Destination Marketing Plan 2023
Overall Aim:
To continue to raise the awareness of the New Forest as one of a top-quality destination in the UK, with its ancient woodland and vast heathland, stunning nature, free-roaming animals and classic English coastline. Working with local businesses to promote all of the wonderful places to eat, drink, stay and play. Working continuously to promote responsible tourism to protect our unique destination and safeguard its future.
All 2023 marketing activity will follow the principles outlined in Go New Forest’s Business Plan and utilise the forest’s unique cultural heritage, landscape, coastline, history, visitor economy, major events and towns & villages to provide the backdrop for all promotion to residents, day and staying visitors, both nationally and internationally.
Website Rebuild
It has now been 5 years since we rebuilt our website, and with technology, trends and people’s lifestyles changing faster now than ever before, it is important to keep up with the times as a destination. We are therefore having a complete rebuild of our New Forest website in 2023. The new website comes along with a new dynamic, flexible and modern CMS (Content Management System), which will completely enhance the site and improve user-friendliness. The website is being rebuilt with mobile-use at the fore front of design, as well as large imagery also being a main feature of the new website.
The website will take between 4-5 months to rebuild, and we are therefore hoping for the new website to be rebuilt and live before the start of the busy summer season.
Turning over a Green Leaf
In 2022, we saw the soft-launch of our renewed Green Leaf Scheme. During 2022, 27 accommodation and 8 attractions and activity providers received the Green Leaf Award. We will begin 2023 encouraging more Go New Forest Members to use the scheme to develop and adopt responsible operational improvements and receive a Green Leaf Award. We will also be encouraging those who already have an Award to improve their Green Leaf status.
Much of our marketing focus in 2023 will be based around eco-friendly and sustainable breaks and day trips to the New Forest, and making both residents and visitors aware of what a sustainable location the New Forest is, and of the steps that local businesses are taking towards becoming a net zero business.
Additional focuses
We will continue to work on and promote the Taste the New Forest campaign, as this has shown to be extremely popular over the last 2 years. It is important that we continue to promote local places to eat and locally produced food and drink.
Now that we are mostly post-pandemic, we will be continuing to create and work with the itinerary suggestions, which we started pre-pandemic. These itineraries will be a great addition to our website and digital marketing, focusing on particular locations, target audiences and interests, to help those visiting the New Forest plan their time effectively in a place that has such a wide range of things to do and see.
Along with the rebuild of the website, we will be looking at enhancing the walking and cycling routes on our website, adding more suggested routes for everyone to use, encouraging visitors to explore the whole of the whole of the New Forest, while being forest friendly and keeping to the dedicated tracks and walking paths.
In 2023, we are also going to be growing both our photography and videography of the New Forest, as this is the most important and effective way of promoting the New Forest to huge audiences across our digital marketing platforms and on our website. This has been proved by the success of our Instagram account.
Geographic Targets
Staying Visitor: London, Central & Southern England
Day Visitor: 90-minute drive time
Local Visitor: New Forest, Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth
Secondary: WiderUK, Northern Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand
Target Audiences – Resident, Day & Staying Visitor
Young families (preschool – 17)
Intergenerational Family Groups (all ages)
Couples (18-65+)
Friendship/Activity Groups (all ages)
Single Persons (18-65+)
With dogs (All ages)
Tone of Voice
Aspirational and inspirational but real, natural, fun, relaxing and spiritually refreshing, to reach and engage all of those in the wide audience we have of the New Forest.
Primary Messages
Easy to reach: Only 90 minutes south west from London.
Old yet forever new: An inimitable English rural and seaside escape to a National Park with a unique cultural landscape heritage, history and special sense of place.
High quality: An inspirational and unmistakably high-quality destination providing great value visitor experiences for all through great local food & drink, accommodation, events and activities.
Memories for everyone: Happy childhood, family and romantic memories of escaping the everyday through the constantly changing colours of the seasons, the spirit of free-roaming animals and the great circle of life.
Unspoilt and closer to nature: Quintessential English coast and countryside that people dream about, where imaginations awake through a sense of easy adventure and its abiding cycle of nature.
Magical free-roaming wildlife: There is nowhere else that you will see such a variety of animals roaming free in an area, with ponies, cattle, donkeys, pigs, deer and more.
Health & Vitality: A sense of freedom, wellbeing, refreshment & renewal. Enjoy the fresh air, vast landscapes and special nature all around.
Full of adventure: With over 140 miles worth of waymarked paths and tracks, through woodlands, heathland and grasslands, there is nowhere better for adventures, by foot, bike or horseback.
Discovery: A place of great variety; explore pretty villages, learn about nature, visit historic houses and unique themed attractions leaving you wanting to return to uncover secrets yet discovered.
Environment: Leave your car behind and become carbon neutral by walking, cycling, horse-riding or electric bike or buy local and save distribution miles whilst supporting our local economy.
Save Money: Special offers and discounts all day long with the Go New Forest Card. Supporting local businesses while saving money.
Book Direct The New Forest: “Best Rate Anywhere” specially incentivised accommodation guarantee.
2023 Content, Newsletter & Blog Plans:
Our 2023 New Forest marketing activity will be framed, co-ordinated and guided by our destination-themed plans. These plans have all be constructed and created using evidence generated from the 5 million page views over the past year on www.thenewforest.co.uk as well as from the engagement results of our destination marketing, social media and PR activities in 2022.
The collated evidence has enabled Go New Forest to create a very detailed framework of themes, promotions, subjects, seasonal interests and key terms all based around the New Forest to use over the next year in all of their promotional activities and website content.
We also encourage all of our Go New Forest Members, and like-minded businesses, to use the researched plans to help assist their own marketing activity and storytelling, so that we can all work together and create even stronger messages throughout the next year, to promote the New Forest and everything that it has to offer. See Appendices 1, 2, 3 & 4 below.
Appendix 1 – Content Plan 2023
Appendix 2 – Blog Schedule 2023
