The Brief
Our brief was to create a strong association between the ‘Quantock Hills’ and the poet Coleridge in people’s minds. The Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) team wanted to build on their Emotional Selling Point of the connection between the protected landscape and the poet, who was inspired to write some of his most famous work by the countryside of the area.
The Coleridge Way is the clear vehicle for building this connection. Some years ago the team had helped create and launch the Coleridge Way, a path connecting the Quantock Hills AONB to Exmoor National Park. As with many of these partnership initiatives different bodies were promoting different elements. The National Trust had also invested time and effort relaunching the Coleridge Cottage and would benefit from greater awareness and use of the Way.
The AONB team wanted a two year communication plan that would steer their work to deliver the campaign.
The Solution
Viper facilitated a day workshop with people from the AONB team, Exmoor National Park, National Trust, Somerset County Council’s Rights of Way department, local arts projects and tourism providers to gain a greater understanding of current projects, create a shared understanding of target audiences and explore ways of working together.
Desktop research supported the planning day to reveal broader priorities.
We used a ‘customer journey’ approach to map and present how a target audience will see and interact with the campaign. We took the most important target audiences and mapped out Awareness, Acquisition and Retention stages for them in simple flow charts. The team had a clear understanding as to the purpose of each communication tool; Twitter, PR, enewsletter etc.
The two year plan was then broken down into each stream of activity that showed the connections and milestones that would need to be achieved in order to deliver the next element. Crucially the plan is pragmatic and based in reality. This work has to be achieved alongside other projects by the team.
The Result
‘Love the plan, I think it looks great. Clear and very do-able’, was the instant feedback from Georgie Grant, Communication Officer at the AONB team.
The campaign will take time to get established. Some results will be immediate, others will develop over longer periods, like the connections between businesses.
Importantly we’ve helped the team establish targets, based on organic search, Google Analytics and social media usage, for them to see the difference their effort makes. This is great for the team but vital for justifying the Return on Investment to funders.
To see the route of the Coleridge Way through the Quantock Hills AONB download their Visitor Guide.
To visit the Coleridge Cottage, click here.