With record high gas prices and the anticipation of it getting worse before
it gets better… what is this going to do to Tourism
for the 2008 season.
Have you noticed the big RV / Fifth Wheel Trailer dealerships popping up all over the region? Word from the industry is that sales remain brisk. Seems hard to imagine…
Re-directing your marketing… early indications are that more people are going to travel closer to home again this year. The Tourism industry needs to quickly refocus their marketing activity to our own region – Atlantic Canada…
Do you need help in understanding where to best invest your marketing budget to get the best bang for your dollars..
It
seems like every month there is a new technology that is reaching out
to your consumers – Podcasts – Blogs – ENewsletters – On-line
stores – Electronic Flyers.
Have you taken these new technologies serious yet. They are so much more reasonable to access more people and target specific groups with your marketing than anything we have seen before.
It is not good enough to simply have a website – you need to have a new media strategy for your company. The investment up front will pay for itself in no time at all…
These
are challenging times for the Tourism Industry and especially Communities
that are dependent on it. It is more important than ever before
for Communities to come together – pool
their marketing resources – package themselves in
a way that consumers will- find out about them – make it easy to
book and buy their packages – easy to locate them – provide
quality and value when they arrive.
We have worked with quite a number of communities
encouraging them to create
an overall marketing strategy. They were quite surprised
when businesses came together to pool resources that they were already
spending, what an impact they could make. In one community their
marketing budget was $25,000 – when we created a combined strategy – including
a pooling of resources – partnering with some funding sources
the budget ballooned to over $200,000
We see so often companies or organizations with a great product but have
not invested in professional Graphics or Photography and do not showcase
their product as it should be.We do a lot of work with the Golf Industry
and it is amazing how a Professional Golf
Photographer can
bring the absolute best out of a golf course. Proper lighting – interesting
angles – sometimes
elevation – positioning of people are just a few of the things these
artists use to help make your product showcase at its best.
A good example – www.barrettmackay.com
Graphic Design whether for paper copy or digital on-line is another way of bringing your product or services to life. The visuals give the consumer a good idea if you are up to date – are you on the leading edge of your industry – are you friendly looking – are you inviting.
There is a bit of an investment up front but that investment will pay dividends for the whole year every time you present your image to the marketplace…
A good example of an on-line specialist – eastwooddesign.com
Graphic Design – www.chrisreardon.ca
We
have had the opportunity to work with a number of communities that are
looking to attract new development. For so long the evil developer
has been seen and in many cases treated like the enemy. We have been
working with communities here in Atlantic Canada helping them package themselves
to attract new development.
Analyze your resources – what are the interesting and attractive features your community has - we look at those with you – choose the ones that may offer the greatest area of opportunity.
Build a package – we will help you take the areas of opportunity and help you create a selling package – show options for strategic partnerships – build a business case for the package – create an interesting visual site plan – put it altogether in a selling format.
Take it to market – we will assist you in taking it the market that is needed to make it a reality – meet with the potential strategic partners – recommend the best options.
Assist in the Implementation – work with the community to welcome these strategic partners facilitating their needs to bring the project into reality. The politicians as well as the planning department and community staff need to be on side to make it an enjoyable process and the development group to feel welcome…
We work with many different communities, groups, organizations and companies
to help them create new sustainable activity for their project and or service.
We would be pleased to meet with you and understand if these areas of unique expertise may be of assistance to your community, group or organization.
- Creating Marketing Strategies – bringing in strategic partnerships
- Business Case Analysis on key projects – making sure they are sustainable for the long term
- Community Economic Development projects – search out the opportunities – prepare the business case – create a selling package – implement the process
- Financial / Investor / Funding – analysis – business case – packaging
The Stonehouse Marketing Group has over 20 years experience working in
this field and more than 15 years right here in Atlantic Canada.
We will look forward to hearing from you.
Visit us online at StonehouseMarketing.ca
