How Trafalgar Tours leveraged UGC in their marketing funnel through a powerful campaign

About Trafalgar Tours

Trafalgar Tours is a prominent travel brand and a member of The Travel Corporation that offers curated guided tours to destinations worldwide. With a mission to create exceptional travel experiences, they prioritize customer satisfaction and aim to provide memorable moments for every traveler.

To further emphasize this people-centric approach, the brand embraces user-generated content (UGC) as a vital component of their marketing strategy. They strategically distribute this authentic visual content, which showcases guests and trips, across various channels such as nurture programs, email campaigns, and website pages.

The Challenge

The global pandemic had a profound impact on the travel industry, bringing leisure travel to a standstill for an extended period. As the world gradually started to open up, Trafalgar Tours felt the need to re-engage their past customers, inspire future travelers, and forge a deeper connection with their audience in a meaningful way.

Recognizing the power of authenticity they turned to the idea of harnessing user-generated content as the driving force behind a viral campaign.

To bring their vision to life, Trafalgar Tours needed a solution that could seamlessly collect, curate, rights manage, and distribute a large volume of visual UGC across multiple touchpoints. Having been a trusted client of Nosto for over five years, it was evident that our technology was the perfect fit to empower their campaign and ensure its resounding success.

The Solution

To gather a significant volume of user-generated content, Trafalgar Tours devised a compelling campaign called the “Trafalgar Unlocked Awards.” They invited over 5 million past guests to share their favorite Trafalgar Moments, allowing them to enter for a chance to win an enchanting 12-day trip to the Balkans.

With the help of Nosto’s platform, Trafalgar Tours seamlessly received inspiring stories through various collection strategies. They implemented a specific hashtag #trafalgarunlockedawards that users could use to submit their stories on Instagram or Twitter and also introduced a direct uploader option to ensure maximum participation, even from demographics less familiar with social media.

“The Nosto’s direct uploader functionality has been truly remarkable in capturing the photos of our older demographic. It’s heartwarming to see them sharing their cherished memories, including scanning in old photos from the 70s. This function allows us to access content that they wouldn’t typically share on social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter.” – says Kelsey Fitzgerald, Social Media Manager for the Travel Corporation.

Outside of content collection, Nosto played a crucial role in streamlining the entire process, ensuring that every submission was well-organized and rights-managed. This allowed the brand to effectively leverage the content across their entire marketing strategy and cater to the needs of the different regional teams.

The collected visual UGC was utilized across a multitude of touchpoints, including print media, paid advertising, direct mail, website pages, blogs, and TV commercials. This comprehensive approach allowed Trafalgar Tours to engage both new prospects and existing customers effectively showcasing the authentic stories shared by their past guests. The campaign truly spanned the entire customer journey, from creating awareness and consideration to fostering retention and re-engagement.

“Nosto and their team have been with us every step of the way, from the initial ideation of this campaign to providing the technology that enabled its success”. – says Mia Hamzic, Global Head of Marketing and Campaigns at the Travel Corporation.

“The UGC gathered through Nosto has been invaluable for our paid advertising efforts. It allows us to showcase the real experiences of our guests and effectively execute our brand and trip campaigns. With all content rights approved, we have the confidence to utilize this UGC across various channels, including prospecting campaigns, to engage new audiences and highlight the Trafalgar Tours experience.”

Mia Hamzic, Global Head of Marketing and Campaigns at the Travel Corporation

The Results

The Trafalgar Unlocked Awards campaign yielded outstanding results:

Aimed for 3,000 content submissions but massively exceeded expectations with an impressive count of 10,570 UGC pieces
Engagement rates on prospecting ads were 4x higher than the standard ads with no UGC

“Our social media community absolutely loved this campaign. The response has been phenomenal across all our social channels, with exceptional organic engagement. The top three posts of 2023 are all tied to the Trafalgar Unlocked Awards, solidifying the campaign’s immense success.” – says Kelsey Fitzgerald, Social Media Manager for the Travel Corporation.

The success of the campaign resonated throughout the company, it became evident that campaigns like this hold tremendous potential for the future, as they deepen the connection with customers and inspire new adventures.

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