Millennial influencers the pick for new NT Tourism campaign

Tourism NT is looking to connect directly with millennials through its latest social media marketing campaign, which will feature a group of seven social media influencers, including travel bloggers and content creators, on a trip around the Territory. 

The influencers will provide owned content for Tourism NT including images, videos and travel articles. Tourism NT has also engaged Facebook, Pedestrian TV, Spotify, and YouTube to reach the millennial market.

“The tourism market is evolving and the NT government is responding to the changes by adapting our marketing, in this case through working with social media influencers," deputy CEO for the department of tourism, sport and culture, Andrew Hopper, said.

The group is travelling from the Red Centre to the Top End and will share their best photos with their social media followers using the hashtag #NTaustralia. The group has a combined tally of more than 1.49 million followers and Tourism NT wants to promote the top end as a must-visit travel spot.

“Social media platforms offer extensive scope for images of the Territory to reach a global audience, and people who would otherwise perhaps not be exposed to content from the NT," Hopper said.

This campaign, while it focuses on millennials, which covers the 24 to 34 age bracket, also allows Tourism NT to also pick up youth and family travellers within this group.

“We’ve seen a growth in awareness of 18 per cent in the group and our goal is to maintain this rise and convert it into visitations to the territory,” executive general manager of marketing for Tourism NT, Tony Quarmby, told CMO.

The tourism outfit has found previous marketing campaigns to this audience have been successful using social media and millennials themselves, because it's a powerful combination of connecting with the target demographic through their peers. It enables it to feature attractive, travel-inspiring content showcasing the Northern Territory in places where millennials spend their time, predominantly through digital channels and on social media.

“Tourism NT has strategically chosen to work with influencers who are also professional content creators, photographers and videographers, which means they’re not only receiving global reach through social media, but also large suites of owned content," said Hopper.

It's not the first time NT Tourism has tapped into influencer marketing to reach audiences. Tourism NT, as part of the NT government’s Turbocharging Tourism initiative last year, hosted a road trip which included social media influencer, Carmen Huter, whose Instagram photo taken at Bitter Springs received more than a million likes after the social media giant reposted it on the official @instagram page.

Tourism NT is also looking to make the most of the newly released film Top End Wedding and the Location Scouts mini-series to raise awareness and convert that awareness into visits across all the many parts of the territory.

“We have a Webjet campaign as well as contextual and programmatic video advertising that links to the awareness campaigns," Quarmby told CMO.

It's part of their overall marketing strategy to use various channels to speak to as wide an audience as possible about all the varied stories of tourism in the territory and linking awareness raising to travel.

“Our various different campaigns focus on demographics and psychographics, not just age. So we have campaigns that focus on adventure, like skydiving or walks, arts-like installations and local art works, events, and using local personalities to reveal less visited parts of the territory. Influencer and social media marketing is just one part of this,” Quarmby said.

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