Sallie Leslie-Golding provides a summary of this year's PIP campaign

The (PIP) Pool Industry Promotions, campaign to promote the UK hot tub and pool industry for 2020 started in June this year. In October, the PIP committee met online with our campaign agency (Speed Communications) for an evaluation and to assess the KPI achievements which are outlined below.  

As we are all aware, the surge in demand for water leisure products this year has been outstanding. This can be attributed to 'lockdown' and people spending more time at home, focusing on their homes, gardens and lifestyle, also in a majority of cases having a holiday budget that could be repurposed. But the great weather in the UK also had a significant influence, with all of these creating the 'perfect storm' for the demand for water leisure products. 

However, strategically, although there was a surge in demand for water leisure products this year, the opportunity to have an influential voice through the press and media, to help convert consumers into buying is evident from the #everydaycation campaign results. 

The Results

Social Media Ad Performance 

  • 55,838 clicks
  • 2,169,194 people reached
  • Women 45-54 most engaged
  • Pools - an even split between men and women, when compared with hot tubs, though still skews female. Engagement continues into the 65+ category, likely due to price. 
  • Hot Tubs - attracted an overwhelmingly female audience. Most engaged demographic is female 25-35--limited interest in the 55+ category. 

Website Performance

www.everydaycation.co.uk - the campaign website launched on 10th June 2020, to straddle the Pool and Hot Tub industries, providing a destination website for the campaign to drive consumers to for engagement, information and a route to purchase through the BISHTA and SPATA websites. 

  • Visits to the website during the campaign period (June - October): 47,192
  • Organic & direct traffic: 8,749
  • Social traffic: 38,506
  • Average time on the quiz page: 1m 41s

The majority of the top-level campaign marketing was designed to promote the industry as a whole to provide awareness and information for consumers to make informed purchase decisions. PIP initially planned the campaign in March 2020 as a safety net for the industry, but as mentioned above, it soon became apparent that the industry was experiencing a surge in demand for water leisure products. Therefore, the purpose of the campaign was altered to ensure the 'right' information was shared with the media and any myths were dispelled, and ultimately to be a voice for the UK Hot Tub and Pool Industry. 

Performance 

www.bishta.co.uk (compared to 2019)

  • 150% more visitors
  • 100% increase in traffic from Facebook
  • Improvement in bounce rate (3% lower)
  • Top-performing page - Where to Buy (find a member)

www.spata.co.uk (compared to 2019)

  • 54% more visitors 
  • 186% increase in traffic from Facebook
  • Improvement in bounce rate (15% lower)
  • Top-performing page - Where to Buy (find a member)

Everydaycation Uk Pool Industry Promotions campaign

What have we learned?

Our Campaign agency (Speed Communications) provided some of the key learnings from this year's campaign results. 

  • We were aware from the beginning of the campaign that the audiences for the pool and hot tub sectors were very different; however, this became more apparent from this year's campaign. In 2021 we would recommend an audience-specific approach, with two separate campaigns with different tactical activations to appeal to the various media outlets--mainstream media for hot tubs and high-end and luxury media for swimming pools.
  • Providing we can start activity earlier; we can tap into the long-lead print opportunities with our summer content.
  • Costs are a consideration when it comes to working with influencers - they all want paying, and so we need to consider how important this channel is to the audiences and if it is worth the financial investment.
  • The Metro competition has worked well to give BISHTA mass exposure that is measurable. But this would not be an element that we would include for 2021. 
  • There was minimal appeal from the mainstream media for a pool competition, as the perception is that there would be space and running cost considerations. That said, we did have some interest from regional luxury magazines.
  • Digital: photography is key - a combination of aspirational, and inspirational. Celebrity endorsements work well. Pool and hot tub audiences are quite distinct; we would like to dig into the data further for more detailed targeting in 2021. 

The PIP Committee recently met to discuss the annual PIP Strategic Planning to review the effectiveness of the PIP strategy for 2020 and also to plan activity for 2021. The Speed Comms team joined the meeting to present their proposal for 2021 so that PIP can consider this as part of their strategy. Trade Association members can view the 2021 PIP Strategy in the Members Hub on the BISHTA and SPATA websites.  

(Press release)