Normally I wait a couple of weeks before posting the results of my work, hence the delay between my last post and update about the work I have been doing for The Culture Route Society in Turkey. If you have missed the last couple of posts, head here and have a read or I’ll bring you up to speed in a sec. I came to Antalya turkey just over a month ago to help an NGO named “Culture Route Society” with their business strategy and online strategy. Soon I found out that there is no strategy with regards to creating an income stream in order to run the NGO and they are so busy with the daily work they don’t even have the time to think about this. Social media and online growth were nonexistent. There was also a lot of maintenance work that needed to be done and security concerns.
What was done?
I set out to fix the infrastructure first before creating a strategy for them. This entailed things like a backup system and migrating the software to a better and scalable solution. Next, I created a business strategy that included funnelling travel requests to their relevant travel agencies and keeping a tab on who goes where all while informing all relevant employees in the process. This was off course met with the proper analytics to gauge and measure the progress and growth of the requests during the year. This included a user-friendly and intuitive form that guided the visitor through a series of questions. But this is just part of the bigger picture when creating a business strategy. Other area’s which was overhauled was:
- Their apps were updated, which was accumulating more negative reviews instead of income before the update
- Daily and weekly local and cloud backups
- Social media strategy across multiple channels
- Content marketing strategy across multiple channels
- Booking system for visitors
What was the result?
Within 3 hours of launch, there were already 4 requests for tours through the website for tours and the updated app started to get more downloads already within the same week. Today I had look and the amount of booking has increased to 1200% as opposed to last year! Now I am a sceptic when it comes to numbers and predictions (read my teardown of the last person sending me a pitch) but these are actual numbers. That is also why I waited a bit longer before posting the results because I wanted to have an analytics pattern before making any judgements. So we are talking about an increase of 1200% during pandemic folk, I think when the tourism is back on track and we start travelling more often, the numbers are probably more close to 2400% compared before. Again this is based on actual numbers I got from them. I am not pulling numbers from my behind.
Social media growth takes time. From the moment you start changing your posting and content habits till you see growth, it takes mostly at least one 1month before you see steady change and growth. Nonetheless, the average likes and engagement was increased by 40% which is an awesome amount to say at least! I think if they keep going with the strategy laid out for them they will see growth and engagement in time.
I can’t show data of their booking results but you can just look at their social media engagement yourself, what I can share is the general growth of the website visits. The website has an increased visitors of 35% and total page views have also increased by 41%, even though the average session has decreased by just 7%, we can also see a decrease of the bounce rate by 8%. Again, these are growths I managed in less than 3 weeks time during an freaking pandemic, I am excited to look back the results next year and see how much they have grown!
What was their feedback?
So when I asked them for their feedback working with me, it kind of proved my point but at the same time made me all fuzzy and warm feeling which, well… made it all worth it to be honest.
Culture Route Society:
Sasan came to our office and stayed around 3 weeks. He has made inspiring changes to our web presence enabling us to support our members and sort out our finances. He is also good at organising Social Media to best effect and has really good analytical skills enabling him to take a creative view of business management.
Closing words
All this is kind of useless if the management isn’t on board with your changes or doesn’t have an open mind for solutions. It was a delight working with Hu, Onat and Kate. It didn’t really feel like work but more like running a family business. Everyone worked hard and did their share and I learned a lot from them. This is also the reason I like to travel to the location instead of doing all the work from a distance in my comfy chair. The reason I approach it different is mainly I like to be hands-on. No matter how much data I have, how many analytics telling me to go a certain direction, as long as you are not there feeling the struggle of the people running the show, you CAN NOT create a viable strategy. I hope you enjoyed reading my “Antalya Series” as much as I enjoyed writing them.
My next destination is already set but I won’t reveal it just yet :), but I am really excited as the destination has been a long favourite of mine! I only hope I don’t get any fatter than I’ve already become since my stay in Turkey!