Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Printed Collateral Materials

2020 Trumbull County Visitors Guide

About This Entry:

Trumbull County, located in Northeast Ohio, is just one hour away from both Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Trumbull County Tourism’s pre-Covid budget was approximately $350,000 per year. The County includes several towns and townships that offer an array of history, outdoor activities, dining, and shopping opportunities. A feature is the Italian Food Trail that highlights more than 60 dining opportunities, and the only luxury resort in north Ohio.

Trumbull Tourism’s most recent visitor profile, completed in 2019, reported that both In-Market (IM) and Out of Market (OOM) households were represented. Using the Connex Lifestyle Profiler, we found that among the OOM households there are 12 consumer clusters that best represent the demographic and psychographic of these consumers. Furthermore, the IM households are represented by very similar clusters with 9 aligning identically. The profile also noted that profile skews toward families with children living at home (both mature couples with older children who have returned or never left and those with children of all ages). And, compared to the average U.S. household, these visitors are significantly more likely to skew toward middle-class earning annual incomes of $75,000 --$150,000. These visitors most enjoy general sightseeing, shopping, and visiting friends/relatives.

With this information and our goal of reaching both our OOM and IM households, we were set to produce a visitor guide that was a vibrant expression of Trumbull County and connect with both visitors and residents alike.

Our Objectives were to produce a quality piece that represented our target audiences both OOM and IM, increase distribution of the guide, influence incremental visits to the destination.

Campaign Strategy:

Trumbull Tourism, for a second year partnered with Great Lakes Publishing, an award-winning media company whose print products include TourismOhio's Ohio Travel Guide and Ohio Magazine. With the involvement and guidance of our staff, they provided the editorial, design, advertising sales, and production of 40,000 guides (an increase of 10,000 from 2019).

We also took advantage of TourismOhio's Cooperative Marketing Grant program that splits the cost of various marketing activities; we selected a custom professional photoshoot to add to our photo library for overall use in our various marketing activities. Two of the creative goals with photography were to show the diversity of people and to use residents as models whenever possible.

Armed with our "Out of Market and "In-Market" research, we focused the visitor guide on key topics within our target personas such as general sightseeing, shopping, and visiting friends/relatives and layered more specific activities with food, outdoors, history and shopping.

We decided on photoshoot locations that would provide, in the moment images of families and small groups doing the activities they love. Little did we know during these planning stages in 2019, that this strategy would pay off in 2020 as our industry was shuttered because of Covid.

We received the completed guides at the beginning of March 2020.

By mid-March of 2020, we had 40,000 guides as we re-evaluated our marketing plan and budget and focused on tactics that would continue to get our message out so we shifted our messaging to our residents via social media and search, with a call to action to either request or download a guide via our website.

With the early prospect of ending up with 10's of 1000's of guides, we reevaluated opportunities to distribute the guide and tried a new way to distribute via a poly bagging program with Ohio Magazine in the fall.

Results:

We completed a visitor guide and marketing effectiveness research (SMARI), in early 2021 and found of those that requested visitor guides:
- 40% visited Trumbull County
- For every $1.00 we spent on the guide it returned $9.00 in incremental spending
- More than half of those who requested the Visitor Guide and did not visit Trumbull County still intend to visit
once they feel it's safe to travel.

Paid Social with Call To Action to Request Visitor Guide
- 767,801 Impressions
- 8,245 Clicks
- 1.07% CTR
- $0.64 CPC
- 52,523 engagements
- 145 Requests For Visitors Guides
(unfortunately, we were not tracking this in 2019 to compare results)

Visitor Guide Requests
- Leads (all sources) total = 5,800
- Guides Distributed to service plazas = 16,000
- Guides polybagged with Ohio Magazine to targeted zip codes = 8,000
- Local distribution to members and high traffic areas 10,000

Soft, qualitative results include approximately 90% of the photos used in this publication are residents, our regional residents have been requesting guides at a higher rate as they were looking for things to do when their friends and family were visiting and our elected officials and stakeholders saw us in the local market more and that equated to better relationships.

We spent $16,000 on the visitor guide, and advertising sales made up the rest of the expense to produce the guide.

The biggest takeaway for our team was using a new way to distribute our guides. The change was out of necessity so we didn't end up with a large supply at the end of the year. With the uncertainty of Covid, we stepped out and did something new (for us). Along with the poly bagging, we were able to maximize our value-add opportunities with Great Lakes, with a discounted full-page ad, and participated in a giveaway/contest promotion, giving way to a great deal of exposure in this one issue. In addition to the distribution of 8,000 guides, we received an additional 100 leads over the previous year from magazine inquiries and an additional 450 emails from the giveaway.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

For me, the mighty team behind Trumbull was a standout. While their creative vision and execution was more modest, it was also appropriate for the target audience they were seeking to connect with. What really put this team over the top was their use of data and insights. Across all of the entries I reviewed, this team stood head and shoulders above the rest in working to understand the outcomes and impact of their work. Not only did they start with the consumer in mind, but they followed up and were able to demonstrate that their work drove economic impact, with 40% of the guide's recipients making a trip to Trumbull. For every $1 they spent, they were able to estimate that they earned $9 in spending. It was their combination of appropriate creative execution and thorough use of data and insights that allowed them to show not just what they did (cost per piece, distribution, impressions) but the impact they had (motivating travelers to spend time in their destination).