Destination marketing organizations need to be good marketers. Destination management organizations need to be great marketers.
Building a summer marketing campaign for your postcard-ready places that light up Instagram or the “Places to Visit” carousel on Google? That’s comparatively easy.
Marketing your off-off-Main Street activities, promoting the rural communities with one hotel and a single diner, or generating demand when the snow is high and occupancy is low? That takes marketing excellence.
And it is important work for DMOs to do.
If your community is facing capacity and crowding issues, if your small businesses are struggling to make it through the winter, or if there are parts of your destination that have potential but aren’t yet great tourist destinations — you have to be a great destination marketer. Good alone won’t cut it.
Events don’t get the job done
It is tempting to try to sprinkle in some shoulder season events to fill in the low seasons. Our team has analyzed hundreds of these types of events and time and time again, these events are a great resident draw, but don’t move the needle on overnight visitation. It takes an exceptional event to attract overnight visitors in any significant numbers (Calling Taylor Swift.) A more effective lever to pull is marketing.
A playbook for marketing success
A carefully planned, strategically executed integrated marketing campaign is what we’ve seen to be successful in driving off-season visitation or distributing visitors off the beaten path.
Here’s a playbook we’ve seen work repeatedly.
1. Start with your “why”.
Discover who visits your destination outside of peak season. Then ask, Why? Where? Be specific. This is not the time for a “something for everyone” campaign. This is “something for a very well-defined visitor segment.” The “why” becomes the starting point of building your personas. The why could appeal to snowmobilers or art lovers, photographers or older couples without kids — a visitor who will be unique to your destination.
2. Understand why these people visit during your need period.
Maybe the fall winds are great for paragliding or windsurfing. Or perhaps shorter days make it easier for families to see the dark skies with their kids. This is the hook of your campaign.
3. Look for who travels to your destination for this activity.
Typically, shoulder-season or off-season travel comes from much shorter travel distances because time is short. If you have a four-day weekend, most people won’t want to spend a full day traveling each way. You’re looking for markets far enough to warrant an overnight visit instead of a day trip, but not so far that half their vacation is spent in an airport.
4. Identify areas of interest that complement your “why.”
What else do snowmobilers or families do in your destination that may offer an added incentive to book a trip? This makes your messaging more adaptive and allows the traveler to envision a fuller experience.
5. Build an integrated campaign around attracting this core audience using your campaign hook.
Start with a modest budget. Don’t just send your audience to a generic homepage — take the time to build landing pages with specific itineraries or information built around your hook. Personalize wherever you can, tailoring to audience interests to boost conversions. Layer in paid search to support your paid media, and make sure your hook is front and center on your website so visitors can fall in love with the experience you’re promising them.
6. Make sure you can deliver on the promise.
If you're promoting fat bikes on your winter trails, work with your local bike shop to ensure they’ll be open for rentals and service. Work with your restaurants to make sure your visitors have a place to eat after their adventures.
7. Focus post-campaign reporting on impact.
Understand whether your efforts were successful at easing the dip by measuring lift in visitation and spending at restaurants, retail, accommodations, or attractions. Did your destination see increased activity during this time period? Tell that story.
Capacity for community benefit
For many destinations, your greatest capacity for growth lies outside of your peak season. All those unsold rooms are an opportunity to generate demand during seasons when your hotels, restaurants, retailers, and outfitters are hungry for customers. Cultivating a year-round flow of visitors helps to grow your funding base through new tax revenues and helps those small businesses stay afloat and retain staff through the lean periods.
Capitalizing on this opportunity requires a higher level of marketing savvy and focus to ensure you build that off-season demand in a sustainable way. When done right, it can be life-changing for the residents and business owners in the community.
Interested in taking your marketing from good to great? Get in touch to explore how marketing intelligence can fuel your demand optimization and marketing strategies.