New Orleans LGBTQ Tourism

They call it The Big Easy. Ask anyone on the street what comes to mind when they think of New Orleans and you’ll get a different association every time. Katrina, Bourbon Street, the French Quarter and jazz all come to mind. However in 2011, the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation came to eBrains for integrated online marketing services including a special desire to  champion New Orleans as a gay-friendly destination.

We set out with a combination of lead generation, email, SEO, paid search and display ads to attract visitors interested in LGBTQ tourism and destinations. On New Orleans’ email newsletter opt-in form and in our external lead generation efforts, we added LGBTQ as one of five primary interests a consumer could select. Our LGBTQ list then received content customized to the LGBTQ audience. Using search engine optimization tactics, we optimized the site for 40 different keywords,  provided additional content recommendations and deployed a paid search campaign dedicated to LGBTQ keywords likely to result in a conversion. Finally, we used contextual display ads featuring creative-driven content customized to the LGBTQ audience and delivered when relevant content was intuited in real time on web pages.

Results
Over a two year period the efforts raised New Orleans’ profile as a welcoming LGBTQ destination.  As proof,  our integrated efforts led to the following incremental measured results:
Visitor Parties – 57.4 thousand
Average Spending – $1,250
Paid Lodging Room Nights – 252.5 thousand
Visitor Spending – $71.7 million
Return on Marketing Investment – 239 to 1