Today people no longer ‘go’ online but ‘live’ online so a cutting edge web presence is extremely important for every business, place, commodity or resource. Until 2010, it was very difficult for local people, visitors and businesses to find information online about events, things to do, sights to see or planning a trip to Limerick. The city was severely affected by the economic downturn and bad news stories. A unified voice shouting for, and about Limerick using digital channels was needed. The solution was Limerick.ie.
Using the experience gained over seven years, the team behind the site wanted to do more and this coincided with Limerick City and County Council’s desire to improve service provision. In 2017, after a 18 month redevelopment marathon, Limerick.ie was relaunched. The site was designed by specialist growth marketing agency Dara Creative and built in co-operation with Annertech with full content and technology support from the council’s in-house Digital Strategy Team and Communications and Marketing team.
“Limerick has had a dramatic turnaround and is today a competitive, modern, vibrant and exciting location for living, doing business and visiting. We wanted to deliver an integrated platform to showcase all that this new Limerick represents and we have achieved that with Limerick.ie,” explained Laura Ryan, Head of Marketing and Communications at LCCC.
Far from being limited to information about events and attractions, it includes corporate information for businesses; 15 dedicated websites for main local towns including Kilmallock, Adare and Newcastle West, and local people can make service requests/report items to the council through ‘My Limerick’. This ‘one-stop-shop’ is not only a “best in class local authority platform” (the most advanced of its type in Ireland) but was named as one of the world’s best tourism sites by the US-based global intelligence platform Skift.com. Laura added that “users can help generate content for the site so it allows them to have a role themselves in promoting Limerick”.
“Citizens can also find out what services the Council offers and engage with us. All the data we can gather from the ‘My Limerick’ section also allows us to plan for the future marketing of Limerick in a smart way and it will very much inform us also about how we promote Limerick in the future.”
Limerick.ie has had almost 1.2m users since re- launch in April 2017 and is currently experiencing an average 34% increase compared to the previous year. It has a target of gaining 1 million unique visitors per year, as well as increasing engagement with the council through its digital channels. It has just been announced that leading global creative agency M&C Saatchi will create a new brand for Limerick that will “reflect its resurgence as a thriving economic and visitor destination” and Limerick’s unique online platform will play a huge part in this process.
