Brand Your Community

I will continue to share information presented at the Nebraska Travel Association Fall Travel Conference in Norfolk.  As a community it is our responsibility to “Jettison the generic” the days of the marketing list is over.  The reason is most communities’ lists are the same as the next community down the road.  If our list is the same as the community down the road or even the same as what is available in someone’s home community why would they want to go to all the effort and cost of coming here.  If it is just like home why bother coming?  We have to create a brand that will set us apart from everyone else.  If you can go to another community/tourism website and the list of available activities looks identical to your own that means your community has some work to do.  A Brand is the perception of what people “think” you are.  So it is important to figure out what people think we are.

The unique niche may not be a huge thing or it may be something you don’t necessarily like about your community, but it is what makes you unique.    Market this heavily and then let everyone know about the other things you have available to do and enjoy once they have experienced the lure that got them to your community.   The point is your community cannot be everything to all people.  This will result in mediocrity and ultimate failure.

The speaker expressed an interesting concept that membership organizations however, can kill good marketing efforts.  The reason is that in a membership organization everyone gets very territorial about their own interests.  When the community “lure” is promoted, travelers will also look to diversionary experiences to fill their time once they have experienced the “lure attraction”.  These diversionary experiences will create a full rich travel experience.  So ultimately everyone benefits.

Another fact presented was if you have a niche and it has been bringing people into your community for years and years; don’t try to change your image because you are tired of it.  Freshen it up, spice it up, present it with a new twist, but don’t reinvent the wheel.  An example given was Salem, Massachusetts and the “Salem Witch Trials” of 1692.  People have been visiting that area for that reason for over 300 years.  Recently some community leaders decided they wanted to change the lure and focus of the marketing strategy, because they were tired of the “witch image” and felt like “their personal interests” weren’t being promoted.  They soon realized this marketing strategy wasn’t going to work and returned to focus on what had worked for their community for 300 plus years.

I know some communities will say we don’t have anything that is unique.  Next week I will share with you examples of how communities created their uniqueness.  For more information contact Rosie Stockton Furnas/Harlan Partnership, 308-962-7894, email: director@furnas-harlan-partnership.org. www.furnas-harlan-partnership.org

Marketing to Today’s Traveler

The Fall Conference for the Nebraska Travel Association was held last week in Norfolk.  It was a good thing we were kept busy indoors for those three days, because it rained the whole time.  It was a great educational and motivational experience.  Tourism continues to be the third largest industry in Nebraska so we were challenged to make sure we are marketing correctly to today’s traveler.  We are entering into a New Age of Tourism.  More Baby Boomers are hitting the 50 and 60 plus age each day, but a more significant finding is that Generation Y is going to be larger than the Baby Boomers starting in 2010.  This group is also called the Echo Boomers or the children of the Baby Boomers.  They were born anywhere from 1976 through the 1990s.

When it comes to Baby Boomers though there are 350,000 of them turning 50 everyday.  This group controls 70% of all the wealth in North America and they stand to inherit more than any other generation because their parents were some of the best savers in history. Their mindset is individuality and their mantra is “we may be aging but we are not old.”  This group also likes to travel at different times of the year than other groups.  They want to extend the peak season by traveling in April, May, September and October.  Other significant information found through research is that advertisements that show children turn off this demographic group.  Their thought is, we like children, but don’t necessarily want to travel with them or experience them during travel.

It was stressed to us that we need to quit marketing a particular geographic area, but to market what makes us unique.  What makes us unique is our lure and the activities such as hiking, biking, shopping, interesting restaurants, will be what make the whole experience one they remember.  People are exposed on average to 1200 marketing messages a day and people have learned to filter out everything that doesn’t pertain to themselves. If every community is saying the same thing about themselves in their marketing approach people will tune them all out.  The specific activity or attraction that makes us unique or is a niche is what must be promoted.  What is difficult, is figuring out what that unique attribute or niche is for our community.

People are trying to diversify their communities because the Industrial Revolution is over.  Diversification isn’t the promotion of events and activities that we have in our community that is just like everyone else, diversification is figuring out what we have that is different and making that our  number one marketing priority on “the Internet.”  The internet is where the majority of people go when they start researching where they want to travel.  Research has also shown that they search by type of activity or experience and then they go where that is available.  Rarely do people go to a specific location and then look for what they want to do.  Most of the activities people are looking for have a learning  or experiential component.  People are interested in learning about how to do something new or to live through someone else’s life if even for a short time.  For example; people don’t just want great places to eat but they want to learn how to make those great recipes, therefore culinary tourism is very popular.  Art is another example.  People are four times more likely to buy art if they meet the artist or get to try creating something for themselves; other unique learning experiences are ethnic festivals, home & gardening, open air markets in particular if you add entertainment,

I will share other things we learned during this conference in the coming weeks but ultimately the goal is to find or create that niche or lure that is different from what people can get or do at home.  For more information contact Rosie Stockton Furnas/Harlan Partnership, 308-962-7894, email: director@furnas-harlan-partnership.org. www.furnas-harlan-partnership.org