Case Studies

	Client: International Plaza Spa & Resort Site URL: www.intlplazaresort.com Campaign Date: August 2007

Blog Marketing - It Works!

THE CLIENT
International Plaza Resort & Spa, a luxury hotel destination, is a perfect hotel for anyone attending meetings or conventions at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando - the hotel is a minute from the convention center and offers a variety of executive-level amenities and attentive services.

THE CHALLENGE
A hotel well known to business travelers, the International Plaza Resort and Spa needed to effectively promote a special rate of $119 nightly that it was extending to participants attending the Microsoft MGX Conference in July of 2007. As the property was not an official host hotel for this conference, a last-minute solution was needed in order to promote this special rate to potential convention attendees.

THE SOLUTION
.Com Marketing saw an opportunity to utilize the power of one of the best online marketing tools: blog marketing. According to MarketingProfs.com, "Enormous numbers of people are jumping into blogging... 120,000 new blogs are coming online daily."

In order to capitalize on this upcoming convention opportunity, .Com Marketing developed a focused, time sensitive Blog Marketing Campaign, which included a rate-specific landing page on the client's website focusing on the Microsoft MGX convention attendees.

An attention-getting opportunity to feature the special rate was presented to a network of bloggers who were involved in the software development industry who would be enthusiastic about promoting the hotel's great rate for the Microsoft MGX Conference along with the features and amenities of the hotel property.

THE SUCCESS
When conducting a Google Search for the keyword phrase "Microsoft MGX conference," all returned results on the first page were of bloggers' posts for the hotel stay at International Plaza Resort & Spa in Orlando. In the first two hours of the campaign launch, 100 bloggers had posted information about the special rate.

All of the blog posts were viewed a staggering total of 23,629 times for the hotel property's "Microsoft MGX conference" blog promotion in just three weeks. Over all, more than the first 5 pages of search results on Google were filled with blog posts that advertised the special rate available for MGX conference attendees staying at the International Plaza Resort and Spa in Orlando. In addition, first page placements also included Yahoo and MSN search engines.