Case Study: Turning the Tourism Crisis into an Opportunity for Business
- Content
- May 19, 2021
As the raging global pandemic shut down global airways, one insurance supplier faced a new marketplace reality. What should be done? How can investing in content during a crisis generate new opportunities? A case study:
Our client:
An insurance carrier
The situation:
It was the early days of COVID-19 in Israel, the short period between its first and second lockdown, and on the news there was a constant flow of updates and information on the status of global airways and travel. Although there were fewer planes in the air, there was a noticeable hunger for information about “green” and “red” countries, about options for Israelis to visit friends and family abroad, and of course, about safe destinations.
The Assets:
Our client’s website’s blog offers a multitude of articles, but these are almost entirely irrelevant to this time – both in terms of content as well as routine updates.
The Challenges:
* Increased demand for information involving search queries for which our client’s site had no information, and if it did, those landing pages / articles were ranked on Google’s second search result page at best.
* Competing not only with other insurance companies, but also with publishers and other large sites that have an alleged advantage on search engines.
* Creating content that enhances the connection between user intent – information – conversions.
The Strategy:
1. Daily content updates – This provides users with information that is reliable and useful.
2. RTM – A series of articles about destinations created “on demand” when there are news reports or alerts on optional vacations/flights. These articles are updated every week, based on their status.
3. SEO and Content Teams work closely together – The SEO team continued to monitor changes and requests on Google, analyze the common queries and user intent in real time, and the Content team creates content accordingly, and follows news reports.
4. Expand and increase routine optimization processes – Improving content for existing queries, as well as creating new content based on the SEO team’s brief and guidelines, had the double effect of reinforcing our brand’s core terms while enhancing reliability in a time of uncertainty.
5. Proper linking – We created a natural flow between the various pages to allow the users to get information based on their level of interest on one hand while also making it easy to convert on the site.
In comparison to the same period last year, which was only affected at its very end by the COVID-19 crisis, there has been an unprecedented increase of 1321% in the site’s content page sessions. In addition, we saw a 90% increase in profits from transactions and an increase of 45% in the number of transactions. This is despite the general decrease in organic sessions, compared to the same quarter last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other factors.
Some Added Benefits:
Expanding our user base – Before COVID-19, users would reach our client’s site at the stage of actually purchasing insurance. The changes in the content strategy brought in users that were making general inquiries not necessarily related to insurance. Our client has branded itself as an essential information resource for our users, it’s reliable and accessible, and will therefore be the natural choice when buying insurance now or in the future.
A new source of revenue – Making the content meaningful in the user’s online conversion process, particularly in times of crisis. Good and accessible content creates a good bond with the user, prompting purchases.
Brand Awareness – Our client’s ability to provide real time responses and information to queries on Google, strengthened its reputation as an insurance carrier that can give on-time solutions to its policyholders. So even those who were unaware of our client’s strengths are now exposed to it through the new content.
What can we learn from this for the future?
Collaboration between the SEO and Content teams is crucial to success of projects like these – and all others. That cooperation made it possible to integrate routine optimization, RTM, and content writing in accordance with user intent.
A time of crisis harbors opportunities for brands and companies to take ownership of a realm of knowledge, even if that particular area was not part of their digital marketing strategy before. Doing this ensures that your content is compatible with the changing market needs, and it’s an opportunity to introduce new users to the brand.
Creating quality content that is relevant and frequently updated creates trust – and as a result can create another steady source of conversions.