MARCH 2012 ADVERTISING/MARKETING ACTIVITIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

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1 MARCH 2012 ADVERTISING/MARKETING ACTIVITIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Overview: Each year the Town of Taos Marketing and PR Department completes 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 March 2012 Report from Griffin & Associates: February marketing and promotion efforts were centered around three themes: 1) Continuing to promote the incredible ski season and upcoming Spring Breaks 2) Successfully launch the 2012 Remarkable Women of Taos program on March 22 3) Promoting spring and summer activities and events in Taos On March 22, the community kicked off the Remarkable Women of Taos campaign with the Mayor handing actress/activist Marsha Mason the key to the Town. The national news story was picked up coast to coast by the Associated Press and appeared in USA Today and major newspapers in nearly every state. Additionally, Taos received great snow in March, and we continued promoting Spring Break as the perfect time to visit Taos. We finalized the Alfred Pierce Foundation grant re-submission and the Frost Foundation grant. And we were awarded a $10,000 per month Google AdWord grant, which allows us to get free advertising via Google. We also continued our ongoing advertising, social media and public relations outreach as well as 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. PUBLIC RELATIONS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In March, our PR remained steady. Our 6 news releases and Remarkable Women kick off, generated over 800 mentions of. The following are the totals: Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 1

2 TOTALS FOR March 2012 Impressions Page Views (where applicable) Value PR Value Newspaper 2,906,779 8,867,259 $32, $323, Magazine Broadcast 48,731,550 $32, $326,350 Online 1,236,089,749 7,659,169,343 $15,091, $150,911,815 Totals Impressions Value PR Value 1,287,728,078 7,668,036,602 $15,155,911 $151,561,815 Some of our major media results follow: The Associated Press with over 2 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kickoff Chicago Sun-Times online with over 2.4 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kick-off Denver Post online with over 2.2 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kickoff Forbes online with over 10 million readers naming Taos one of the Country s 10 Prettiest Towns Houston Chronicle online with over 2.4 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kick-off Huffington Post with over 31 million readers on the Sanctuario de Chimayo and the High Road to Taos LA Times Online with over 8.6 million readers on Spring Break skiing Biz Journals online with over 1.7 million readers on the Remarkable Women of Taos Newsday online with over 1.4 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kick-off USA Today online with over 21 million readers regarding the Remarkable Women kickoff The Weather Channel with over 30 million viewers on Taos skiing Yahoo.com with over 54 million viewers on the best Spring Skiing 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. Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 2

3 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. This month, we added the latest online site Pinterest to the sites we update weekly. 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 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 Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 3

4 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. Our new travel product is 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. Through January, Lodgers tax for FY12 was down 4.81% over 2011, but even with the decline, the money collected is 4.9% above what was budgeted for the fiscal year. 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 have exceeded this goal. 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. The Visitors Center, under the leadership of Cathy Ann Connelly, continued expanded sales results. In March 6,491 people came to the center up from 3,570 in February. Create brand differentiation by positioning and collaborating with regional partners and the State of New Mexico. The major initiative we launched in 2012 is the Remarkable Women of Taos and Northern New Mexico program, which officially launched on March 22. We sent out news releases on the launch in March, which were picked up by major national and regional media venues. OTHER RESULTS Web site traffic remained steady and increasing in March. Unique visitors to taos.org were over 17,000 up from nearly 13,000 in March Taosexpress.com also remained steady traffic with over 2,400 visitors in March Our two Trip Advisor Destination Management Pages continue to drive traffic, averaging over 2,600 visitors per month. 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. See Appendix Two for our January web hits report. And Appendix Three for our sample ads and newsletters. Taos Marketing & PR Work Page 5