Epic Ride: How a W.V. County Used ZDOS® to Transform Local Tourism
There was a time when Putnam County’s greatest claim to fame was that it was located between the two biggest cities in West Virginia. Apart from a few seasonal attractions that drew summer vacationers, travelers mostly came for business or to visit friends and family.
That began to change in 2018. Thanks to a local man’s dogged persistence and an impressive community effort, Meeks Mountain Trails was born. It’s a mountain biking system that is now drawing a whole new set of avid and active visitors to the area — and having a notable impact on the local economy.
Kelli Steele, Executive Director of the Putnam County Convention & Visitors Bureau, used the Zartico Destination Operating System (ZDOS®) to craft a targeted marketing campaign on a limited budget. As a result, Meeks Mountain has become a real tourism driver for the region, bringing in new types of visitors from previously untapped markets.
From local passion project to regional attraction
The Meeks Mountain Trails initiative is the brainchild of local resident Brandon Doerner, who was enjoying a walk in the forest adjacent to a city park when it occurred to him that it would be a great spot for a mountain biking system.
Brandon set about building support for his plan, getting the property owners’ permission, and convincing the city council to allow access through the park. His pitch was to build five miles of trails in two years and 26 miles of trails in five years — with the ultimate goal of hosting a marathon event.
With the project approved, Brandon started mapping and building. Eventually, he drew notice from other locals, who began pitching in. It grew into somewhat of a movement, with 450 community volunteers spending more than 21,000 hours to build over 30 miles of trails.
Three years into the project, around 350 people were visiting Meeks Mountain each day.
“We started to see that this trail system was gaining traction as a viable attractor to our area for visitation,” Kelli says. “It was starting to have an economic impact.”
As businesses — a bike shop and a juice bar — opened near the trailhead and events like races and nature walks drew interest, Kelli spotted a great new marketing opportunity.
Precision marketing calibrated for impact
Kelli knew anecdotally that numbers were up and that word about the trails was catching on in certain markets. However, she wanted a better understanding of the situation to make sure she was marketing to people who would actually spend money on their visits — not just drive in, ride the trails for a day, and leave.
Kelli used ZDOS® to pinpoint where visitor spending was coming from and to identify areas of high visitor activity. Some of the results surprised her: Lexington, Ky. wasn’t one of the highest-spending markets, as she suspected, but mostly a source of passers-through.
Without ZDOS®, Kelli says, “I would have been wasting so much money advertising to people who were not spending their nights or their money here.”
With her visitor hotspots mapped out, Kelli developed a campaign based on geo-fencing bike shops throughout Northern West Virginia, Southern Pennsylvania, and Central and Northern Ohio, looking to target mountain bikers. By homing in on the locations that sent the highest-spending visitors, she was able to make the most of her limited budget.
The campaign focused on advertising the new trail system, linking to an outdoor recreation landing page with information about points of interest designated as important to mountain bikers. Later, Kelli also started trying to reach a broader outdoor enthusiast audience of hikers and trail runners with updated images and content marketing.
Made to measure
With the campaign out in the world, Kelli could now use ZDOS® to measure and report the effectiveness of her efforts. She looked at tourism data from the beginning of the campaign through a couple of months afterward to local points of interest and the Meeks Mountain Trails system.
There were increases from the northern part of the state and Washington, D.C., which had always been big markets but were now even more so. However, numbers were also up from places like Harrisonburg, Va., Lancaster, Penn., Indianapolis, and Detroit — new markets that had received specific targeting. Immediately following the campaign, six of the top ten visitation markets were new compared to the previous year.
Relevant points of interest in Putnam County saw a 23% increase in tourism compared to the previous year. Plus, the area’s new draw as an outdoor recreation destination was bringing in a whole new category of visitors.
True to Brandon’s vision, trail races started coming to Meeks Mountain, attracting large numbers of out-of-town travelers. Conservation and nature events — like bird watching, mushroom hunts, and wildlife hikes — have also gained in popularity.
“It’s not just for outdoor enthusiasts,” Kelli says. “We’re working to promote all kinds of events that are popping up around this trail system.”
Kelli uses ZDOS® to support these events and attract larger ones to the region, and she continues to refine her targeting strategy based on the evolving visitor profile.
ZDOS® does more with less
Putnam County is proof that with hard work, big dreams are possible. Brandon Doerner set out to build a mountain biking trail for his community. Thanks to partnerships with local volunteers, the city, and the Putnam County CVB, his project ended up doing so much more.
Building on these community efforts, Kelli and her three-person staff turned this popular new attraction into a true visitation driver. With ZDOS®, she brought in brand-new categories of visitors from untapped markets on a limited budget.
Today, outdoor recreation messages and dynamic videos of bikers and paddlers take center stage on the Visit Putnam County website.
And the work doesn't stop there. When the local electric utility proposed running a new transmission line through the trail area, Kelli was able to quantify the potential detriment to this community asset. She combined usage metrics from the Meeks Mountain Trail Alliance with data from ZDOS® to calculate the significant negative impact and provide data-led talking points to community leaders.
"The CVB is the only organization in our community who can attach an economic benefit to the otherwise free trails," Kelli says.
"Zartico has given me the tools I need to effectively advocate on behalf of the community," she says, "making what would be a very difficult task a thousand times easier."
By embracing her role in destination leadership and addressing her community's needs through the strategic use of ZDOS® insights, Kelli transformed the CVB into a trusted authority — not just in marketing, but in actionable data and impactful decisions.
In the meantime, work continues on the trail system. Putnam County is adding miles and making it more accessible and attractive to visitors. With new businesses popping up and outdoor enthusiasts rolling in, this West Virginia community is a refueling stop no more — it has become a destination in itself.
Kelli shared her success story at ZartiCoach, one of several community opportunities available to Zartico clients. Take a look at upcoming events on our Community Calendar.
