Hills of Africa Travel
www.hillsofafrica.com
 "You have been the best investment we've made in our business. We've seen a huge increase in customer attraction and even better leads from the website. We knew we were working with the right person to get the job done the way we wanted. Michelle and her team understand our target market and our business goals, and they have done everything possible to make sure they know everything about our business."
--Sandy Salle, Hills of Africa CEO |
Customer Profile: Hills of Africa Travel specializes in customized African safari tours for families, honeymooners, or
anyone ready to experience the magic of Africa. Hills of Africa offers spectacular African adventures with personalized service, guaranteed to provide travelers with the experience of a lifetime.
Challenge: Hills of Africa wanted to increase its off- and online presence in the highly saturated luxury safari travel market and position themselves as a high-end customized itinerary provider. In order to establish themselves as a well-known luxury safari travel provider in the competitive travel market, Hills of Africa sought to gain exposure in print media, online, and in the blogosphere.
Solution: Sūmèr created a comprehensive Life after Launch and Love Your Blog campaign to fulfill Hills of Africa's need for media and blog exposure, while positioning the company as experts in customized African safari vacations.
We began with our Love Your Blog service, which focused on the design and setup of their blog, as well as the essential components used to build readership and provide viewers with easy navigation. The layout of their blog, Live the Magic of Africa, was created based on Hills of Africa's brand image and message. A blog editorial calendar allowed them to post exciting and valuable content on a consistent schedule. And optimized copy, meta data, and blog directory submissions helped drive traffic to their blog. Sūmèr coached the Hills of Africa team on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube usage, and assisted them with setting up their accounts—which have since gained a large following.
Once the Live the Magic of Africa blog was ready for promotion, we began Hills of Africa Travel's Life after Launch campaign. For upcoming group tours, we wrote and distributed optimized press releases and social media releases and created interactive content, such as videos and teleseminars. We kept Hills of Africa in the news through a steady stream of stories in print, online, and blog media. To further establish Hills of Africa's travel expertise, we pitched Hills of Africa CEO Sandy Salle as a guest author on numerous well-known blogs.
Results: Hills of Africa Travel has seen a wide array of results from our combined efforts, including guest blog spots on prominent blogs such as In the Know Traveler, Modern Mami, Jungle of Life, My Itchy Travel Feet, Africa Freak, and What's Up in Cape Town, among others.
After just one month, Sūmèr took Hills of Africa from 10 news clips in February to 153 news clips in March, and by the end of May, Tweets increased over 600%. In the four months Sūmèr has been working on Love Your Blog and Life after Launch with Hills of Africa, their combined blog and website page views have increased by a dramatic 102%.
In addition, our copywriting and online promotion efforts have resulted in over $250,000 in sales coming from organic search and referring sites since March 2010.
Sandy Salle, co-owner
Hills of Africa Travel
www.hillsofafrica.com