04-15-2014 EDC Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Identifying Your Town's Differential Advantage It's special Uniqueness is the Competitive Advantage `-- Brainstorming Session: designed to find out what the participants feel is unique about their town. Choose a cross section of the community so that different viewpoints are brought to the discussion. Visitor Questionnaire: to find out what visitors think is unique to the town. Find out their hometown and state, purpose for visiting(business or pleasure), destination of their trip, what in particular they noticed or liked about the town. Photography Contest: provides a number of quality photographs to use in promotional literature. Boost community pride. Capture individual perspectives of various sites that are interesting and unique to a town. Theme: "What's unique about our town" Interview New Businesses: Also serves as a welcome to the community. Gather information why the business decided to come to town. Focus Groups: group discussion on a specific topic. Evaluate new ideas. Uncover marketable aspects of the town's uniqueness. School Essay Contest: 200 word essay titled: "What's Unique About My Town" Aquire another perspective about the uniqueness of the town. Professional Visitation: Community Development Specialists; Initiative Foundation; BLADAC; Blanden Foundation; City Planners; Business Executives; historian, others. PROMOTION after the Differential Advantage has been identified Promoting the uniqueness... the differential advantage to prospective customers. Advertising-brochures, magazines, billboards,web site Personal Selling-verbal conversation with prospective customers; city employees and volunteers are sales representatives for the town; attend conventions specific to the target Sales Promotion- coupons,bumper stickers,banners, free entertainment. Must be target audience specific, and make a lasting impression. Publicity-free advertising and promotion. "newsworthy" events. Press releases. Taking the first steps toward tourism can be simple. 1. Look for visitors who are already coming to your region and determine what's attracting them. 2. Identify what the community can do to help these visitors. It can be improving signage, providing more community information at places or businesses these people are already frequenting, or looking at services these visitors need that it would be easy to provide. 3. Look at your assets. Look critically at what you already have. NOT look at what's needed or what small towns wish they had. Once a town has taken steps to evaluate its tourism assets and interests, a tourism industry can be created that serves the town while honoring local traditions and lifestyle.