Keble College
Helping Keble College
Keble College, a prestigious Oxford University College, act as an accommodation provider for international tourists when students have gone home for Easter, Summer and Christmas breaks. The unique location and stunning architecture making this a real honey pot for overseas travellers looking for a unique experience while visiting Oxford.
Keble’s Challenge
The summer of 2021 presented a challenge, with COVID-19 restrictions on international travel cutting off the College’s traditional customer base. Keble College approached Cotswold Marketing Agency to run a summer campaign, encouraging UK residents to use their bed and breakfast facility as an alternative to the more obvious domestic holiday choices.
How we helped
We devised a campaign making full use of the increasingly popular ‘staycation’. We recognised an opportunity for Keble College to capitalise on this under the sub-brand of ‘Keblestaycation’.
We identified and profiled four key target groups who would be attracted to Keble College and created a digital campaign aimed at these groups. We created a logo and social media templates focusing on Keble College’s core colours.
We commissioned photography of the rooms and grounds, creating a boutique hotel feel and consistently used the new photos in posts. We optimised the existing social media profiles, providing an assortment of topics and sharing to groups that would draw more interest to the Keble College Conferences page. This activity was supplemented by paid Google and Facebook Ads targeting the four key audience groups.
We also enhanced the College’s accommodation website, adding four new pages with blogs and themed itineraries for interested parties. We also arranged exclusive offers for guests with small local businesses.
The Cotswold Marketing Agency difference
The campaign ran for three months from 1st July and we saw a staggering increase in engagement, followers and bookings. Facebook and Instagram saw an increase in reach to 57,390 (previously 131) and 3,618 (previously 171) respectively. Each day, posts were consistently reaching 2,000 people on Facebook, and 200 on Instagram. The campaign caught the eye of the Daily Info online magazine, who posted an article about the unique Staycation destination.
An end of summer holidays Instagram competition that ran for one week, reached over 1000 people in one week, with 38 unique entries for an opportunity to win a nights B&B at Keble College. The paid ads created an 8% conversion rate, with almost 400 bookings during that period.
Influencers visited the College for an overnight stay and reviewed their visit both on social media and in digital and print publications.
