Doing More With Less - Part 5

Marketers of destinations, attractions and resorts are still dealing with the anxiety and challenges brought on by the financial crisis of 2008-09. Forced to do their jobs with less –  less media spend, less help from staffing, less time – it’s a good time to shore up the foundations of our marketing programs. According to a recent issue of the Wanderlust Report, one of the best antidotes to this downturn is to generate some positive marketing results. The online newsletter presented five important ideas to help your destination or attraction deal with a down economy, and make leaps when everyone else is crawling.

Tip #5: Pick Your Tactics Wisely

“Doing more with less requires a different mindset, to be sure,” said Patrick Reilly, EVP Planning and Research at Wanderlust. “It begins with a focus on quality. It requires generating actionable insight, and crafting consistent, strategically aligned messages. It demands tracking, and an ongoing systematic way of knowing how well your work is generating results.

But what’s often overlooked, at least at the outset, is the dramatic improvement in the quality of tactical planning and priority setting that organizations can achieve when they focus on doing more with less,” said Reilly.

From the chaos and confusion of the typical marketing department comes clarity, purpose, and a firm set of marching orders – if we take advantage of a simple set of ideas. This clarity allows us to be able to take a big picture snapshot of where we are, make sound assessments and diagnose what’s really needed to get higher quality creative, better results, and consistency. With that clarity, writing the right prescriptions become much easier, and we can first focus our attention on “fixing what’s broken.”

Similarly, holes in our contact points or media strategy become much easier to spot, and provide us with an opportunity to reduce wasteful spending in lieu of more effective, more trackable allocations. Everything gets a lot more focused, and effective, when you put things in the right order. In a world of infinite media options (ever fragmenting TV audiences and proliferation of programming options, new media platforms online, etc.), we need a way of making good decisions about what to do next, and why. Often, when we hear “we’re all over the place,” what we actually see is a marketing department working without a good tactical plan.

In Summary

“Budgets are tight, and the battle for new business is as hard as ever,” Reilly adds. “But that can’t stop us from delivering smart, strategic marketing efforts that help move people through the turnstile and put heads in beds. If we look at our current situation as an opportunity to shore up our fundamentals, think about quality and focus our efforts, we’ll be rewarded with marketing communications that deliver results – and really do more with less.”

Read more of 5 Keys to Doing More With Less in the Wanderlust Report, Volume 2, Number 2.

About Wanderlust
Wanderlust provides marketing and branding expertise to destinations, resorts and tourism attractions. We uncover what drives people to choose where they go and build integrated marketing programs to attract them — using the internet, social networks, direct marketing and mass media.

Contact: Mark Shipley
Phone: 518-272-2500
Email: mshipley@createwanderlust.com


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