Public relations practitioner Laura Kinoshita, principal of Kinoshita Communications, was presented with the prestigious Koa Anvil Award Thursday night at the 29^th Annual awards ceremony hosted by the Public Relations Society of America Hawaii Chapter.

The award for Integrated Communications was for the Bite Me Sportfishing campaign. The campaign helped increase new customers, improved search engine rankings, reduced costs for pay-per-click advertising, raised awareness of the Fish Market Bar & Grill and generated more conversations online about Bite Me Sportfishing as a top sportfishing, dining and travel destination site.

Today, the Bite Me Sportfishing website is a better lead generation and sales tool, attracting more customers to each business unit.

The campaign also improved the value of the “Bite Me” brand by improving ratings on travel review sites. In addition, the business owners now have valuable customer and business intelligence.

“Most businesses can’t attribute a dollar of sales to their social media efforts, but we know our business is growing because of it,” said Deneen Wargo, co-owner of Bite Me Sportfishing. “As a result of Kinoshita Communications’ efforts, we now generate more new business leads and sales through our website than we did one year ago.”

Components of the Bite Me Sportfishing campaign included:

• Reputation management on TripAdvisor and Yelp

• Pay-per-click advertising on Google

• Corporate blog setup, training and management

• Website search engine optimization

• Facebook training and management

• Customized Twitter page consistent with branding

• Foursquare setup and management

• Email template design and sign-up forms

• Custom landing pages and offers

• Online Content Strategy with 12-Month Editorial Calendar

• Inbound Link Building and Referral Traffic

• Closed-Loop Customer Analytics

Campaign metrics showed an increase in sales across all business lines. Campaign activities generated a 145% increase in website traffic and 2-3 additional new charter bookings each month. Website optimization saved an average of $697 in monthly pay-per-click spending. TripAdvisor reviews improved two full stars, with 20 new five-star reviews generated in just six months.

The Koa Anvil Awards celebrate the “Four Rings of Excellence” for which entries are judged: research, planning, execution and evaluation. According to the PRSA Hawaii Chapter, it is the competition “to develop better plans, use creativity to produce better results, increase professional skill to produce the best public relations programs and tools that keep the professional motivated and moving forward.

The 2012 Koa Anvil Award for Integrated Communications is the second award bestowed to Kinoshita Communications this season. The PR communications firm also earned an International Hermes Award for Social Media for The Shops at Mauna Lani on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii Island. That campaign helped bridge the digital divide between the online shopping center’s Facebook fans and Twitter followers by using lead nurturing, custom landing pages and email offers that converted online fans to in-store traffic and sales.