Shortly after graduating from Florida State University, I found myself at the Evergreen Lodge— a historic full service lodge located just outside of Yosemite National Park in California and sister property to Rush Creek Lodge. Joining a small in-house marketing team meant that my role within the company evolved and changed rapidly over the three years that I worked with the organization, transitioning from Marketing Communications Specialist to the Assistant Marketing Manager. During my time with the company, I was responsible for the following at both properties:

Social Media Management

Initially my primary task was to take an inactive Facebook Page and bring it back to life, and expand the lodge’s social media presence to other platforms. Creating a set of social media guidelines for voice, posting frequency and intention allowed for monthly editorial calendar creation. The introduction of influencer and micro influencer marketing to the overall social media strategy allowed for greater authentic exposure for the lodge. With consistent and entertaining content I was able to grow the overall flowing by over 225%.

Here are screen snippets of the ‘Media Influencer Request Form’ I created as a way to evaluate the large influx of requests we were receiving for our collaboration campaigns:

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Feel free to take a peak at the type of content I’d create for the Evergreen Lodge’s social media accounts by downloading the following editorial calendar.

Reputation Management

I was also responsible for the management of the lodge’s online reviews. Utilizing TrustYou‘s sentiment reporting software, I was able to increase the lodge’s response rate from 6% to 67%. I also collected sentiment patterns and complied weekly sentiment reports for our senior management team. I also assisted in the introduction and integration of Flip.to software to the organization to better manage costumer’s journey and make the most out of reviews as earned media.

Collateral Creation

With the addition of Rush Creek Lodge to company’s properties, it was impertinent that we established consistency between the two properties’ collateral. Whether that meant designing new pieces or updating preexisting pieces. I was responsible for working with the design team to unify the collateral and branding between both properties.

This included Recreation Trip Outlines, Rack Cards, Property Maps, Information Sheets, and so much more.

In addition to collateral creation, I also was largely responsible for asset creation. Assisting with various professional photo and video shoots’ logistics and direction to ensure that all brand needs were met.

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Website Development

During my time at the Evergreen Lodge, the website went through a total overhaul. Optimizing for mobile usability, revising layout and look and overall update to images and assets allowed us to bring the website to the forefront of the hospitality industry standard.

With a focus on click-ability and link building, search engine optimization was an integral part of my duties. All new pages needed to meet SEO standards, and all existing pages were re-copywrited to match newly establish SEO standards.

Media Relations & Coordination

During my time a the lodges, I not only introduced and established a system to introduce and evaluate social media influencers into our digital marketing strategy, I was responsible for all on-site media relations and visit coordination. From travel accommodations to story lines, property tours to post-stay collaboration and asset distribution, I was solely responsible for all on-site media communication.

I had the opportunity to work with media from nationally and internationally recognized publications such as Fodors, Lonely Planet, BBC World News, GQ Magazine, UK Mail and People Magazine.

Be sure to take a look at the overall site visits year in review for both lodges in 2017 and 2018 here:

Industry Partner Relations

Developing a large network of industry partners was critical for the marketing strategy of the Evergreen Lodge. I worked closely with local destination marketing organizations, like Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau and San Francisco Travel, and broader level organizations, like Visit California and Brand USA, to put together media visits, FAM trips and individual visits as pats of larger media campaigns.

It was also my responsibility to represent the lodges at a variety of industry specific conferences and travel shows. Whether hosting an individual booth or participating in county/area specific was a crucial way to widen our network and make important connections with new media/industry partners.

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Email Marketing

A large part of our digital marketing strategy was email marketing. Using MailChimp, I’d put together seasonal email campaigns to send out to an email database of over 80,000 subscribers. Employing influencer content we were able to create authentic clickable experiences that set our open rate at 62%, compared to the hospitality industry standard of 40%.

Community Relations

The Evergreen Lodge has been a piece of the Yosemite landscape since 1921, thus making the Yosemite community and the surrounding areas a very integrated piece of the lodge’s marketing strategy. It was my responsibility to represent the lodge at local organization’s meeting, as well as facilitate outreach efforts whether that was in form of sponsoring local events or facilitating donations to causes close to the social mission of the lodge.