Beyond Destination Marketing Essentials

Okay, so we’ve gotten the destination marketing essentials out of the way. I know some of them seem a little edgy, but it’s not all that bad. I just wanted to make a point; that point being this: most impediments to successful destination marketing are self-inflicted.

Will a little attention in a few key areas, you can create a simple, inexpensive marketing program that just kills last year’s numbers.

This site will be discussing the finer points of focusing on your target, hooking them with emotion and crafting a compelling story that will draw them in and make them just rabid to come see what you’re all about.

It will be more difficult for governmental agencies than for individual attractions, but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. There are lots of great campaigns floating around out there. And that gives you lots of good ammo when convincing the higher-ups that if this is worth doing, its worth doing right.

But for the rest of you, getting there will be easier than you ever thought it would. All it takes is tapping into the resources that you probably take for granted every single day, and using them to build your destination into something that starts growing itself.

I hope you stick around to find out more. In the meantime, thanks for visiting Serious Destination Marketing.

 

Serious Destination Marketing Essential #5: There is no room for egos or agendas.

A lot of time, destination marketing is marketing by committee. It’s a CVB or Tourism Board—an extension of city government, and there for tied to someone who has a job because of politics. And that really is a shame.

Because politics is a game of ego and agenda. As such, if someone in politics wants the venture to succeed, then they likely have a counterpart who wants to see it fail. Far too often destination marketing efforts are caught up within this dynamic.

Here’s the painful truth: your marketing can’t be about politics and be successful. It can’t be about ego and agendas, because it has to be about the traveler. If it’s not about the traveler, it simply isn’t going to be effective.

But even in a political situation, your success only needs one thing to get a foothold: one person to take a stand for it. And I mean really take a stand. Someone will have to be accountable for your program if it is to succeed.

Do you have the courage to do that? Because that’s what it will take. You will take the blame if it doesn’t work. And you will likely get begrudging credit if it succeeds. Unfortunately, it’s not going to succeed if someone isn’t there to act as a security blanket for the political process.

But if you are, if you can convince people to just get out of the way while you do what needs to be done to increase traffic, then you will succeed. Just remind them that the only ego that matters it the travelers, and the only agenda that matters is getting heads in beds and dollars in the doors.

Now, if you’re NOT a CVB or T&T Board, you’ve got it easy. That is, as long as you can get out of your own way long enough for the traveler to take center stage.

Thanks for visiting Serious Destination Marketing.

 

Serious Detination Marketing Essential #4: If the story you tell doesn’t match reality, THEIR story will spread faster than yours.

Destination marketing should tell a story… a compelling story about the traveler and the transformative power of their visit to your location. The story should be simple, and powerful, and compelling.

Of course, such a story will be setting an expectation for the traveler. If you set the stage, the traveler had better experience something exceptional. Otherwise, he will leave feeling duped…and that’s bad.

And I don’t mean bad as in you’ll lose a fan and he’ll never come back. It’s not just the old saw about keeping a current customer being far less expensive than winning a new customer. That’s old news.

The new news is that, this traveler is on MySpace, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Flickr. This traveler has a blog. He’s on Twitter. He has a group of close friends in the dozens, an intimate network in the hundreds, and an extended network in the thousands. And with a few strokes of the keyboard, he can let them all know that you’re full of it. And he’s not likely to be flattering or to pull any punches.

An essential aspect, then, of your destination marketing is authenticity. If you’re genuine in your message about what visiting your location entails, if you can deliver on what you’re promising your targets, then that same traveler will tell his network how incredible you are. He’ll write about it, and he’ll talk about it and he’ll probably post pictures of it.

And if you can’t tell your story with compelling authenticity, you have a problem destination marketing can’t fix. You might not even have a destination at all.

Thanks for visiting Serious Destination Marketing.