Marketing Case Study - Cedar Falls Health Farm

Cedar Falls Health Farm is the South-West’s only destination spa. Set in 44 acres of Somerset countryside it has 32 individually-styled rooms and sleeps up to 55 guests. It is well-established in the hospitality market having offered guest accommodation for nearly 30 years.

Clockwork have a long-standing relationship with Cedar Falls and have worked with them intermittently since the 1990s. In February 2011 the owner contacted us because the business was suffering as a result of the prolonged recession. Since then, Clockwork have been working closely with Cedar Falls in both a marketing and management consultancy capacity to help grow occupancy and to better equip the business to attract new custom whilst managing its costs.

Objectives

To create a clear marketing strategy with recommendations to increase occupancy, spa day guests, gift voucher sales, and generate an overall increase in revenue.
To re-brand the health farm and improve all existing literature.

Re-initiate contact with the customer database to cultivate customer loyalty.
To increase traffic to their website.
To increase bookings from their website.

WHAT WE DID

A Co-ordinated Marketing Strategy

Clockwork developed a marketing strategy which contained a range of online and offline marketing activities including the following:

Rebranding: As a 17th century mansion, the accommodation and spa exudes old-fashioned elegance and charm but the existing website and literature showed nothing of this, instead it was rather generic and indistinct. Clockwork undertook market research which led to the development of a whole new design scheme for Cedar Falls. New photography, brochures, hotel literature and website have been put thoughtfully designed to encourage guests to ‘take a fresh look at Cedar Falls’.
Website Design: As part of the rebranding, Clockwork designed and developed a new website. The website has been built with a content management system so that any information (special offers, latest news) can be instantly updated. The new website includes an easy-to-use blog and online gift voucher software.
Marketing Plan: We developed a clear marketing plan with a variety of planned campaigns, from advertising, email marketing, events, press releases and direct mail.
Digital Marketing: As part of our marketing retainer we also manage their online marketing strategy, including search engine optimisation, social media updates, link building, article writing, email marketing and Pay Per Click campaigns. We also manage updates to their website and have actively developed new pages and functionality to help them promote and sell late availability.
Online Travel Agents: We have assisted Cedar Falls to upload availability to relevant OTAs and have helped them to stimulate late availability bookings through these channels.

RESULTS

Significant Business Growth

Clockwork supported Cedar Falls Health Farm as a retained client and achieved the following results:

Through a collection of inventive, distinctive and clever promotions profit margins saw intense growth. For example, profit for July and August 2011 was up by over £50,000 when compared to the same period in 2010.
Their occupancy increased with August 2011 being their best August on record.
Direct mail and email marketing proved to be very successful attracting existing customers back.
Since Clockwork started carrying out optimisation (Autumn 2011), traffic generated through organic searches has increased 11.73% with a wider range of unbranded keywords (search terms excluding Cedar Falls) driving visitors. This is particularly commendable when you consider effective indexing time can take up to 6 months when a new website is introduced.
Online gift voucher sales were 5 times higher in 2011 than the previous year.

CLIENT FEEDBACK

“Clockwork are a locally based company who offer all the services we need from them under the same roof; this is so important as it ensures we as a client/business are understood, whilst the service provided to us remains personal and attentive due to the location, professionalism and quality of their team. It is also extremely convenient as an operator to have one point of call for all our needs – this has a dramatic impact on our time and efficiency and is another proof of our needs being understood.

It is clear that Clockwork have a very fresh and innovative approach to our requirements. As a business within an extremely competitive sector, it is vital we find ways of differentiating ourselves from our competitors whilst retaining our core vision and purpose. Clockwork undoubtedly help set us apart from similar operations and heavily support increases in our sales; this in turn guarantees growth of our business at a significant rate, which of course is imperative in the current climate.

It is a pleasure to work with Clockwork, the way their products and services are so successfully aligned and personally and professionally delivered are second to none.” Cameron Hodder, General Manager 2011-12