Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Destination Website

VISITmilwaukee.org

About This Entry:

Both our team and the city were more than ready for a new website. Our old site had served us well for almost a decade, but we were ready to take a step forward and bring a taste of the vibrant energy and renaissance happening in Milwaukee to its digital presence. It was important that our site was both appealing and informative to meeting planners and leisure visitors, as well as providing information for locals, partner businesses, and more. We performed extensive research and surveys of key stakeholders to identify what they’re looking for in a destination and in a destination website.

A unifying theme across all our audiences was the desire to find a city with one-of-a-kind experiences and a distinct personality, whether as a leisure traveler or to host an event. Once they knew a city would fit into their needs and budget, they wanted to know what was uniquely local. We knew that Milwaukee could easily fulfill this desire – but we needed our website to show it from the first click.

In addition to transforming our digital presence from a branding perspective, we also knew the new website needed technical features that consumers have come to expect from retail sites, like powerful filterable categories, live mapping tools, and a seamless mobile experience. We wanted our site to include these features, but we were also determined to create a “future-proofed” site built on an agile, adjustable platform that could continue to grow and adapt as new technology becomes available.

Campaign Strategy:

We retained a nationally known but locally based agency, Hanson Dodge, to create our new site. Hanson Dodge led research, brand ideation, and development, while VISIT Milwaukee’s in-house marketing team provided content and industry insight. It was important to us to work with an agency that understood and loved the city as much as we did, who felt pride in bringing Milwaukee’s new digital presence to life. We were also excited about the opportunity to bring fresh eyes to our field by selecting an agency outside the tourism industry with a strong reputation of e-commerce work for national brands.

The research and feedback we received from key community stakeholders was invaluable and has resulted in a fully-responsive, modern site that encourages visitors to explore and discover the unique people, places, and experiences that makes Milwaukee a must-experience destination.

The new website invites users to virtually explore Milwaukee through a new, expanded neighborhoods section, complete with photos and videos, as well as interactive elements like a slot machine style “randomizer” on the homepage that suggests Milwaukee experiences based on mood or budget. Using the new “My Trip” tool, visitors can save articles, businesses, lists, and more to a virtual shopping cart, creating a custom trip itinerary they can then save and share with friends. Colorful “badges” scattered throughout the site brand Milwaukee as “The Frozen Custard Capital of the World,” “America’s Brandy Belt,” and “The Spy Sanctuary of the Midwest,” leading visitors to fun facts about the city’s quirks.

One of our primary focuses on the new site was creating new and organic ways for visitors to discover and interact with our partners. In order to help connect site visitors with Milwaukee’s local businesses, we added over 5,000 photo and video assets, including 360-degree photos of meeting and event venues, and created over 1,500 pages of content to highlight the best of the city. All third-party plugins were reviewed and vetted to select a best-in-class option.

Results:

Since the site launched on March 17, 2018 until today (May 23, 2018), we have had 235,484 unique visitors to the site. Bounce rate has decreased to 60.32 percent, with an average of 1:46 minutes spent on-site – a 22 percent increase year over year. When launching a brand-new website with a completely redesigned user experience, it’s common to see a drop in organic traffic. Knowing this, we worked on an aggressive SEO strategy pre-launch, and since the launch of the site we’ve seen a 14 percent increase in organic traffic. Year over year, overall number of visitors is up 17 percent and total website pageviews are up 44 percent. One of the primary focuses of the new website was creating a fully responsive, mobile optimized experience, and we’re pleased to have seen a 32 percent increase year over year in mobile traffic to the site. These visitors have shown a clear intent to travel through various conversion points on our website. In just the past two months, there have been 7,035 visits to our booking widget, 5,870 visits to the My Trip itinerary builder page, 4,855 views of the online visitor’s guide, and 2,992 visits to the request a guide form. Due to company policy and agreement with our agency, we are not able to disclose the project budget, but it was competitive based on the responses to our RFP.

The site was featured in CommArts and selected by our CMS, Kentico, as one of their top sites of the month. We have received an outpouring of positive feedback and support from our community, many of whom specifically complimented how much the website “feels” like Milwaukee.

Why This Is A Finalist: