentage return on marketing investment in terms of earned media. I suspect that as we go forward the ROI will reduce. It will also need to be measured in different ways as there are a lot of indirect benefi ts. “Although the cost may be on the
smaller end, the investment is really all in strategic time – and planning of resources.” “You have to be extremely
thoughtful because the wrong strategy can get you in trouble – it takes time, the right people and investment to get it right. We quickly found out that
o fi nd out, OPP spoke to Phil Brojan, RCI’s Senior Vice President Global Marketing,
nobody really had expertise in social media – everybody’s learning at the same time. You have to fi nd the right method and the best approaches for yourself, and only you can know your company. Be aware of the experts, but I
“We found out that nobody has expertise in social media – everybody’s learning at the same time”
would also say be careful. “We actually could have put our social and mobile strategy in place about 18 months before we did. I don’t
think we were late to the party – we could have been very early but we decided to pull back to watch, listen and learn ... and to put our strategy in place at the right time.”
“Everyone
sort of rushed in without really
understanding where it’s not worth your time, and overlooking simple marketing things like doing research into how users engage. “The best channel for
us has actually been YouTube. We’ve created so much video content, and the way YouTube interacts with Google and search makes it a very effective strategy. We dominate video content for a number of keywords, and that’s impressive to developers.” “We’re probably only half way there; we’ve only been doing it for a short while. We have a great innovative team researching all kinds of ways to grow. We want to attract more non-owners, grow our social media footprint and mobile platforms.” “You won’t see us building a sterile and moderated forum type presence, or preventing people saying what they want about us.”
“I think its more of an opportunity than a risk – we are scouring the web looking for feedback. Often people have the facts wrong, and once you walk them through the facts, 9 out of 10 times the result is incredible.” As well as its presence on social
media sites, RCI also provides mobile applications including Endless Vacation magazine, a free iPad publication about travel. “A surprisingly large number of people have downloaded our app, and its great to see,” says Brojan. “In the future we’re going to be focussing on providing management functions through the apps. Its very diffi cult to maintain ratings in the iTunes store, but we’ve got 5-star ratings for the magazine.”
Communication | is the name of the game for RCI, no matter what the format
“Our aim is for it to be the most useful travel magazine published – and so its heavily weighted towards objective editorial content, with all the members stuff in one section in the middle of the magazine. We’ve also learnt how important it is to stay on top of changes in the operating system, and we’ve made a great effort to do so.”
NEWS
www.opp.org.uk | JUNE 2011
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