By David Christopher Lee, Destination Luxury Editor in Chief

I started the site, Destination Luxury originally back in 2009. My background being in the visual arts, I had the opportunity to work a number of luxury brands, such as the Baccarat, Brioni, Zac Posen, Aman Resorts, Waldorf Astoria Properties, Relais & Chateau. Initially, Destination Luxury was a place to post work shot for various clients (hotels, restaurants, fashion brands). Nearly 1,000 people visited the site per month, and the information on the site was very straight forward i.e., not viral or shareable.

 

THE DESTINATION LUXURY FORMER SITE.

Every time I created product for a client, I asked that they cross promote my Facebook page.  Over the next 4 years, the Destination Luxury Facebook page went from zero to 90,000 followers, yet for some reason, our website wasn’t growing in tandem. Turns out our article titles weren’t enticing enough; they were too straightforward and didn’t pique readers interest. There also was not a lot of text on each article, thus, not promoting engagement.

OUR NEW SITE.

Starting in 2013, we took a different approach. Now, with more than 165,000 fans on Facebook, Destination Luxury is the established social media leader in promoting images and videos for the luxury sector. Recently, I made a few changes to the site which caused a significant traffic spike:

  • We changed our layout;
  • We added social media share buttons throughout the site;
    • We changed the picture size to a larger format as well as changed the format of our articles, including many list-based features;
  • Included engaging titles to the site, such as:
    15 HOTELS TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE
    10 MUST TO LUXURY EXPERIENCES IN NY
    GUESS WHICH CITY KARL LAGERFELD IS BUILDING HIS NEW HOTEL
    8 HEALTH BENEFITS OF CHAMPAGNE
  • Social media numbers are now displayed on each article. This encourages readers to click through to social media sites and follow us as well;
  • We designed email opt-in forms to be the first thing that any reader sees; over the course of 3 months, we were able to collect over 15,000 new emails. We send out newsletters twice a month with a 35% open rate. The average email list open rate is 7%.
  • Our most successful article is 15 HOTELS TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE.
    • I put a beautiful image of the hotel accompanied by a small description, shared it on my Facebook page, tweeted to the hotels, emailed the hotel publicists (whom I had existing relationships with) and everybody promoted the article.
    • The result: 7,000 shares on Facebook and 40,000 views in 3 days. I’ve used the same method when promoting lists and many of our features have between 1,000 to 2,000 Facebook shares to a very targeted luxury demographic.

CONCLUSION.

Destination Luxury traffic is growing in leaps and bounds as we continue to enhance the site.
Here are the current statistics:
1. Bounce rate: .55%
2. Percentage of returning visitors: 40%
3. Average monthly traffic: 100,000
4. Facebook traffic went from 90,000 to 165,000

For more info on our stats and contact information, checkout our media kit.

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