Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Printed Collateral Materials

Visit Greenville SC

"Yeah That" Visitors Guide

About This Entry:

TIMING: Annual Visitor's Guide. PRINT RUN/CIRCULATION: 125,000. DESCRIPTION: A full-cover magazine/guide distributed nationally to a primarily out-of-market target that has requested additional information as a result of VisitGreenvilleSC’s paid/earned/shared marketing efforts. PURPOSE: The purpose of the guide is to inspire and attract visitors to Greenville, South Carolina providing inspirational content and practical planning tools and content to motivate readers to spend their time and dollars exploring this distinctive destination. OPPORTUNITY: The opportunity at hand was to completely rethink the approach to our annual Visitor’s Guide, from exploring partnership opportunities with publishers, to advancing the creative and editorial product including the look, feel, approach and storytelling of the guide, to growing ad sales revenue all while reducing the organization’s investment in production resulting in a financially and editorially successful publication. TARGET: Primary: Women, age 25-64, HHI $150,000, interested in weekend getaways, culinary experiences, the outdoors, arts & entertainment, shopping, and more. Core concentration on reaching drive markets within a 350-mile drive radius with an emphasis in spot markets that have the highest propensity to visit Greenville, SC as a leisure destination. Secondary: the local resident as a tourist in their own backyard to serving as a type of local tour guide when hosting friends, family and business colleagues in town. OBJECTIVES: Objectives of the guide were multi-fold. To create a financially successful publication (grow ad sales revenue, offset bottom line cost to the organization to produce the guide). To identify a right-fit publisher to advance the editorial content and presentation. To grow visitor direct expenditures and length of stay in market. And to produce the book locally (publishing company, ad sales, writers, designers, illustrators, photographers).

Campaign Strategy:

PARTNERS: The first step in redeveloping our guide was identifying a local publisher that would not only buy into the cause, but had the capabilities and skill set to advance the quality and editorial content of the guide. We partnered with Community Journals, bringing the production of the Visitor’s Guide back to our community. As they had never produced a Visitor’s Guide, we had to trust one another to create the quality product we all envisioned. Strategically, we structured a financially sound model that while aggressive was mutually beneficial to both parties. The publisher agreed to offset 50% of the printing fee and charged a nominal creative fee for services. They also handled ad sales, capitalizing on the reach and established relationships of their 5+ sales staff. Additionally, visual and written content was sourced locally. We partnered with local artists, photographers, illustrators, journalists and designers. NEW AND NOTEWORTHY: A completely redesigned book featuring big imagery and magazine-style editorial features; a postcard with the stamp on us – all the visitor has to do is fill out the card and drop it off at the visitors center; striking visuals and design; new convenient pull-out maps, a trackable digital format and much more. Also added new limited (QTY 10,000) distribution to locals wrapped with a unique belly band and letter to communicate to locals to be a tourist in their own town. AD SALES METHODOLOGY: An advertising sales log tracked advertisers, ad size and premium placement (if applicable) along with gross and net purchase price to tally total ads sold, total units/pages sold, and total gross and net sales. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/CONVERSION STUDY TRACKING: We partner with SMARInsights to conduct ongoing research measuring the impact of the Visitor’s Guide on generating Greenville travel and influencing visitor spending. Ongoing survey samples of guide requestors are conducted to determine visitation to Greenville and whether visitors were already planning to visit when they ordered the guide. We also measure advertising awareness among Visitor’s Guide requestors to prevent double-counting marketing impacts. 512 conversion surveys were completed providing a confidence interval of +/-4.3% at the 95% confidence level.

Results:

AD SALES: We smashed our ad sales goal and prior years' sales benchmarks. With a goal of securing $150,000 in ad sales, actual 2017 ad sales hit $209,223.50 – a 32% forward movement over the prior year marking the highest ad sales ever achieved. CONVERSION REPORT: Research found the Visitor's Guide influenced Greenville travel and visitor spending in several ways. It influenced guide requestors who had already decided to visit Greenville at the time of the request to visit the area. In this way the Visitor’s Guide influenced about $658,000 in visitor spending at the time of the last benchmark study and also influenced those who had already decided to visit Greenville at the time of the request to spend more on average than the visitors who did not order the guide. In this way, the Visitor's Guide influenced another $400,000. This $1.06 million in influenced visitor spending can be directly attributed to the Visitor’s Guide which translates into an ROI of $18 in visitor spending for each $1 invested. Additionally, 61% of Visitor’s Guide requestors indicated that they added activities or experiences to their trip after seeing them in the guide influencing them to do more and spend more. Specifically they spent $164 more on average than visitors who did not order a travel guide. COST: Actual cost to the organization to produce the 2017 Visitor's Guide: $58,856. A significant savings – 325% – over prior year investments. We were able to negotiate with our publisher that they assumed 50% of the print run expense. STAYING LOCAL: After working with out-of-state Visitor's Guide production firms, we were able to produce the book locally. We solely sourced and cultivated a partnership with an in-town lifestyle and news media publishing firm. All photography, editorial, graphics, custom illustrations, and ad sales were produced in Greenville, South Carolina. Mission Accomplished! LOOK AND FEEL: The overall design and editorial aesthetic advanced significantly, adding a much stronger editorial quality, large impactful imagery, creative design touches from hand drawn illustration vignettes to local sourced art for the cover as well as non-to-scale map reference points.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

This is an exceptionally strategic approach to leveraging a visitor's guide as part of a larger "lead gen" program. The guide isn't simply another "campaign" but a strategic part of a larger initiative to identify and convert key potential visitors. The editorial coverage, layout, look and feel—great paper choice—sets this apart from the rest. You can really feel the love and passion that the local team put into crafting this piece.

Partnerships with a local, bought-in publisher, as well as research organization, created a clear strategic choice. Ad sales are a good first indicator about the potential of the guide itself, but being able to identify the growth in visitor spending (having previously benchmarked), as well as overall production savings, clearly demonstrate success with the guide.