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Marketing Basics for Interpretive & Heritage Sites and Attractions Part 3
What should be in a Marketing Plan?
By: John A. Veverka (http://www.heritageinterp.com)
A. Objectives (what do you want this plan to accomplish?).
1. Learning Objectives
2. Emotional Objectives
3. Behavioral Objectives
B. Product Analysis (what are you selling?).
1. Experiences (experience and memory mapping and analysis).
a. Passive Experiences
b. Active Experiences
c. Psychological immersion
d. Physical immersion
e. The experience mix.
2. Physical products (books, trail guides, guided tours, videos, etc.).
C. Current Market Groups (Macro and Micro) analysis. (Who are your current visitors, where are they coming from, etc.).
1. Current visitor demographics (any existing research available?).
2. Seasonal visitation patterns.
3. Visitor expectations and motivations for visiting your site.
4. Customer care needs (handicap accessibility, food service, etc.).
5. Market mix sustainability (school groups, out of country tourists, etc.).
6. Visitation patterns (increase or loss) over the past 5 years.
D. Critique of current marketing/advertising strategies (do the work and how do you know?).
1. Current advertising plans and ad placements (what magazines, etc. and why).
2. Current brochure and brochure distribution.
3. Other advertising materials.
E. Market Income Stream.
1. Cost per contact.
2. Cost Effectiveness
3. Percentage of total budget from admissions and gift shop sales, etc.
F. Competition Analysis
1. Other near-by like attractions or sites with similar services and experiences.
2. Other attractions in your area (their visitation numbers, seasonal visitation patterns, target market groups, etc.).
3. Potential for developing partnerships (joint admission tickets, etc.?) with near-by attractions?
G. Market Creation
1. Which new market groups do you want to try to attract?
2. What benefits can you offer them by visiting your site or attraction?
3. What promotion or advertising strategies will you need to communicate with them and tell them about your site and services?
4. Where and how to make the most powerful first contacts.
H. Marketing Campaign
1. Budget allocations based on need.
2. Advertising material design and pre testing.
3. Ad placements and tracking strategy.
4. Web Site Development
I. Advertising Strategy (consolidated from other sections above).
1. What, when where, media selections, costs, etc.
2. Ad mix designs and pre testing.
J. Implementation of the Marketing Plan.
1. Time Lines for implementation.
2. Budget determinations per ad line item.
3. Staffing needs.
4. Contracting needs.
K. Tracking and evaluation of the ad campaign. On going evaluation to see how the advertising is going month by month.
1. Tracking reviews (schedule, etc.)
2. Evaluation tools, and on going evaluation (monthly?).
Again, this is a general content outline for a complete marketing plan. Feel free to add or change this as best fits your particular needs.
New theories and concepts to be thinking about when developing your marketing plans and strategies.
A lot of new and exciting theories and practices have emerged recently that greatly affects how we do heritage tourism planning and marketing. Some of these new ideas and concepts include:
Markets of One
Mass Customization
These concepts involve learning how to mass produce yet individually customize goods or services, with major implications for heritage tourism planning and marketing, particularly for large heritage areas and heritage corridors, but also for helping to plan programs and services at museums, parks, historic sites and related attractions.
Experiential Marketing
What visitors are looking for are experiences. This is a key concept in developing and marketing for any heritage attraction. What experiences does your attraction offer? How powerful are the experiences When I do interpretive master planning for heritage sites and attractions I now look for (and plan for) where the best and most powerful memories of the visit will come from (or need to be created). Where will visitors want to have a photo taken of them standing next to? What will they take pictures of? What do you want them talking about in the car on their way home from visiting your site? What memories (souvenirs) enhancements will you have available (post cards, Tshirts, videos, photo opportunities)? Why do you think Disney goes out of their way to make sure you and your children can have photos taken with the various Disney characters when you visit Disney World?
How memorable? Marketing pieces need illustrate the kinds of or range of experiences your site offers. Check out the reference listing of this article for good books on experience marketing.
Memory Mapping
These are just a few of the new heritage tourism/interpretation marketing ideas that we are now using in developing marketing plans and marketing materials.
Do not even think of not pre testing your marketing materials!
Finally, when you have completed your thought process and answered all of the questions about your audience, and designed your various marketing pieces, there is only one person who you should ask to see what they think of them, the people the marketing pieces were planed for. They will tell you, through pre testing of the materials, if they like or understand them. This evaluation process is very important, why would you want to spend thousands of dollars on something if you have no proof that it works?
Remember:
Do not ask the people who designed the marketing pieces if the brochures or ads are good or will be successful (guess what the answer will be).
Do not ask your staff members if the marketing pieces are good or will be successful, they have no way of knowing.
Do not ask the Board of Directors what they think (that will take forever and they wont know if the pieces will work either).
The only people to ask if the marketing pieces are good, or have any chance of generating a visit are the potential visitors the marketing pieces are intended to generate. Ask them! Then and only then will you know for sure.
Summary
It was the goal of this short paper to give individuals involved with the marketing of heritage tourism sites and attractions some things to think about when developing a marketing plan, and particularly in developing marketing materials. The main point is to remember that everything involving marketing is about the visitor. If your marketing materials do not connect with them, the visitors will not show up at your attraction.
With the ultimate success of most heritage attractions centered on how that attraction is marketed, it is well worth the investment in time and staff to do it right the first time.