Festive Success for Local Businesses

The culmination of our first year working with the Chichester Business Improvement District (BID) saw us devise and execute an integrated Christmas PR and marketing campaign for what is one of the busiest trading times of the year for local retailers.

Chichester BID embodies much of what is close to our hearts at BrightWord; it champions our city on a national as well as local level and promotes both independent and small businesses.

The Christmas campaign included both digital and offline marketing activities in order to reach a wide audience to promote the various events and initiatives put on by Chichester BID and to encourage footfall to the city centre over the festive season. From creating carefully crafted website content and a strategic social media plan to PR campaigns and advertising, all content was targeted at both businesses and shoppers to deliver key messages and measureable results.

To help bolster PR content, we secured well-known actor Hugh Bonneville to act as judge for a Festive Window Competition. The media interest and buzz around this resulted in a high level of PR coverage as well as engagement across social media channels. Hugh kindly joined us for a day to wander the streets of Chichester (in the pouring rain!) and judge nearly 30 different window displays including both retail chains and independents. We were joined by several members of local press and the day generated significant coverage across regional print titles and online.

To keep momentum going, we rolled out a People’s Choice award across social media to encourage members of the public to vote for their favourite display using a hashtag to monitor uptake and engagement. Businesses taking part in the competition got behind the campaign, showcasing some fantastic and creative displays which really helped add to the festive spirit of the city.

Other initiatives we supported Chichester BID with over the Christmas period included a Virtual Advent Calendar and a Festive Elf Trail aimed at families as well as late night shopping and the instalment of a recycled green bottle tree.

During this period, we saw Chichester BID’s website users increase by 215% and page views by 183%. There were 12,062 page views in total across the website during the Christmas campaign roll out, nearly four times as many page views recorded in the autumn. The referrals to the website from social media were also up by 427% in this period, highlighting the huge impact social activity and targeted Facebook advertising had on the campaign.

Key achievements over the campaign:

• 215% increase in website users over Nov-Dec compared to the previous period
• 183% increase in page views over Nov-Dec compared to the previous period
• 427% increase in referrals to the website from social media in Dec compared to previous month

Key achievements over the year:

• Facebook followers increased by 59% in the first 12 months
• Twitter followers increased by 7% in the first 12 months
• Instagram followers increased by 87% in the first 12 months
• Facebook engagement in Jan 2019 compared to Dec 2019 – increase of 15,142%
• Twitter impressions in Jan 2019 compared to Dec 2019 – increase of 336%
• Secured over 38 pieces of print coverage from Jan-Dec 2019, with an AVE of approximately £16,180.

Testimonial from client:

We instructed Brightword to handle all our PR activities in January 2019. When sourcing a new PR Company we were looking for a team that would come up with new ideas and act as an extension of the BID marketing team.

From day one BrightWord have been an asset and have fully involved themselves in the BID, taking time to understand ours and our Members’ needs.

We have had fantastic results which we can measure and we are much more visible in the local community and media thanks to the hard work and creative ideas from BrightWord.

Jeanette Hockley, Operations Manager, Chichester BID (Business Improvement District)