Discover the GDA – Global DMC Alliance project

GDA – Global DMC Alliance

GDA – Global DMC Alliance is a network of Destination Management Companies (DMCs) specializing in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions (MICE) industry.

They underwent a website redesign in 2017 but didn’t have the expected result or reach their target audience as much as they knew they could. They approached us mid November 2018 for an audit and a new website, which was launched end of January 2019.

Key achievements (Feb-May 2019)

Users increase 38.7 per cent
New users visiting site 85.9 per cent
Session increase 22.6 per cent
Bounce rate decreased by 76.7 per cent
Time spent on website 19.3 per cent increase

1. The challenge

Understanding the needs.

GDA – Global DMC Alliance’s traffic was 94% on mobile with a website that, although considered responsive (resizing on small screens), was not adapted for navigation on phones and tablets. The destinations page, which was the most viewed page, was not easily accessible on small screens.

The company felt that there wasn’t enough call to action, not enough good quality pictures and that the offer was unclear and the services were difficult to access.

They were also loosing some business by displaying the members direct contact info on the website and having no control over the way people contacted them.

GDA being a network of Destination Management Companies worldwide, it serves as a platform, guaranties quality of its members and offers many options to companies.

The website needed to reflect the size of the network, the range of the offer, the richness of the DMCs as well as establish the Global DMC Alliance as a trusted, leading partner in the industry.

Interest for GDA’s network having grown exponentially, it led to a need to have more control over the site, especially the ability by the network to update new partners and details about services offered.

2. The goals

Setting concrete objectives.

After auditing the current site and doing an extensive research on the competition (websites structures, information displayed and best practices in webdesign for the industry), we designed a strategy and decided to build a website that:

Will be found (SEO)
Converts (clear offer, call to actions, ease of navigation)
Answers the audience expectations
Modern and graphically pleasant
Allows the team to have more control, both on the website management and actions taken on it

We also recommended hiring an in-house marketing executive that would pilot the website resigned and focus on the overall marketing efforts with continuous community management, emailing, DMCs relationship management, online presence and overall communication. This was done before we started the website redesign together.

3. The process

Following the methodology.

Competitors analysis and list of good practices to be replicated

We analyzed what they were doing to list the elements needed on the website, color psychology in the industry, navigation structure, website functionalities and back end structure.

From there we drafted a mock up proposal to be submitted and discussed.

Keywords search to implement a solid Search Engine Optimization Strategy to allow the website to rank better and increase the client’s exposure

We looked at keywords used by competitors as well as best keywords and their click rates using third parties softwares

Website redesign

We redefined the offer together to make it more clear, changed the user experience, inserted multiple calls to actions and ways to contact both the network and DMCs independently, going through multiple rounds of edits and feedback to reach our objectives.

Training, social media and emailing advice

In-house two hours training on website management and social media advice

4. The solutions

What we did for them.

The former website had an interactive map which, although intuitive was counter productive as not working on small screens. It was replaced by a page with images for each destination, organized by continent and accessible via multiple points in the website using anchor links
Authority was better established by displaying logos of members, logos of accreditations, events the network is attending and testimonials
An SEO boost was implemented to give the new GDA – Global DMC Alliance’s website visibility
Landing pages in French, Spanish and Portuguese were created to reach a wider, non English-speaking audience
Better control over inquiries was given, multiple points of contact were created with a video contact form on all main pages, a pop up contact form on homepage, DMCs contact on their dedicated destination page as well as a general contact page
A more modern, image-based graphic identity was put in place to incorporate better the traveling aspect and appeal to emotion/identification of website users

What Christine Spiteri said about us :

“We’re very satisfied with the overall look and feel of our new website. It looks fresh, modern and colourful, in a very professional way. I believe you immediately understood what our brand stands for and what our vision for the site is. You made recommendations to help not only bring our ideas to life, but also take it a step further (e.g. exhibition timeline, DMC pages, contact form, etc.). We have noticed people are spending more time on the site, and it is attracting more quality leads. The website is also generating interest from prospective partners, who are getting in touch with us through the contact form, which is very promising. Overall, we’d like to thank you for your help throughout this project and more importantly after the website was launched! “

Christine Spiteri

Communication Manager @GDA - Global DMC Alliance