A public relations planning exercise using free and low cost digital tools to characterise an audience or public, with the goal of attracting people to visit Newcastle. Prepared for a lecture at Newcastle University.

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How to get people to visit Newcastle?
Public relations
planning exercise
How do we persuade more people to visit
Newcastle?
Stephen Waddington
Visiting Professor, Newcastle University
wadds.co.uk @wadds

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Introducing #PRstack

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#PRtoolbox
This is a public relations planning exercise using data and tools to
identify a public (or audience to use marketing speak) and
insights to influence behavioural change.
I’ve used free or low-cost tools to enable other people you to
experiment with the process and methodology.
Free or low cost tools are never as sophisticated or robust as
commercial tools and there is no guarantee of the quality of the
output or continuity of service.
There is no such thing as free.

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#PRtoolbox
This is a public relations planning exercise using data and tools to
identify a public (or audience to use marketing speak) and
insights to influence behavioural change.
I’ve used free or low-cost tools to enable other people you to
experiment with the process and methodology.
Free or low cost tools are never as sophisticated or robust as
commercial tools and there is no guarantee of the quality of the
output or continuity of service.
There is no such thing as free.

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Challenge
A travel agent wants to attract people from around the UK to visit
Newcastle for short breaks.
You’ll find a full list of the tools and links at
wadds.co.uk/prtoolbox.

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Public relations planning
Research
Insight
Strategy
CreativityContent
Channels
Evaluation

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Public relations planning
Research
Insight
Strategy
CreativityContent
Channels
Evaluation

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A. Demographics and behaviour
1. Office for National Statistics
2. YouGov Profiler LITE
3. Facebook Ad Insights
B. Customer journey
4. Google Customer Journey
5. Google Consumer Barometer
6. Google Search Trends
7. Google AdWords Keyword
Planner
8. Google Search (incognito)
9. AnswerThePublic.com
10. Similarweb
C. Social media
11. Instagram
12. Twitter
13. Followerwonk
14. Bluenod
15. Echosec
16. TripAdvisor
Tools

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A
Demographics and
behaviour

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#1 Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics collates data about statistics
related to the economy, population and society of England and
Wales.
How
1. Visit Office of National Statistics
2. Look up data and reports related to tourism

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Insight #1 London is a
destination for
international travellers

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UK staycations
popular since financial
crisis. Approx. 55m
per year

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#2 YouGov Profiler
YouGov Profile is a segmentation and planning tool for agencies
and brands based on YouGov consumer research.
How
1. Visit YouGov Profiler and search for leads
2. Explore consumer profile and data that is returned

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Young people seeking
entertainment, male
bias

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Bias to digital naturals,
and online media

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#3 Facebook Ad Insights
Use Facebook Ad planner to build a campaign and characterize
the potential audience.
How
1. Log onto Facebook and create an ad campaign
2. Use the variables from prior planning process to target the
campaign

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Characterise the size
of the UK market 17 to
35 year olds – approx.
19 million

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Behavioural insight:
approx. 4.5 million
frequent travellers

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B.
Customer journey

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#4 Google Customer Journey
The Google Customer Journey shows what channels influence
customer decisions at different points in the purchase cycle.
How
1. Head to the Google Customer Journey tool
2. Filter by country and market
3. Compare results with different markets, such as US

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Discovers typically
starts with search
Multi-channel
approach to selection
Deal closed with
directly

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#5 Google Consumer Barometer
Consumer Barometer helps you understand how people use the
internet. It digs into more detail than the Customer Journey Tool.
It covers 45 countries and 10 product categories.
How
1. Visit Google Consumer Barometer
2. Use pre-populated questions or the filter options
3. Compare the influence of different forms of media on the
customer journey

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Online shopping
indexes highly for
hospitality and tourism

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Very high for age
demographic

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#6 Google Search Trends
Google Trends shows how often a particular search-term is
entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions
of the world, and in various languages.
How
1. Visit Google Trends
2. Search by keyword, filtered by country
3. Analyse trends by date
4. Review competitors

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Low in October to
December
High in July and
August

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UK dominant search
location for Newcastle

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Travel is a frequency
term associated with
Newcastle

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#7 Google AdWords Keyword Planner
Google AdWords Keyword Planner shows the search frequency
that keywords and the actual search terms people enter into
Google when conducting a search.
How
1. Visit Google AdWords Keyword Planner and select tools
2. Filter by country, device and locations
3. Review competitors
4. Analyse time period comparisons to review trends

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Low October to
December
Summer high, peaking
in May

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Related searches for
hotel

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Long tail search
results

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#8 Google Search
Google is the dominant search engine. Using Google in incognito
shows how content appears in search.
How
1. Visit Google
2. Search by keyword and take a consumer eye view to results
3. Use link: and related: to find similar sites

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Visit
NewcastleGateshead
is well optimised for
search

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Football, airport,
university, TripAdvisor,
Chronicle and Council
all make up top 10

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Linked sites: no strong
correlation or insight

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Related sites: Theatre,
Centre for Life and
Hadrian’s Wall

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#9 AnswerThePublic.com
AnswerThePublic.com is a tool built by search and content
agency PropellerNet. It enables you to interrogate aggregated
auto-complete data from Google and understand the real
questions that people are asking when they complete a search
query.
How
1. Visit AnswerThePublic.com
2. Search by a variety of keywords. Use the terms surfaced by
Google Keyword planner.

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Football and university

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Football,
entertainment, what’s
on

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#10 Similarweb
Similarweb characterises a website. It profiles traffic, referral
sources, and related websites.
How
1. Visit Similarweb and query websites
2. View results by top content and top influencers

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Well indexed, good
performing site

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Estimated 50,000 to
100,000 visitors per
month

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Search is dominant
source of traffic, then
direct. Social media
limited

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C.
Social media

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#11 Instagram
Instagram allows limited content searches around hashtags. It
can be useful for to discover basic information about popular
culture. You can do the same on Pinterest.
How
1. Visit Instagram on the web and log on with your Instagram
account
2. Search keywords and hashtags for indication of culture and
society

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Football and food
indexes highly

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#12 Twitter
Popular online social network for short messages. Mobile and
news driven.
How
1. Visit Twitter and log in with your account details
2. Use advanced search function to interrogate influencer,
hashtags, keywords and conversations

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Strong community:
football, student life,
entertainment,
shopping, travel

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Football, university
and airport

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#13 Followerwonk
Followerwonk enables you to search Twitter bios by keywords
and return results based on networks, followers and social
authority score.
How
1. Visit Followerwonk and log in with your Twitter details
2. Search by bio location and keyword

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Interesting community:
celerity, football,
Greggs and media

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Media, entertainment,
politicians

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#14 Bluenod
Bluenod is a paid for tool that characterises a network or
community around a topic.
How
1. Create an account on Bluenod
2. Investigate popular hashtags
3. Identify influential people and frequent sharers within the
network

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Insight #1 Football,
media and bloggers
Strong community.
Investigate influencers
over time

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#15 Echosec
Echosec is a location based social media monitoring tool that
extracts location meta data from social media posts and serves
the results overlaid on a Google Map.
How
1. Visit Echosec and select demo options
2. Search by postcode and mark an area to interrogate

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Lots of social content
shared around the
university (no surprise)

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Location check-ins,
retail and
entertainment

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#16 TripAdvisor
Destination website and app for travel deals and reviews.
How
1. Visit TripAdvisor
2. Take a consumer eye view of hotels, restaurants and
attractions

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Natural beauty ranks
highly on TripAdvisor

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D.
Insights

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Research Summary 1
1. The market for staycations is strong (ONS) but not for
international visitors (Google)
2. The customer journey for short UK breaks starts with search
and is closed directly (Google)
3. Social media appears to have limited impact on research and
selection (various)
4. The Newcastle experience (various)
 How to get there, where to stay
 Entertainment
 Football and natural environment
 Universities, student population

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Research Summary 2
5. Potential Facebook audience of around 4.5 million people
(age: 17 to 35, behaviour: freq. travel) (Facebook)
6. July and August are peak periods for short breaks to
Newcastle, October to December is least (Google)
7. Newcastle/Gateshead could be a potential partnership
opportunity (Various)
8. Active Twitter community. Key influencers: airport, NUFC and
Newcastle University

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Thank you

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Public relations
planning exercise
How do we get people to visit Newcastle?
Stephen Waddington
Visiting Professor, Newcastle University
wadds.co.uk @wadds