OCTOBER 2011 ADVERTISING/MARKETING ACTIVITIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

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1 OCTOBER 2011 ADVERTISING/MARKETING ACTIVITIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Overview: Each year Town of Taos Marketing and PR Department complete a marketing strategic plan with the staff of Taos marketing consultant (Griffin & Associates). This preparation includes extensive community commentary and input before this plan is finalized. In it, specific, strategic direction is detailed for all promotional activity, and the current version is available for review on an ongoing basis. The October 2011 Report from Griffin & Associates: The marketing and promotion efforts continued in October to keep the momentum strong through the fall and into the winter season. We worked on writing and submitting new grants (Albert Pierce Foundation, Temper of the Times, New Mexico Arts, Santa Fe Community Foundation), finalized many of our group and self guided tour itineraries, began offering Trip Advisor ads on our pages for the community, negotiated with the Santa Fe Visitors Guide for pages two and three again, and continued our public relations outreach. We also continued updating our Destination Management Pages on Trip Advisor both under Taos, NM and Taos County, NM. According to Trip Advisor staff, both pages are performing well and better than many other regions. Lastly, we finalized plans for Tri Taos, the first ever triathlon to be held in Taos. The date of April 14 was solidified, we contracted with Chasing 3 Productions to produce the event and we finalized three host hotels: El Monte Sagrado, the Taos Inn and La Fonda. PUBLIC RELATIONS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In October, our PR remained steady. Our 6 news releases, generated 402 mentions of Taos. The following are the totals: TOTALS FOR October 2011 Page Views (where applicable) Value PR Value Impressions Newspaper 6,577, ,400 $17, $170,400 Magazine 121,845 11,414 $6, $66, Broadcast 48,521 $75.00 $ Online 78,159,682 6,355,495,354 $171,627,630 $1,716,276,300 Totals Impressions Value PR Value 84,907,680 6,355,677,168 $171,651, $1,716,514, Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 1

2 Some of our major media results follow: AARP.org with over 930,000 unique readers Associated Content with nearly 5 million unique readers Bizjournals.com with over 1.7 million readers Dallas Morning News with 1.4 million readers Denver Post online with 1.4 million readers Examiner.com with nearly 6 million readers Helium.com with 1.3 million readers The Sunday Mail with over 2 million readers Philly.com with 1.8 million readers Yahoo news with over 51 million readers We also continued with our regular monthly activities of coordinating media familiarization trips, monitoring online news clips, coordinating calendar updates, distributing hi resolution photos and responding to other media requests, and microblogging. See Appendix One for News Releases & Complete Media Report. The monthly report identifies key bulleted highlights from the Taos Marketing Plan. This section shows some weighted percentages to demonstrate where promotional emphasis is applied to maximize Taos traveler education: 1) 95% of all Taos tourism promotion must include an Internet, online presence for Taos. This is so given that 80% of all potential tourists complete their travel research, if not their bookings, online. Therefore, this is a major component of all marketing, advertising and public relations (media) activity. 2) 85% of Taos tourism promotional activity is leveraged through free media coverage for Taos. With limited budgets, and Taos proven aptitude for generating interesting media angles for earned coverage, this is the element leveraged to increase Taos positive exposure for travelers. It is also where Taos has a competitive advantage when compared to other outdoor recreation and art/culture/heritage destinations in the U.S. It is part of Taos annual theme for tourism promotion a way to leverage media attention/coverage, and include everyone in the Taos area who would like to participate. 3) The other heavy duty competitive advantage for Taos one that can be leveraged online is in the area of social (new) media. Such efforts via TripAdvisor and other travel recommendation web sites, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Yelp, etc., are worked daily by Taos marketing representatives and members of the community are constantly encouraged to do the same and assist in this major Taos promotional focus. 4) Given limited budgets, reduced staff, and reduced international travel, the State of New Mexico Department of Tourism has wisely taken the lead in focusing traveler education/promotion within the U.S. for the foreseeable future. Therefore, international Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 2

3 outreach is via the Internet and earned media/public relations coverage not paid advertising. Taos is doing the same, with a further emphasis on the drive circle states surrounding New Mexico, in state New Mexico travel, and specific easy fly zones with stable economics and the psychographics that appeal to Taos, and vice versa. These include but are not exclusively limited to Southern California and New York. 5) Events, activities and calendar listings are also of importance for placement to maximize Taos promotion. Monthly targets include entities (in print and online) such as the State of New Mexico tourism website, Sunset magazine, New Mexico magazine, Santa Fe s tourism sites/santa Fean magazine, and Taos own calendars at Note: New Mexico magazine, as a State run entity, editorially covers Taos regularly and includes a number of its calendar listings. However, advertising in it is not only expensive, but its subscriber list/circulation is primarily to second home owners in New Mexico, to visitors already in New Mexico, and to others who have previously fallen in love with what New Mexico offers. Taos promotional efforts of course are to a certain extent focused on reinforcing the area s existing travel audience, but more than ever efforts must emphasize educating new, younger and expanded audiences about Why Taos. Much of Taos promotion is therefore focused on outreach venues/mechanisms that are not frequently viewed by locals Taos efforts are focused out there with new audiences, rather than here on what we regularly see and read. 6) Recent traveler studies have shown that new audiences need to be educated about what there is to do in New Mexico (and Taos) to improve and expand our travel attraction. Therefore, much effort this year is focused on this activity, including the producing of new sample itineraries specific to the Taos psychographic, in addition to working with tour operators and group travel targets. After Thanksgiving, 2011, this new travel product will be available on in addition to the redesign of the site to better serve Taos travel customers. MARKETING AND ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Taos Marketing Objectives for FY12 are: Increase occupancy levels, lodgers tax and NM Gross Receipts tax by 2% as measured using the Town of Taos lodging reports, lodgers tax reports and GRT reports. These numbers are recession adjusted. October lodgers tax and GRT results will be available in December. For August, Lodgers tax was down 3.89% over We attribute some of the drop to the fires around New Mexico as a major tourism detractor. Increase earned media by 5% with at least 10 stories placed in A media (major media with circulations, viewership or online audiences of at least 500,000). We are on track to exceed this goal. Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 3

4 Increase walk in traffic to the visitor s center and page views on the tourism websites/digital footprints by at least 5%. Foot traffic into the visitors center continues to remain steady. Create brand differentiation by positioning and collaborating with regional partners and the State of New Mexico. We are working on this objective by creating one ofa kind itineraries for Taos, which highlight are unique offerings and bust the myth that there is nothing to do in New Mexico. The itineraries we created in October include: Wild Wild West Film Tour Eco Tourism Tour Half day self guided itinerary Full day self guided itinerary Spring, summer and winter Remarkable Women of Taos We created and managed two co op advertising programs. The first is with ads running on the Taos, NM and Taos County, NM pages on Trip Advisor. Participants in the kickoff program include: Twirl Museum Association of Taos KTAO Solar Center The Bavarian Lodge & Restaurant La Posada de Taos Taos Inn We also created a co op Advertorial for the Santa Fe Visitors Guide. Participants in that ad are: The Taos Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns La Fonda The Bavarian Lodge & Restaurant The Taos Inn The Museum Association of Taos Holy Cross Hospital Foundation American Artists Gallery House B&B El Monte Sagrado To reach out to the profitable international market we negotiated with Spirit of the West, a high end German publication for an advertising/editorial combination. We also partnered with the Taos Ski Valley to create a centerfold double truck in Slopes Magazine, the official guide of Ski New Mexico. And lastly, to reach out to the group travelers, we ran an ad in Bus Tour Magazine. Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 4

5 We continued our bi weekly Get Out of Town to subscribers within a 600 mile drive radius and our monthly e newsletter to our database of over 1 million subscribers. The Visitors Center, under the leadership of Cathy Ann Connelly, experienced record breaking sales. In October 13, 814 people came to the center. Sales were over $18,000 and sales of art that went directly to artists was nearly $15,000. And we continued enhancing our micro website See Appendix Two for our October web hits report. And Appendix Three for our sample ads and newsletters. Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 5