Digital Marketing Training and Coaching Zambia Tourism

Zambia as a destination has a wealth of unique features. These are especially attractive for specific European markets, being the ‘core’ markets with high revenue potential and high affinity for leisure travel to Zambia. As a part of CBI’s long-term program for the tourism sector in Zambia, Globally Cool assisted 19 tour operators and 7 hotels & lodges to enhance their digital marketing strategy.

The Digital Marketing tourism Zambia project is an interactive digital marketing training for tourism operators in Zambia. The objective is to conduct an integrated e-learning intervention and providing capacity-building to the tourism operators. The blended learning and coaching approach aims to improve the online presence of the participating companies and to develop and implement an effective digital marketing plan to grow their business. The project consists of three phases: a structured needs analysis, online training, followed by one-on-one coaching sessions.

First phase - Structured needs analysis (November 2020 – February 2021) Based on a set of criteria, the companies assessed their website and social media. To get more insight into each company’s skills and knowledge, we developed an additional questionnaire. These analyses allow us to identify the needs of each company. Based on this, we grouped companies with similar needs into subgroups, accompanied by tailored, specific learning plans.

Second phase – Online training, blended learning (February – June 2021) Part two consisted of preparing and conducting the online training sessions. For this part, we developed an e-learning platform and content for 9 webinars. Blended learning is a combination of online (and pre-recorded) webinars, assignments for the participants, and individual feedback on the assignments. The assignments acted also as the basis for the digital marketing plan.

Third phase – Make it happen, distant guidance (June – December 2021) In this phase, we coached the companies. In small group training sessions, we discussed the most important challenges, and, in addition, we organised one-on-one coaching sessions to help them with further developing and implementing their digital marketing plan.

Extended program - Digitalisation training and coaching for tour operators and lodges  (May – December 2022) In 2021, the group of companies was trained and coached on various digital marketing topics, such as social media, SEO, website development, and collaboration with OTAs. This extended program concerns the follow-up of this intervention, as although important progress has been made, additional support is needed. This support is directed at the actively participating companies to have further improved their professional online presence by the end of 2022.

Activities

Globally Cool experts transferred their knowledge during nine live webinars:

1. Online training strategic content: create content for target audience.
2. Online training website usability: best practices homepage, tour page, about us.
3. Online training effective content marketing, SEO, and images.
4. Online training to find and select OTAs.
5. Online training social media marketing.
6. Online training Advertising (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google Ads & SEA).
7. Online training email marketing.
8. Online training Google analytics: monitoring & evaluation.
9. Finalize Digital Marketing strategy: actions and how to.

There were also self-assessments and assignments per lesson available, and the recorded webinar sessions were made available for viewing at the Globally Cool Academy e-learning platform. After the webinar series, an evaluation and one-on-one coaching sessions were conducted with the attendees. The goal was to finalize its Digital Marketing Plan and to make use of quick wins to flourish again.

The extended program activities included:

1. Social media in 2022 workshop
2. Product page optimization workshop
3. Communication for sustainable tourism efforts through a digital marketing workshop

The recorded webinar sessions were made available for viewing at the Globally Cool Academy e-learning platform. After the webinar series, an evaluation and one-on-one coaching sessions were conducted with the attendees.

Results

Website improvements
Since the one-on-one coaching sessions, the websites of these companies have improved significantly, especially when it comes to the calls-to-action, making websites more strategic, and displaying the USPs. For example, more than 79% of the companies have clear calls-to-action on their product pages, which is an increase of almost 32%. We have also seen impressive results with companies showing clear USPs on their homepages (+30%) and having an SEO focus (+28%).

Social media improvements
More and more companies started posting on social media and/or increased the number of posts (+8%). When posting on social media, they now more frequently add a link to their website (+26%). Their strategies are also reflected better in their posts (+13%).

Email campaign & Google My Business Listing
All companies are able to make use of email campaigns and claimed a Google My Business Listing.

Google ads and social media ads
All companies are able to set up ad campaigns on Google and also boosted their social media presence through Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads.

Monitoring & evaluation
All companies have connected their website with Google Analytics and are able to set segments, and goals, and understand how to read the report.