National Botanic Garden of Wales increase family figures by 63%

New attractions at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGOW) targeted at families with children coupled with an integrated marketing campaign across the summer has really helped drive figures.

The newly opened Butterfly House (Plas PiliPala) and other activities for children including zorbing, trampolining, a straw bale maze and large games were used in an advertising and marketing campaign that comprised of: Bus streetliners, 6 sheets and vinyls in Cardiff and Swansea; a sponsorship on Heart Radio which allowed for key messages to be broadcast to a family listenership across South and West Wales, a promotional video which was posted online on NBGOW website and also integrated into a quiz and competition on Wales Online.

These highly interactive elements online helped to bring the campaign to life, generating 444 competition entries to win family tickets to NBGOW and really made the garden a talking point through social media posts on Facebook and Twitter. These on-line elements were backed up by a campaign of skins and banners on mobile to reiterate the message to a targeted audience. This continued with a sponsorship of the “Whats On” pages on Swansea Evening Post. Combined, this all heightened NBGOW’s profile as a day out attraction for families whilst maintaining and growing their more traditional visitor.

This highly visual campaign started in June and proved that a multimedia advertising campaign on a relatively small budget can really work for example.

• Across July there were 30% more families with children than in July the previous year.
• Overall the summer saw their figures soar from 30,308 in 2015 to 38,948 in 2016 a 28.5% increase.
• Furthermore, new memberships are up by 25% over the summer in comparison to last year.
• Membership total takeup was  up by 39% which is the highest takeup since 2011.
• Membership renewal were up by 9%.
• Facebook likes were up over 1,513 by 12%

– Head of Marketing and Communications says

“Alison and her team really made the difference and, as well as being helpful, responsive, innovative and efficient, our super summer visitor figures and all the fabulous feedback we’ve received, prove they are effective too. I cannot recommend them highly enough and we’re already talking to them about our next campaign”

NBGOW overriding campaign objective was to target new visitors ensuring that they were seen over the summer months as a key tourist attraction; they certainly achieved this with an increase in footfall from families and new and renewed memberships being taken up.

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