On Digital

Irfan Kamal July 9th, 2008

I asked the Travel Channel’s Head of Digital Marketing, Pete Dorogoff, some questions about how the Travel Channel is currently approaching digital media, with a specific emphasis on social media.   Here are the questions and Pete’s answers:

What’s your title?

Head of Digital Marketing, Travel Channel

What’s your role at the Travel Channel?

In my role, I strive to leverage Travel Channel’s unique perspective and impassioned insider POV through marketing best practices and initiatives.   Our digital marketing strategy drives a valuable, integrated – customer centric – experience, on-air and online, for new and existing Travel Channel fans.

What are your main objectives for online marketing for the Travel Channel?

Travel Channel aims to be a market-maker and win consumer mindshare and awareness through a variety of marketing tactics and initiatives, across various media and mediums.  By extending the value of our on air brand through the marketing of our top shows and fan sites, we also strive to make travelchannel.com a go-to resource and guide for worldly travelers seeking travel ideas, destinations, trip planning and community.

How do you measure results, i.e. what metrics do you typically track?

We measure all relevant noise across all media:  broadcast, print, online, and all.  It’s about the eyeballs… and a few crossed eyes too!

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most effective, how effective would you rate each of these types of online marketing for delivering results as you’ve defined them?

Search engine optimization (SEO):

SEO is an absolute 5.  We’ve made a considerable investment in doing this right.  It’s all about the long tail on the web and not only remaining top of mind but also top of search results.

Search engine advertising/marketing (SEM):

I would rank SEM a 4 or 5, at least for a media company.  It’s difficult to value a customer, or page, when there’s no direct monetary transaction.  You become creative with determining the life time value of a user and SEM becomes a critical component for driving new traffic and steering existing traffic as well.

Social media / word of mouth (blogs, microblogging services, social networks):

We’ve placed this as a 5 in our strategy for the foreseeable future and look to Social Media as a complimentary tactic in reaching out to our various audiences with the intent to drive deeper engagement, tune in to programming and on-air to online to mobile to on-air conversions.

All other online advertising (display ads, multimedia ads):

We fully support the effectiveness of online and multimedia display ads for all advertisers and marketers wishing to build an important presence and awareness online.

Can you provide an example or two of an innovative way you’ve used (or plan to use) social media – e.g. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, other microblogging service, blogger promotion, etc.?

We have an aggressive Social Media strategy overall with presence on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and others.  We strive to continually engage with viewers, fans and users alike with a multi-tiered approach to cross platform marketing for all our top-rated shows, as well as the Travel Brand itself, whether it be WOM, Viral Outreach, Blogging, or Search.

We’ve found over time that you have to ‘be in the weeds’ and not the corporate voice of a god to really gain respect and influence within the blogosphere.

What’s Travel Channel’s biggest priority or challenge for online marketing for 2008 and 2009?

Deliver fresh, useful travel content, tools, games & experiences that extend the value of our on-air brand and show extensions.  Focus on anytime, anywhere, multi-platform content & tools.

Any books you’d recommend?

I’ve recently re-read The Blue Ocean, which continues to be relevant

What’s your favorite charitable organization?

Causes.com

Thank you.

About Travel Channel

For reader reference, here’s a quick look at travelchannel.com’s compete.com trends (about 400% June 07-June 08 growth ain’t bad!):

And here’s a company description:

Approaching travel as a life cycle, the Travel Channel is the cornerstone of Travel Channel Media, an integrated multi-platform travel business wholly owned by Cox Communications. Travel Channel Media includes: the Travel Channel, available in more than 90 million U.S. cable homes; travelchannel.com, the network’s broadband travel hub; Travel Channel’s video-on-demand (VOD) and mobile platforms; and World Hum (worldhum.com), a leading online travel blog.

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