The Monumental Garden of Valsanzibio | Our Work

Website development

Video and Photography

Copywriting

Social media

SEO

Email marketing

Valsanzibio (full name The Monumental Garden of Valsanzibio and Villa Barbarigo) is a privately owned and managed estate, located approximately 50km south-east of Venice, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It comprises two principal parts: the first is a monumental garden, designed by renowned architect L. Bernini; and the second a Baroque-era villa, both created in the 1600s.

The monumental garden features unique examples of Renaissance and Baroque-era statuary, numerous fountains and water features, rare and endangered plants and trees, and the world’s oldest original boxwood labyrinth.

Since opening to the public in 2007 visitors have been welcome at Valsanzibio between February and December every year, where they are free to explore the gardens at their leisure. After observing a steady increase in the number of visitors annually over the first decade, this trend slowed in 2018, which led the owner to undertake a program of outreach and PR in an attempt to raise the profile of Valsanzibio, both in Italy and internationally.

The Basker Roberts team learned about the estate in one such piece of PR in the UK edition of the Financial Times in July 2018. In collaboration with the Volare Marketing Partnership (which Basker Roberts is a founding member of) we made contact with the owner, and following a series of discussions and meetings (both virtually and in-person) agreed a scope of works that would overhaul Valsanzibio’s online presence.

Valsanzibio is one of Italy’s most beautiful gardens, having won countless awards over the years. Basker Roberts learned about Valsanzibio in a newspaper article in summer 2018, and reached out to offer the team’s help to support Valsanzibio in their digital marketing. The journey since then has been both busy and exciting!

Basker Roberts redeveloped their existing website to bring across the true beauty of the garden in order to entice more visitors and increase their international footprint. Following a location visit with our creative team, the website now employs strong use of video throughout, giving an all encompassing showcase of what to expect from your visit.

Digital Development

Creative

Digital Marketing

View Site

The result was an extensive project that successfully revitalised the estate’s digital footprint. This included a redesigned website which provided a superior user experience, an integrated online booking system which allows visitors to intuitively purchase their tickets online, and a coherent and complete strategy for social media, all of which had a focus on increasing international awareness of the gardens.

The team continues to provide support to the estate in all of these areas, and the work has resulted in a measurable increase in website traffic (both local and international), a 353% increase in audience on Instagram and a 171% on Facebook.

Furthermore, the provision of digital tickets has proved an invaluable addition to Valsanzibio’s offering particularly in response to COVID-19. As Italy reopened after its spring lockdown, Valsanzibio saw a 806% increase in digital ticket sales compared to the same period a year earlier, protecting its revenue from what otherwise may have caused a significant loss.