As a new entrant to the Hotel market, citizenM faced strong competition from the off. With other huge hotel chains monopolising the market, and budget comparison sites cannibalising it, citizenM had to make a big impact, fast. citizenM appointed ID with a clear brief: To help them make a digital impact globally, with a focus on organic search marketing. Additionally, we were enlisted to assist with the launches of some of their key and most prestigious locations, including New York City and Paris.

  • brand

    CitizenM

  • website

    citizenm.com

  • sector

    Travel, Leisure

  • services

    SEO, Outreach, Social, Events

Results
4

creative event executed

67

key bloggers attendees
attracted

88

Unique link domains
achieved

35

Average DA achieved

1.5m

social reach across
Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram

72%

increase in organic
traffic YOY

101

website ranking
improvements

100%

increase in organic revenue YOY

objectives
  • Organic Traffic

  • Revenue from Organic Traffic

  • Blogger engagement and social interactions

  • Page one rankings

What We Did
  • Site

    We began with their site. They were in the process of relaunching their website, which meant that ID could influence the site’s architecture, structure and functionality to ensure it was in the best shape for the search campaign we were embarking on.

  • Content

    We then moved on to content. We helped to plan, write and optimise onsite content, including keywords, landing pages, page titles and descriptions. We began to execute the off-site search marketing campaign. We tackled this global search campaign using local search tactics, creating bespoke, localised campaigns around each of the hotel locations.

    Through analysis, we discovered that one of the key terms they needed to target to compete was “boutique hotels”, such as “Boutique hotels London” and “boutique hotels Paris”.

    We also made sure that their more traditional marketing and PR efforts were being capitalised on to make a bigger SEO impact and grow their digital footprint.

  • Authority

    Finally, and key to the success of their search marketing campaign, we moved on to Authority. Creating an authoritative, organic link profile which would also attract citizenM’s target audience and generate a brand buzz. They wanted brand affinity with like-minded and like-branded companies, bloggers and influencers. The measure would be social interaction, positive brand experiences from customers, bloggers and influencers and high-quality organic links.

    citizenM’s concept: A blogger slumber party. We researched a list of digital influencers aligned with citizenM’s brand values, with a focus on those with a strong domain and an engaged readership. In New York, citizenM  created a private slumber party at the hotel prior to its public unveiling.