CVB’s new marketing efforts include blogging

In the old days, “pretty picture” marketing may have been the rule but that innocent time is over and CVB’s need to adopt tactics such as the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). Innovative efforts go way beyond sending out brochures and include:
 

—The CTO in the past year negotiated marketing partnerships with online travel agencies.
 

—Created internet video games for potential visitors to play.
 

—Paid three “snow virgins” to spend three months in Colorado and blog about their positive experiences.
 

“The CTO also maintains agents in 10 countries to play up the state at overseas travel shows and to bring groups of foreign journalists to Colorado, hoping they’ll extol the state’s beauty,” says the Denver Business Journal.
 

The need to adapt to the new technologies used by tourists, as well as to find more cost-efficient ways to publicize Colorado, have driven these strategies.
 

The CTO budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 (ended June 30) was $15.6 million — down 25 percent from the previous year. So the group had to find other, less expensive marketing schemes.
In Colorado’s case, the state targeted Japanese journalists whose stories and online articles generated the equivalent of several million dollars in advertising, according to Michael Driver of the CTO.
 

It was imperative to find other ways to market the state. For example, efforts to woo Japanese journalists alone produced stories and online articles equivalent to $9 million in advertising, said Driver,
 

Colorado produced more creative marketing efforts in the past year, such as:
 

• The first specialized ad campaign was launched, promoting cultural tourism to visitors wanting to learn about local history, people and events.
 

• The CTO partnered with the Colorado Department of Agriculture to develop an agritourism program for tourists who stay at farms to see the area.
 

• The state still publishes 650,000 copies each of its annual winter and summer vacation guides, but it’s also moving toward more digital ways of selling itself. For example, it negotiated major partnerships with travel sites Orbitz and Travelocity to promote Colorado vacation deals.
 

• MMG Worldwide created whitewater-rafting and skiing video games, available on the kids’ page on Colorado.com, in order to get people to stay longer on the site and explore vacation options.
 

• Maybe the riskiest gambit was “Snow at First Sight,” a contest in which the state solicited essays from people who’d never seen snow in person and awarded all-expenses-paid, three-month ski vacations to three winners. They blogged about their experiences throughout their stay.
 

By David Wilkening