Old countryside cottage

Travel Chapter: Proactive PR

Driving high authority links in the travel industry through proactive and reactive activity

The client

Travel Chapter is one of the UK’s largest UK holiday let companies, with a number of regional and specialised brands under their portfolio. In 2020 they came to us with the aim of increasing their organic visibility on focus keywords, and raising overall brand awareness, so that when people could holiday, they booked with Travel Chapter. We’ve worked with Travel Chapter on three of their brands – holidaycottages.co.uk, their flagship brand, Sally’s Cottages, who specialise in Lake District properties, and Canine Cottages, who specialise in dog-friendly holiday lets.

The approach

We knew that the UK staycation landscape was extremely dynamic, affected by global megatrends, localised triggers such as weather, and was increasingly driven by social media trends. Based on this, we tailored a PR strategy that blended a flexible and agile proactive and reactive approach, which sat alongside traditional hero campaigns. 

Client

Service

  • Digital PR

Year

2020-present
1039

Links

61

Average DA

The strategy

We took a three-pronged approach to Digital PR, with a larger share of focus on proactive and reactive PR, knowing that the travel industry responds well to key cultural and seasonal trends.  

By tapping into each brand’s key niches – dogs, the Lake District, and UK staycations – we positioned the client as industry experts within these areas and worked with qualified experts to add further credibility. Within our proactive approach we drove backlinks to key focus areas of the site such as blogs, location, and category pages, to further drive organic visibility and traffic. 

Alongside this, we utilised the client’s online portfolio and internal data, to offer newsworthy reactive stories, with unique data, landing links in high authority publications. When it came to dogs, knowing that pet news relied on quick-fire reactive content, we worked with the client to onboard an industry expert, qualified vet and dog behaviourist Dr. Emma Scales-Theobald. 

Building links to key regional focus areas through reactive PR

Holidaycottages.co.uk wanted to target link acquisition in the key regions of the UK where their cottages are located to boost rankings in these areas, as well as showcasing brand awareness for the beautiful areas to visit. 

We included proactive activity into our strategy, which focused on the ‘best UK areas for X’ format around key seasonal events – from the UK’s best picnic spots to the best UK royal gardens around the King’s coronation. 

The campaign achieved 337 links with an average DA of 63.

Travel Chapter campaign coverage

Collaborating with a Doctor on canine health

Dog owners are always on the lookout for actionable advice to keep their pooches healthy and happy, whether at home, or on holiday – and so are journalists.  

With this in mind, we wanted to work with a well-known vet to raise awareness of key canine health issues, adding further credibility to our outreached content, and strengthening the brand’s reliability. 

We enlisted vet and content creator Dr. Emma Scales-Theobald in January 2024 for a partnership to create quick fire reactive comments around topics from how to deal with a reactive dog, to storm anxiety. 

The campaign achieved 660 links with an average DA of 60.

Sally’s Cottages

Sally’s Cottages are based within the Lake District and have beautiful properties within the region. We wanted to position the Lake District as a top place to visit for a staycation in the UK, driving relevant and unique backlinks in publications viewed by their key target audience.

To do this, we added proactive activity into our strategy which focused on ‘best wild swimming spots’, ‘hidden winter destinations’, ‘UK alternatives to popular European getaways’, and more. 

We placed backlinks on relevant and high-DA websites, including 18 new domains from Forbes to the Metro to boost the brand’s authority and SERPS positioning against competitors. 

The campaign achieved 37 links with an average DA of 62 and 120% increase in new organic users. 

Sally's Cottages campaign coverage

Overall results

1039

Links (Sept 2020 – Jan 2024)

“We’ve worked with Connective3 since 2020 across three of the Travel Chapter bands and we always feel like we are in safe hands. The team bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the account and have delivered some excellent results and quality content during this time. Their flexible approach means that we are always able to adapt the strategy to meet the demands of the ever-changing world of digital PR and their insights and learnings each quarter make a huge difference to the results we see.”

Sarah Pring
Digital PR Manager, Travel Chapter