VISIT LOUDOUN
Influencer Marketing
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Situation
Madden joined forces with Visit Loudoun, Virginia, to oversee influencer partnerships, furthering Loudoun’s initiative to promote its attractions beyond the food and beverage scene. Positioned as “DC’s Wine Country” and hosting over 50 wineries, it is no surprise that when people think of Loudoun County they think of wine tourism. However, Visit Loudoun wanted to advertise the wealth of experiences beyond wine that are found in its Northern Virginia community.
Approach
With the immense importance Loudoun placed on looking beyond the beverage scene offered within the county lines, we made it a priority to work with influencers who not only spoke to diverse audiences but also represented different communities through their content and would showcase attractions that made the county the perfect getaway destination.
Influencers were chosen for their alignment with the Loudoun brand, evaluated on audience location, content performance, and follower demographics. All the trips focused heavily on itineraries and highlighting key aspects of Loudoun County that took the community beyond just “DC’s Wine Country.” By aligning the destination with travel and food related content creators and including different attractions outside food and beverage allowed them to highlight all that Loudoun has to offer. Lily was able to showcase the outdoor experiences and spa opportunities and Alex and Mike stayed in a treehouse, showing off the unique lodging experiences available in the area.
RESULTS
These partnerships were incredibly fruitful achieving an Earned Media Value of over $70,000. The 221 posts garnered over 662,000 impressions, 311,000+ video views, 9,000+ feed engagements, and have a potential reach over 14 million.
Four influencers even went above and beyond posting blogs highlighting their time in Loudoun. These blogs were not a part of the contracted deliverables and brought even more awareness to all there is to do in Loudoun County.
DEVINE FOOD & WINE
We wanted to partner with a foodie-focused influencer in one of Loudoun’s top target markets, New York. Sara Shapiro, @sistersnacking, was a great choice with varied audience ages engaging with their content, a healthy female/male split, and over 25% of their audience living in New York City. Their content regularly performs above the benchmark and Sister Snacking has partnerships in the travel space with Thatch and foodie space with local restaurants.
THE PERFECT GIRLS’ GETAWAY
Hosting Caitlin Palumbo, @mydarlingpassport, posed an incredible opportunity to target the NYC market and one of their target audiences. Carly Ziff, @tastebetterhere, is a friend and fellow foodie-focused influencer and made the perfect +1 for a girls’ weekend. By hosting them both, we were able to maximize budget while enhancing social media coverage by spanning two profiles.
D.C. ROOTS RUN DEEP
We also engaged a California-based influencer who used to be local to the DC area. Originally from Washington DC, Alicia, @aliciatenise, had recently moved to Los Angeles, however, continues to have a strong following within the DC market. Her content focus is on foodie travel guides and attainable wine tips. Every Wednesday, she shares a “Wine Wednesday” piece of content to educate and inspire her followers. Alicia offered a unique opportunity as someone who not only loves wine but also focuses on the education of the wine process and flavors.
INCLUSIVITY & ACCESSIBILITY
In hopes of engaging more lifestyle-type audiences, we partnered with lifestyle content creators and couple Alex and Mike, @alexandmike, who have an engaged audience and connect through their content, blog, and podcast. Aligning with Alex and Mike allowed Loudoun to enhance messaging of luxury, romance, wine and relaxation. We also partnered with Lily, @deafjourney, a travel and lifestyle focused content creator focusing on accessible travel. Lily was a great partner to align with to share Loudoun’s story and had a content goal of increasing awareness of the outdoor activities and positioning Loudoun as a destination for approachable luxury covering the B&B accommodation and spa experiences.
