Without further ado, I’d like to introduce Bill Cantor. Bill’s going to talk to us today about sales in the marketing plan.

Now, Bill presented at the 2007 National Scenic Highways conference in Baltimore. And he’s going to expand a little bit on the presentation he gave there. Bill has extensive experience in tourism, sales, and marketing that spans about 24 years, and throughout had management positions with nationally known hotel companies, tour operators, and the CVB in Tunica. I happen to know Bill through something called the Southeast Tourism Marketing College. And it is a fantastic event that happens in Georgia every year, which is why we will be offering some spaces next year.

Bill’s been teaching basics of marketing plans, effecting marketing plans, and sort of advanced modeling and ways to do SWOT analysis for many, many years, and I’m really happy to have him working with the byway community. This will be the first of probably many times we’ll have a chance to hear Bill in the next coming years. So with that, thanks Bill and I’ll be quiet now.

Thank you very much, Chel.
I have the privilege of teaching this course, as Chel indicated, at the Byways conference for the last five or six years at marketing college. And I’ve always had the luxury of standing in front of a class and being able to see those people that I was speaking with.
Today it’s going to be a little different, and I have to be honest, today is my first day to do a teleseminar -- teleworkshop. So if y'all will bear with me, and if you have difficulty hearing me, if we need to slow down, speed up, or teach something, please let me know, because I’m here to learn a little bit about teleseminars today as we make this presentation.

I hope everyone had an opportunity to go to the Byways website and pull down an outline of today’s presentation, and possibly either print or have the PowerPoint presentation in front of you. Everybody good with that? Have one form or the other?

[All together] Yes.

If we can, I’m going to move to slide two, and this is just -- it talks a little bit about me.
As Chel said, I currently work for a CVB, have worked for hotels, hotel chains. I’ve worked for tour operators. And the only reason I even repeat that after Chel saying it is that one of the common denominators -- one of the common business strategies that was involved was creating a working marketing plan. Regardless the type of business, and including the Byways community, regardless the type of organization, there is nothing more essential than having a plan and having it in place.

Whether you’re -- what we’re going to talk about today is the value of a marketing plan.
It details where you are and where you’re headed, and it presents a plan to get you there.
So, if I could, I’d like maybe to move to slide three. And then ask that question -- what is it, and who needs one?

Well, as I simply said, it’s a road map for your success. And that may sound very oversimplified. And one of the things I’m not gonna do for you today, unfortunately -- I’m not gonna give you a secret formula. I’m not going to offer you a special outline of how to do yours. And because a marketing plan is one of those things that one size doesn’t fit all. Each of you, each of our organizations, and each of your scenic byways are different and unique. There is no specific number of pages, or sections, or chapters that should be included in that plan. The only bad marketing plan in my estimation is one that is still in your head and hasn’t been written down and created, and put into a working document.

Ordinarily, I do a little show of hands, and this is not to -- it’s only for my information. 
Is there anyone with us today that is with a byway organization that does not have a marketing plan in place? No one?

Well, yes, the Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway Alliance has an old one that’s over five or six years old. So we need to update it.

Very good. At least you’ve got a good start. You’ve got some history. And one of the things that I find myself doing, and we will talk about this, is each year, it is updated. You know, there’s new information, there’s new data, and it’s -- we will talk about this as we move through this process. It’s important to make sure that you know what is happening in the life not only of your byway, but what is happening as far as your visitors and your development in what is going on.

So, if we can -- we’ll continue to move through this. As I said, the only bad marketing plan is the one that’s not in writing. When it’s in writing, it’s a document. It becomes a living, breathing marketing tool. And as I’ve always said, your marketing plan ought to be at arm’s length. Wherever you sit, wherever you work, wherever your desk or office is, you need to be able to reach out and touch it everyday -- to makes notes, to scribble in the margins, to add additions. And this is just so you’re taking a look and updating and documenting what is happening on a day-in, day-out basis, and in essence, laying down some of the information that you’ll need when you update it for the next edition or the next year as it comes into play. It details where you are, it details where you wish to be, and it's the plan for getting you there.

I’m moving to page four. You need a marketing plan if you want more travelers -- you want more tourists or visitors to your area. If you’ve got stakeholders along your byway --  if you have partnerships, or have partners that you’re currently working with, particularly if you want to develop some cooperative relationships, or additional cooperative relationships for the ones you have. I say you need one if you’re working with a CVB. If you were coming to me today as a CVB marketing person, and you had a proposal -- you had an idea or something you felt could enhance the byway, or make it more visible, I would like to take a look at your overall strategy of what your plan is for the byway. Not just that one specific project or one specific thing. If you’re working with regional economic development authorities, you’re working your state tourism office, or you’re working with tourism development in general. In my estimation, it adds credibility to your organization and the efforts that you’re working for. It shows the work, the time, and the commitment and planning to your course for the future. And it just simply demonstrates and shows you have a plan and you are working your plan to get to your -- accomplish your goals.

Now if I may, please, at anytime someone has a question, wants clarification as it pertains to you or in general, please jump in and we will kind of pause and try to address that. And in some cases, we may be looking to discuss that further down the road. And if that’s the case, maybe I’ll hold your question until we get to that area. But please feel free to participate and get involved. And forgive me for "y’all" -- if my southern accent throws anybody, I’ll be glad to repeat that also.

But anyway, I’m moving to slide five -- marketing plan essential elements. When we look at the slide, we’re talking about what I call the basic or the essential elements of any good or any marketing plan period. Today, we’re going to go through this. We’re going to talk about the mission statement. We’re going to talk about situation analysis, and that’s kind of a little bit of a fancier, lofty word. We’re going to talk about what’s going on. We’re going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly --  everything that’s happening in your area, along your byway as it pertains to your marketing efforts, as it pertains to other courses or influences that are affecting visitation to your area. We’re going to take a look at the competition -- the competition analysis. Who are you competing with for those same travelers, visitors, and tourists that are coming to your area? We’re going to talk about market segment analysis. That’s a real fancy word for who are our customers, and how do we define those, and how do we break those up, and how do we even determine who our customers are?

Once we’ve kind of taken an internal look at ourselves, we’re gonna start talking about where do we want to go, or where are we headed with our byway? We’re going to establish -- talk about establishing some goals. We’re going to talk about methods to getting there as we address that in the action plan.

Following that, we’re going to talk about media, and we’re gonna talk about media in a couple of different ways, whether it be paid, whether it be free, whether it be -- and some of the avenues for media. And then we’re going to talk about a quick read.
Everybody’s probably at one time in their life read the Cliffs Notes to a famous novel or a book because you were in a hurry or wanted to get the gist of what was going on really quickly. That’s what our executives want. It’s a quick, fast read to sum up you key points for, honestly, anybody that will listen, or anyone you think is important to know where you are, what you’re trying to accomplish, and you’re trying to get inside the point about your byway.

As I said earlier, there’s no magic outline, and there’s no secret formula. A well-rounded marketing plan will include those elements that we’ve described. I will talk about each of those as we move through it, then I’ll come back and we will sort of build on these elements as we come.

I’m moving through now to slide six. We’re going to talk about the mission statement. The mission statement in essence is, what is your purpose for existing? This is something -- it is a short, simple, concise statement. It’s one statement or a short paragraph that defines what you do. When I say what you do -- what your byway does. What is your purpose in existing? It’s short enough ideally. It can fit on the back of a business card. I have often seen mission statements that went on for a full page. I’ve seen them that have gone on for two pages. People trying to describe and be everything to everybody. That’s not your mission. Your mission should be as concise, as short, and simple as possible.

Now, to carry that all in one step further, I move to slide seven, and am talking about -- continuing to talk about the mission statement. And when I say what is your purpose, obviously, by virtue of the fact your national scenic byways, or you’re in the process of working towards that, or you’re at some stage of that. Obviously, your purpose is to preserve, protect, and enhance those intrinsic qualities that you have. And those, by virtue of being them, you’ve already done a lot of research. The primary purpose that is outlined in great detail is quarter management plan. The marketing plan takes it to the next level.
When we do that, we’re talking about bringing in the tourists, bringing in the visitors. We’ll also take it to the next level -- what do tourists do? They spend money, and that in turn, drives the economy, generates revenues, it creates tax dollars. And I emphasize when you make mention of money, revenues, and tax dollars, you have, all of a sudden, the attention of merchants, partners, politicians, and created -- opportunities to create cooperative situations. Any questions to this point, or does that seem reasonable and logical?

Sounds good.

Good. I’m moving to slide eight. The mission statement. There is something that I recommend, and I include in almost every mission statement I’ve ever written. One of your purposes is to drive the local economy and tourism. It tells your partners, it tells your stakeholders what’s in it for them. Make a statement about making the cash register ring is what I’m talking about. Like I said, that gets the attention of the hoteliers, the attractions, recreational facilities, merchants, festivals, if you have marinas, you have parks, and on and on. It brings on -- it gets the attention of potential new partners and stakeholders, and as I said, it gets the attention of tourism officials and politicians.
Because anytime you start talking about taxes, the politicians stand up and take notice. It talks about the overall vibrancy of your economy. Include a statement that talks about you through that -- use of your byway or to help drive the local economy through tourism. People will take notice.

Moving to slide nine. And that covers the – I’d like to move now to the situation analysis, and I’ve kind of covered that as one of the essential elements. This is the big picture. This is where we’re going to talk about the strengths and the weaknesses, some of the opportunities and threats that you may face day to day through the year at your byway. We’re going to talk about -- in this area, we should talk about the strategic alliance, cooperative situations, and partnerships. We’re going to talk about partners and stakeholders that are involved along the byway. In this area, it’s gonna give you that opportunity to recap some of the uniqueness, some of those intrinsic qualities that you’ve already expressed in your quarter management plan, but you’re going to put it into your marketing plan and use those as some of the reasons why you’re special. If you have an event, an activity, a festival that occurs along your byway -- this needs to be well documented. When it occurs, the people that come, what the value is, and it brings in -- talk about it brings in tourists, it brings in travelers, and once again, it brings in revenues -- people spending money in the area. In this area, situation analysis, an opportunity to talk about what works and what didn’t. I'd like to go back and recap what we did last year, whether it was an event, a trade show, or something of that nature. Talk about the successes. It brought in this many people. It generated this many room nights in the hotel, or it generated this much in revenues. I also like to talk about what didn’t work. If we tried a promotion, if we tried an event, if we tried a festival, and it didn’t work, I'd like to document that only to address it. Say this is what we tried, this is how it worked, possibly make some suggestions as to why is did not work as well as we had thought. But it is to show that not every strategy or tactic is going to work, but don’t be afraid to document. Use statistics, use numbers, use your overall comparison.

And that is just a way, of kind of -- I will go into this in more detail as we move to slide ten. When we talk about the strengths, this is an area many of you may be familiar with that’s called SWOT analysis, S-W-O-T analysis. That stands for strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We’re going to talk about that in a very -- I’ll say kind of a light term. We’re not going to do a SWOT analysis, but we’re gonna begin the foundation for that, as we’re going to start identifying our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats, as we move through the next four sections.

When we talk about strengths, strengths – these are internal factors regarding our organization or byway. When you talk about a strength, it’s something internal. When I say internal, I mean things that you or your organization can control. We’re talking about intrinsic qualities. These are things that you feel you have control over. We’re talking about partnerships that you may have arranged. We’re talking about people who you may have within your organization or in your staff. They may have a special knowledge, a special ability, or a special talent. It could be technical or something of that nature. Those are strengths of your organization. Talk about what you do well. What unique resources do you draw? Then talk about some competitive advantage. This is a section or an area where you summarize those strengths. You know, talk about how those intrinsic qualities can drive more visitors to your area. In the areas of strengths, talk about attractions and events that can drive more people to your byway. And elaborate on how your partner or the people in your organization can help you meet your goal. The one thing I do keep -- I want to emphasize is that the -- these are internal factors and ideally things that you have control over. Any question about that?

No.

OK. Moving to slide 11. And now then we take the opposite approach. We’re looking at the weaknesses. What things can you improve on? Do you have control or the ability -- when I say you have the ability -- within your organization, it is something that you can fix if you had the resources or the personnel, or the funding, or is it something you could improve on? And it could, you know -- is it lack of partners? Is it lack of staff, or people within your organization? Lack of volunteers possibly. Is it a specific knowledge that you need? Where do you have fewer resources, and possibly your competition? Or where do you have fewer resources than others? And then, competitive disadvantages -- these are also internal factors regarding your organization and your byway. You know, be very honest about these. You’re not -- there’s no shame in this, believe me. It’s just an honest assessment when you talk about your strengths and you talk about your weaknesses. Honest assessment of your weaknesses and the things you have control over. It could be budget. You know, it could be a weakness which you have, because you don’t have the funding or the financial resources you need. It could be lack of staff to accomplish your goals. It could be support from your partners. You know, it could be something about literature. You just don’t have the literature you need to properly promote yourself. And there’s endless other resources that you could identify as weaknesses, that makes you from being all that you could be, if you will. Let me borrow something from -- it's like an army slogan there, but keeps your byway or your organization from being everything it could be.

I’m moving now to opportunities -- that’s slide number 12. Opportunities -- the first two things, the strengths and weaknesses we talked about were internal factors, things that you possibly could have control over or change. When we talk about opportunities and threats, we’re now gonna talk about external factors or situations. Your byway or organization, it may positively affect your business. But the thing is, you have no control over it. Things like this -- these are things that create a positive situation, create a potential advantage, or possibly could enhance your business. What could that be? That could be something like a new partner, who maybe comes along with some new assets or knowledge that you could tap into. It could be possibly a new funding source to allow you to expand or enhance your current activities. It might be a new development that would help you drive -- when I say drive, bring more people to your area -- in essence, traverse your byway -- to visit you area. 

You know, it could be something as easy as an opportunity to be a seasonal weather affair. If you’re near a ski area, and it snowed early this year, which I think all y’all -- we’re talking about the snow earlier, you know, that could potentially be an advantage if it came earlier enough, or before it was anticipated that more people would traverse -- going through the area, stopping, visiting, seeing, and taking advantage of some of the resources you had. You know, it could be coming at the end of the fall. Who knows? You might have had a nice scenery -- you’ve got extended fall foliage, where people who would have traditionally stopped coming sometime in early, mid October because the fall foliage was gone, and for some reason it extended late October into early November, and that extended the season, along the byway or the merchants, and for the participants along that way. You know, I realize the byway is not just a road. Forgive me, and this is part of my learning curve as I have gotten to know y’all and gotten to know the organization. You know, when I view everything along the way, not just the thoroughfare, but everything that one encounters along the way.

And, you know, that type, to me, from a marketing standpoint, that takes into account the hotels, the merchants, the shops, and everybody along the way that has -- and adds to it.
I realize it’s a lot of waste of natural beauty or the intrinsic qualities, but these are things that complement the overall tourism product. I always say to rely on your strengths to help you capitalize on your opportunities as they arise. And, you know, kind of have a contingency plan for how you will approach it, what you will plan to do if you see one of these opportunities coming on the horizon. We talked about possibly having a new funding source or a new partner coming on. Well, a lot of other organizations may be wanting to have a new partner also. So have a contingency plan for what you’re gonna do to be the first one in line to let them know who you are and let them know about your byway, and let them know how you are -- the ideas you may have to work on together.

I’m moving to slide 13. Conversely, I’m going to talk about the threats, and these are the trends or factors that harm you. What threats do your weaknesses expose you to? Is it loss of a key asset? Maybe the economy, seasonal weather effect. Once again, these are external factors that may lead to unfavorable trends in development. It can cause a deteriorating number of visitors, revenues, or profits along the byway. Once again, threats could be funding sources or the loss of a funding source, closing of an attraction that drove people through the area. We are all experiencing gas prices, the economy in general. You know, weather -- some of our friends have byways that run along areas that are affected by hurricanes. It could be a warm winter with no snow in a ski area, a dry summer with no fall foliage. I think I saw on the list there are people from coast to coast. In this summer, we saw fires in California, and before that, in Florida. How’s that going to affect travel or visitors to your area? I know some of you may live in areas in the southeast or the northwest. There could be changes in rules or business, or industry that could affect forestry and how that is. These are threats to your byway, or they could potentially -- forgive me, you know, affect the byway.

So those are just things that, you know, I have seen looking at as potential threats that you have to deal with and realize over a period of time. Any questions regarding that?

No.

Thank you. The next slide, number 14, is just a summary. We’ve now touched on our mission statement and our purpose, and we touched on situation analysis, which is our product. From there, we move on to the next slide, which is talking about our [no audio]. Competition analysis, like I said, is just kind of a word that I use. Who is your competition, and why are they your competitors? You know, are you competing with people -- other byways because of location? Is it prices maybe charged along the way -- along the road, services offered or lack of services offered, features of benefits someone else may offer. What is the point of differentiation that your competition offers? You know, like I said, is it another byway, another region, is it the local interstate possibly that’s pulling people off of your road, and because they say they’re quicker, faster than taking, you know, a road less traveled, or one that is a little more scenic. And you know you have to determine who you are competing with. And like sometimes, it could be just another artery or another transportation method. Ask yourself, but also ask your partners and your stakeholders, who is our competition? Get a second, third, a dozen opinions of who your competition is. What makes them the competition, and ask the question, why are they our competitor? You know, identify you key competitors, whether it’s a top five, even a top three, or if there’s a big one that you see yourself competing with or was identified -- who you’re competing with day in, day out. You know, in your competition analysis, compare your product to theirs. Compare your product and compare it to your key competitors. Are they better? And be honest about your assessment and where you're better than they are. And work on your -- try to emphasize your strengths when you’re competing. Once you identify and you put this into writing, you just push kind of a playing field, and are able to begin to determine ways to target their weaknesses and emphasize your strengths.

I’m moving to slide 16. And basically, once again, I just come back; I summarize the essential elements, the mission statement, the situation. 

And then we talked about, who are our competitors, which takes us to slide 17, where we start talking about market segment analysis. Once again, it’s just a term -- market segment analysis -- we’re gonna talk about, who’s our customer? Who are you trying to attract? Is it individual travelers, or is it groups? Individuals, it could be organizations -- I mean, they could be individuals in a privately-owned vehicle. They could be in their RV. They could be traveling on their motorcycle. But those are the individuals, the customers I’m going to talk about. We talked about groups. These could be leisure travelers. They could be people that are coming through your area, possibly participating in a meeting or convention, or attending a meeting convention near you, and you might possibly lure them --  take some time -- free time to come visit your area.

I’ll talk about "smurf" groups. That’s kind of an old hotel term, and it talks about social groups, such as a wedding, possibly military groups, educational groups, reunion groups, and fraternal groups. But we just refer to them as "smurf" in general. They kind of cover that social aspect. Moving from a wedding to a family reunion to a kid's school group can kind of all fit in to that. Is there something that possibly -- a sports group or a sports market that you might possibly target. Any of these that are viable to you, identify them, address them in writing, talk about their potential, talk about what business you’re currently getting, talk about the potential business you might possibly be able to go after.
Be an enthusiast. Right now, I’m doing a research on recreational vehicle clubs for my own destination. There are a great number of clubs out there. Travel the area. If you’ve got facilities that can handle these, or if you want these in your area, you know, do some research into that, figure out how to target them, who to contact, and make your presentation to them to bring them into your area. Visit motorcycle clubs. You know, 15-20 years ago, that might not have been a choice audience, but today, it’s a very, very attractive audience of customers for tourism destinations, and obviously, I think, a perfect fit for the byway. Motorcycle clubs of today are lawyers, bikers, and -- they’re everybody.
It’s a great cross-section of America. They’re often very successful people riding very expensive toys, and they like to get out, and they like to explore this nation and the countryside, and they have economic impact. Something definitely worth taking a look at. And then I further look at my domestic market --people who within the U.S. -- all that international market, and for some of you, that could be people crossing the border and coming in from Canada, and for others, it could be an international market from Japan, China, or coming from Europe. So there -- take a look at your market and figure out who is your customer, categorize them into these markets that I just described. This allows you to look at each segment and determine the value or the number of visitors and how to plan to target each segment. Some of them don’t generate enough people presently that it’s worth spending a lot of effort on, while others are already coming, and maybe with a little more effort, you could generate even more people. It’s either potential markets or going with markets that already have momentum. The ones that are already coming have momentum. So potential markets are ones that maybe are coming in a limited number and it’s something that you might like to adjust for and fully realize the potential from the market that's already coming -- from the customers you already have. You know, you want to know a little bit about them. Why are they your customers? Why do they come?
That information helps you target or market to them. 

Now, to move to the next slide, number 18, I’m taking this one step further. It is important when you’re looking at your visitors and your travelers and your tourists to know a little bit more than just that they’re in the area. I like to have some information -- demographic type information. Some of their travel characteristics, some of their interests. And where do they come from -- or their feeder market. You know, knowing my customers, the more I know about them, the easier it is to find more customers just like them. Knowing their demographic, their age, sex, income, marriage, retired -- characteristics of that nature are very, very important. You know, why do they come?
Is it special interest? Do they come a season? Is it for an event? You know, as I said, feeder markets -- where do they come from? You may have market segments that overlap for when they come and when they travel. Groups and individuals may attend the same event, but it’s important to know that information. And how do you get this information?
The big question everybody wants to know. Obviously, research is the simple answer.

And research; as I move to slide 19 -- I’m gonna talk about some research options.
I-- here in Tunica, we’ve got a small visitor’s center -- a welcome center, a place for people to stop, use the restroom, get a soft drink, pick up a piece of -- and brochures.
When they walk in my front door, and probably before they take five steps into our welcome center, the charming little ladies who work there have already said, "Hi, how are you doing, and where all y’all from?" 
"First time in Tunica?"
"Have you been here before?"
"Are you staying?"
"How many nights are you staying?"
And they were asking four questions, and they know how many is in the party, where they came from, if they’ve been here before, and how many nights they’re staying.
They just profile and survey somebody before they walked in the door and could ask, where’s the men’s room? But anyway, that is data we compile. Every day that we’re open, we put it in the weekly reports, we turn that into monthly reports, and produce annual reports, and we can give you that information on all 50,000 visitors that walk through our visitor’s center through the course of this year. That is valuable information. It starts helping us plan, and it starts helping us target our advertising. And it starts helping us know where our customers are coming from. It just starts providing us valuable information to help us profile who our customers are. Now I'll talk about some other research options. There are research firms, there’s online research, industry publications, newspapers, trade associations, and surveys. You know, each of these has a time price of how much time it takes you to do it. Some of them have a dollar price. Let’s talk about some of those in a little more detail. I’m going to talk about some internet sources and ways that we can pull some information. And I’m moving now -- bear with me.

I just moved to slide 20. I talk about internet sources. I don’t know if any of you are doing it, and if you’re not, I encourage you to take a look at this as soon as we get off the phone today. Go to www.Google.com/alert. Put in a Google alert. Put in one for your byway. Type in -- when you go to Google, and go to the alerts, you can type in the name of your byway, you can type in the name of a festival that you might be hosting.
You may be able to type in the name of a well-known tourist attraction along your byway. You can even type in your own name. The reason this is valuable is every time that appears in the media, on the internet, you’re gonna get an e-mail in your e-mail from Google telling you that key word you typed in will appear. And that is a very, very important source of research and knowledge knowing what is being said about you byway in the media, on the internet, or is being said in the press. So that’s one internet source that I’ve kind of directed you to. You know, another thing that has gotten to be more and more popular this year, or over the last few years -- does anybody that’s with us today have a website and have an internet blog? A blog site? Ok, blog sites are becoming more popular. They’re basically an opportunity for visitors or people to come online and do written, firsthand comments about any topic they want. In this case, it’s an online journal about your destination. If you go to the website that I make mention of, [unintelligible], or you go to Google blogs, b-l-o-g, or Yahoo blogs -- type that into the search engine. If you type in the name of you byway, I will guarantee you you will be surprised by how many blog entries there are of individuals and guests and visitors who’ve visited your byway are talking about you today. I did [Google] most of you, or did several of you before I got online today, and there’s a very active community of people out there talking about the positives. This is a great form of research. You get firsthand knowledge about what people are saying, positive or, if it’s not positive, they’re gonna do that, too, unfortunately. It’s firsthand information from people who have actually visited. If you get an idea of the significance of these blogs, in 2000, there were 100,000 blogs sites in the world on the internet. By 2004, it had jumped up to almost 5 million. In 2006, it jumped up 57 million blog sites out there covering everything imaginable. Please, take a look at that at your earliest convenience. And I’ll be glad to help any of you through e-mail, whatever, if you need some help researching that.

Anyway, I am now moving to slide number 21. Talking about research -- we’re talking about writing about that. You know, I suggest making statements such as just using economic indicators, past performance, whether it be traffic counts on your byway or through a specific area, revenues of some of the key attractions, head counts or admissions to an attraction, head counts at restaurants. How many motor coaches arrived into your area? Or maybe, how many people are visiting certain key dining locations?
Use these statistics to tell a story, to make a point, to show trends, particularly year over year. You know, you can get this kind of economic indicator information from your state tourism office, local CVB, your local chamber of commerce, your hotel association, the department of transportation possibly. I think I’ve got the department of transportation people with us today. On some of your key attractions. But this information is out there for you to research and find the sources to help you document what’s happening in your area or along your byway.

I’m moving to number 22. Talking about some statistical resources, or areas from research. TIA -- Travel Industry Association. If you basically drop -- I mean, type in tia.org. They’ve got a lot of their research online, and it’s available to you. Even though they have paid research, there’s a lot available for free. There’s private services.
There’s trade publications. If you’re not subscribing or trying to get your -- recopy from a specific trade publication that would be of an interest to you, you know, I encourage you to call them up, tell them who you are, talk to the editor, talk to someone in the organization and ask them if they’ll put you on a free distribution list to get specific trade publications that might have information that would be relevant to you and your area or your byway. Go to regional economic development organizations within your state, the state department of transportation, CVB centers of commerce that I may mention.
You know, these are just some other sources of data and research. Take down the research. Just take the information, use it, and incorporate it into your marketing plan.

Moving on to slide 23. Some other information sources. Let’s talk about using questionnaires. I talked about the visitor’s center survey a while ago that my people do.
Had good interviews, telemarketing, and past customers. You know, the visitor’s center, I told you how simple it was to ask three, four, five questions. And people are surveyed and give you information even before you know it. If you don’t have a visitor’s center, you know, see if you can work with one of your partners to maybe put a volunteer outside one of their locations, and talk to people from a certain time of the day, or for one hour each day for a period of time just to start to collect data to get a feeling for the customers and where they’re from. If someone you know along your byway is already collecting information, ask them to share. And I’m sure that they’ll give you what they can.
You know, like I said, I talked about the survey. We ask people where they’re from, how many in their party, repeat visitor or first timer, and are they staying in overnight accommodations. Very valuable information. Take a look at visitor’s logs. I often suggest, if possible, if you or your byway organization sends out a piece of literature, a brochure, a visitor’s guide, or something of that nature, you’ve got their address, you may have an e-mail address, and in some cases, you might even have a phone number.
Take a select group, call them up. We sent you literature on the area, I’m just following up. Did you come? Are you planning to come in the next three months, six months?
List our conversion study to determine when the time people had an interest in coming, to did they actually come, or are they still planning to come. You’re starting to create some data on people’s visitation to your area, and often, it gives you an indication of the literature you’re using. Is it effective, or telling enough to make people want to come to an action, and come see you.

I’m moving slide 24. I’m recapping now. We talked about our mission statement. Was there any question? May I back up? Was there any question regarding some of the types of ways to gain information? I know some of these you may be using. I know some of them may not be anything that -- you don’t have the resources to do this. But I’ve tried to present as many as I possibly could, so that at least you could start to get a thumbnail sketch of your visitors from the people that are actually on your byway or in your area.
Any questions?

Bill, this is Diane from [unintelligible] Illinois highway coalition.
I just had a question about getting -- where to find the blog entries.

Oh, sure. I’ll tell you what, if you will do this, Diane, and I’m making a note, may I come back to you on that?

Sure.

As we get closer to the end.

Sure.

All right, blog entries. I’ll give you a couple of other resources besides the one I have there, and I’ll maybe even work through it with you if we have time, all right?

Ok, thank you.

All righty, great. All right, I’m moving on now to -- I’m going the wrong way -- 24.
We talked about our purpose. We talked about our product. We talked a little bit about our competition, and entering -- putting that information in our market plan. We talked about our customers. You know, we know why we exist, we defined our product and our situation, we determined the competition, and we know who our customers are.
Now, let’s go get them.

Going to section, or to page 25. The next thing you do -- you now have a good snapshot of what’s going on in your area. It’s time to set some goals. Where are we today?
Where do we want to be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year? Time to establish goals. And that’s what’s gonna move you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow, next year, and into the future. You know, a few thoughts about goal setting.
You know, you need to be realistic about setting goals, about what can be accomplished.
There’s an old expression about how do you eat an elephant? Well, obviously, it’s one bite at a time. You don’t try to eat the whole thing. You don’t try to accomplish the whole project in one big step. It’s small incremental parts that take you to where you’re headed.
You know, goals give you the target that you’re aiming for, so that all your actions and efforts are focused towards attaining a goal. You know, goals give the participants, your partners, and everyone involved a sense of direction of the organization. You know, goals motivate the leaders -- you as a leader, and it motivates the people on your team that were all going toward a common goal. Goals allow leaders to evaluate the success of an action or a project. Something that is often lost are goals are not the activities that you’re accomplishing. The evidence or the end result is actually the goal, not the activity they sell. And I’ll kind of clarify that. 

But often -- as I move to slide 26, you know, we were just discussing our goals.
And, like I said, we -- often people will start putting together activities and look at those as accomplishing goals. If I wanted to find a new tour operator for my byway next year, I would start to list action plans, whether it may be making five sales calls, or sending -- writing five letters, or writing -- making -- sending five e-mails to them. Well, those are activities. Those aren’t goals. The goal is to find the new tour operator. That e-mailing and phoning and sending e-mails are just activities that are designed to call five operators and hope to find the one. So just be sure to separate your activities as -- from your goals, the goals of where you’re headed. Once again, the strategy is the plan, the tactic is the action or the action plan, and the goals are the end results of what we’re trying to accomplish.

If I may, moving on to slide 27, and this kind of talks about the action plans that I was just speaking of. Action plans, they’re the activities that lead you to your goal.
Action plans are the activities that move you towards your goal. These activities -- these are objectives that can be broken down into what you’re going to do this week, next week, what you’re gonna accomplish this month, for the quarter, or even break it down and do it project specific. And each action is designed to move you closer to accomplishing your goals. These should be specific enough so that you know what the precise outcome is. Your action plan should be -- establish concrete criteria for measuring your progress toward the achievement of the goal, or action plan -- if your actions are measurable. Ask is it reasonable amount of effort and application -- is it possible to achieve this? Ask yourself the question, is this a relevant action leading up to our goals?
And then ask the question -- our action plans should be as clear as possible. Project timelines, dates at which they’ll be achieved or accomplished. To give you just a little bit of [unintelligible] when you start setting those action plans leading up to accomplishing your goals.

Moving forward to 28. Recapping -- talking about action plans. You could put together that one big action plan for your overall goal of where you want to be this time in the future. But break it up into different activities that you’re actually looking to accomplish, whether it is for advertising or public relations. Whether it’s for trade show participation, for your website, for your blog that I made mention of. Whether it’s for direct or e-mail campaigns and collateral material. 
And moving forward to 29. We’re going to talk about some of the avenues in more detail now. 

And I’ll move you through to slide 30. Avenues to target -- we’re gonna talk about advertising and public relations -- how they work together, trade shows and direct sales, our website and the blogs again. And this is just recapping the different things like direct mail, e-mail, and collateral.

Then I move to 31. Advertising -- I’m sure in one form or another, many of you have been involved in advertising, placing advertising, or doing some form of advertising for your byway or your organization, or in another capacity. You know, something you probably learned, it can be very expensive. It sometimes has a very limited reach, but it’s ideal for targeting a specific niche audience, or a specific group of people. You know, one of the downsides -- it has a limited shelf life in most cases, unless you’re advertising in something that ideally is gonna sit on the shelf for an entire year, or be used ongoing through the course of the year. There’s an infinite number of options out there for trying to reach specific audiences, and it can be very complicated. But advertising is something when affordable, is something that should be incorporated into your marketing plan.

32 -- I’m moving to section 32. One of the things that needs to accompany any of your advertising or stand alone, even if you cannot afford to do any specific advertising -- is public relations. Public relations complements your advertising. You need to address this in your marketing plan. Public relations is fabulous. One of the best things about it -- it’s free, because it allows you to create your own message and put them in the forms of press releases, which you send out to the media, to print, TV, newspaper, radio -- send it to e-newsletters. Public relations -- you can call a press conference to talk about a special event or something that’s happening in the life of your byway. You can publish it to the internet, and put it on the internet, and people could pick it up through searches.
I mentioned it’s free. I keep emphasizing -- it’s free. As much time as possible should be spent towards your public relations and addressed in your marketing plan. One of the things about a press release or something that is in the form of public relations, it has more credibility than paid advertisements. To give you a quick example, 90% of the people that read an article in the travel section or a travel publication -- 90% of the people who read an article in the travel section believe what they read compared to only 25% of the people who read a paid advertisement for the same destination. When it’s in a press release form or a travel article form, it has more credibility. It’s very self-serving.
Your message is written in your words about your own byway. I encourage you to take a look at ways to get more information to the press and the media. Determine the publications that can help you or appeal to your customers. Contact them, their editors, their publishers. Get to know them. Get their editorial calendars. Find out what their articles are going to be in upcoming editions and send them press releases.

Moving to number 33. We’ll talk about trade shows very briefly. Trade shows are something that may or may not apply to your byway world, but it does have its merits.
They are great for sales and booking, creating an image, relationship building.
The competition may be there, but they’re very cost-effective as you can go and see a large potential of customers in a very, very short span of time. I use them in my business because I can go see my two, three, four, five top customers, in addition to possibly 20, 30, 40, 50 other potential customers for the same money I sort of spent just to see that top two, three, four, five. 

I’m going to move on to number 34, because I’ve gotten behind in the course of the presentation. Here, we’re talking about websites. Anyone not have a website, or not work with an organization, or an organization that does not have a website? OK. Yeah, websites are critical these days.

They’re all on Byways.org. 

[Laughs]
What was that?

I said that they’re all on Byways.org.

Clearly. Absolutely, I was just asking if there was anyone that didn’t have a specific or, you know, was using -- maybe using a specific website that they created only for themselves, or it was kind of a regional -- something they were doing of that nature.
Surprisingly, sometimes when I make this presentation, a lot of people that I speak with don’t have a web presence. And I only bring it up because, you know, it has become the greatest source of travel information there is out there. It’s a great way to collect data, possibly e-mail addresses for re-marketing purposes, links to partners and stakeholders through your website, increase those re-marketing opportunities. Travel Industry of America in something like 2002, only 54% of the people who traveled used a website for information. That has exploded. Here we are, five, six years later, 87% of the people taking a trip going more than 50 miles now go to the internet for some of their travel information. It’s critical to have a web presence. 

Moving forward to number 35, I talk about direct mail. It is still out there, but it is becoming more and more and more expensive to utilize direct mail as a marketing tool.
It's slow and expensive, where they’re recently moving up to 41 cents per copy just for the regular first class mailing. It’s time consuming and labor intensive.  

I encourage you to try to move to EBlast, which is slide number 36. It allows you to target a much larger audience. People can opt in for future e-mail. It has a great open rate of people that actually open and read what you are providing them, because they said they wanted to. On a national average, if you’re getting an open rate of about 21% of all the e-mails you send out, you’re on a target for the national average for that. But it is a wave of the future, and it gives them an opportunity to request new or more information that is very cost-effective. A great reason to capture e-mail addresses for future marketing purposes. 

And slide 37 covers some of the typical things we’re more familiar with, our brochures, maps, itineraries, folders, stationery, postcards, things of that nature, which all of us are much more familiar with. But it’s important to address those in your marketing plan so that you explain your plan for them -- quantities produced, and how you will utilize those. And that kind of brings us almost to a close. We talked about media, and listed it as one of the essential elements you need to address. But not everyone includes media as a component in their plan. We talked about it -- it’s expensive. We talked about it -- it’s just not for everyone. But if you’re utilizing it, please make sure it’s included.
You may want to include that as a separate section, so it’s something you can kind of continually update and monitor. Trade shows -- another item that we’ve mentioned that maybe is not right for everyone, but it is something you may want to include in your marketing plan as a way to target some specific audiences. And on a separate sheet, so it’s easily accessible and readily available, for a quick view of all the shows you plan to attend, for our schedule. You know, kind of the last thing I like to talk about is our executive summary. I mentioned that and how important it was. It’s a PR tool -- public relations tool. It’s a sales tool, and it’s a marketing tool. It’s a snapshot or summary of your marketing plan. People are more likely to read a summary than they are the entire plan. You know, you can share it with your stakeholders, with your partners, send it to your local media as a press release, give it to your local CVB and tourism offices, post it to your website, include it as part of any solicitation when you’re trying to possibly raise funds, gain sponsors, or create new partners.

And I move to number 40, and that’s kind of the essential elements of a great marketing plan. You know, it’s collaboration between you, your byway, people along the byway, all your partners, everybody involved in your co-op. It’s an ongoing work, and it’s a living document. It is something that you are continually updating and changing. Now, almost to the end. The one element that I didn’t speak about or I talked about earlier but didn’t elaborate on very much is the budget. Include a copy of your budget and your marketing plan. Now, everybody’s got a different budget, different source of resources or funds and finance, but it is something you want to have as part of your personal marketing plan.
You may not want to include that in the copies you distribute, because I think we consider it privileged information. But a budget is essential as it itemizes the proposed expenditures that you described in your marketing plan. And it allows you to track incomes, funds, and co-op dollars. And you are are less likely to overspend or stray from your plan if you have a budget to keep you in place. 

And my contact information is Bill Cantor, and that is BCantor@[unintelligible].com
If you have any questions, like more information or have -- would like some assistance or input from me, I’d be happy to do it. Thank you.