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COLUMN:
County Legislature Funds New SCVB Destination Marketing Initiative
Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce | Tue, January 15th, 2008

        Last month, the Onondaga County Legislature overwhelmingly endorsed a new image marketing program to be implemented in 2008 by the Syracuse Convention & Visitors Bureau (SCVB) and approved a $175,000 budget amendment for the project.
        Since September, David Holder, president of the SCVB, has worked closely with the legislature to present a detailed investment plan, basic steps for creative implementation, and associated metrics for determining the return of the program.
    The new marketing program will heavily target the predominantly female travel decision maker of households with income thresholds of greater than $80,000 in the target markets of Albany, Ottawa, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. 
        Each of these markets has an important role in our future as a destination, says Holder, Albany for its growing economy, discretionary time availability, and access to potential meeting planners, Ottawa for its economic resurgence, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for its previous propensity to visit.  Proximity also factored into the decision to target the three markets.  Each market is far enough away to be viable for overnight stays, yet close enough for a daytrip.
        A critical component of the planned creative implementation will be incorporating the destination offerings of the Syracuse area to adults by showcasing the area's entertaining, inspiring, and engaging competitive advantages. 
        Kathy Rapp, the primary legislative sponsor of the budget amendment, states from first hand experience how important entertainment is as a key attractor for the area.  She says vibrant destinations know the importance of an attitude that embraces a “you're going to love it here” mentality.  We have the entertainment options in the Syracuse area, but we simply need to tell more people about us, says Rapp.
        The creative mix used to deliver this message will focus on five different dimensions - shopping, culture, culinary, pampering, and sports.  According to Holder, our area has so many different assets, and we really have competitive advantages against others in each of these five areas.  The five dimensions will be packaged together as the overall destination offering.  The placement planned for this program will include a media mix of broadcast advertising, online outreach, and a heavy amount of media publicity. 
        Additionally, the SCVB will engage private investment in delivering more forms of outreach.  According to Carol Eaton, vice president of marketing for the SCVB, we are working with daily newspapers in each market to distribute a free-standing insert that will depend heavily on advertising investment from our local private industries.
The insert component of the program seeks the participation of traditional tourism partners as well as non-traditional players such as auto dealers, real estate companies, furniture dealers, banks, and other major corporations and institutions.  These partners depend on the area spreading positive messages about Syracuse as a great place to live, work, play, learn and visit.  The successful e-mail program initiated in 2007 will also be utilized as a method for reaching into these market areas.
        The success of the program will depend on its ability to drive results.  Based on the performance of similar image based programs in other destinations, the SCVB will measure visitor response by tracking phone calls, e-mails, and Web site visits.  The SCVB will also measure the return on investment of the program by examining growth rates in room occupancy tax collections, associated sales tax collections, accommodation performance, and researching customer conversion within the program.
For more information on the program, call the SCVB at (315) 470-1913.




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