I attended the Alberta Downtowns Conference right here in Red Deer yesterday. For seven hours I was assaulted with golden nuggets of knowledge, hurled with equal parts enthusiasm and brute force. (Put that in your testimonials section, Roger Brooks!) The focus was on downtown development and marketing, but a lot of it applies to marketing any sort of place, really. Here are some of the highlights, randomly and in point form:
- Focus on developing/marketing for your community members first; visitors will follow. If the locals don’t want to spend their time or money somewhere, neither will visitors.
- Define a strong brand for yourself. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Make sure you can deliver on your brand promise, though!
- Your area needs to have an “anchor tenant” or “primary lure”; something people will drive an hour or more for. Note that an historic downtown is not a primary lure – it’s ambiance.
- Make sure there are things to do at night. 70% of all consumer spending takes place after 6pm and overnight visitors spend three times as much as day visitors.
- Create good first impressions. Put community gateway signage where you will make that best first impression. This is rarely at the city limits. Oh – and make sure the signage is attractive.
- It’s about a feeling. People need to have an experience. Activities and entertainment should be part of that.
- Tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Canada. It’s a gateway to other kinds of economic development.
- Things that baby boomer travelers are looking for include culinary tourism, the arts, ethic education, home & garden-related and public markets. Echo boomers are after mostly the same things, plus environmental tourism.
- Signage and curb appeal for individual businesses accounts for 70% of first-time buyers.
- Provide specifics of what makes you different or better, not generalities. You must stand out from the crowd.
- Make the internet your number one priority. Your marketing budget should be 45% internet/social media, 20% PR, 20% advertising, 10% collateral materials and 5% other.
I just realized that every one of my highlights were from Roger Brooks, so I better give him some love here. He’s a super smart guy that does really good work in a no-nonsense sort of way. Check out his website at: www.destinationdevelopment.com