Who has time for marketing?
By Bryan Edwards
Lake Erie Shores & Islands
Question: What do you wish you had more of?
While one of the most popular answers is most likely money, and who could argue with that, my guess is that at least one of your answers was time. We all wish we had more time. More time to spend with our family and friends. More time to relax. More time to be able to read the North Coast Business Journal!
Thanks to the skilled and dedicated team at Lake Erie Shores & Islands, the destination marketing organization for Erie and Ottawa counties, we can help you save time. The extra time you spend on promoting your business. Our mission is to grow the region’s tourism economy through collaborative promotion that increases visitation and makes Lake Erie Shores & Islands the ideal place to play, live and work. But just how do we do that and how can your business benefit from it?
The Travel Guide
One of the best ways to promote your business is by becoming a Lake Erie Shores & Islands business partner and purchasing an ad in our annual travel guide. This must-have booklet highlights the wide variety of attractions, restaurants, retail shops, marinas, overnight accommodations, and more that the region has to offer. Every year, more than a quarter-million copies of the guide are distributed around the country, either by direct mail, at trade shows, at travel centers and other visitor locations around Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, or viewed and downloaded from our website. The Lake Erie Shores & Islands Travel Guide is the largest circulated travel planner in the state!
Website
Another great benefit of being a partner with Lake Erie Shores & Islands is getting your business listed on our award-winning website, SHORESandISLANDS.com. This year has been a record-breaking year for the site. We have set records in terms of visitors, page views, engaged sessions (visitors clicking on more than one page), links off the page to partner sites, traffic from social media channels, and more. The recently-redesigned site provides the ability for our partners to showcase their business through multiple images, descriptions, a Google Maps location of their business, as well as upcoming events. SHORESandISLANDS.com has become one of our most powerful marketing tools to promote the region.
Social Media
Who doesn’t enjoy spending time scrolling through their social media feeds? Well, luckily for our partners, we have a massive presence on those social media channels. In fact, did you know that Lake Erie Shores & Islands has more followers on Facebook than Experience Columbus, Destination Cleveland, Destination Toledo, CincinnatiUSA, and Ohio.org?!?! And we don’t stop there. We are also active on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Snapchat promoting our partners, events, contests, and more.
Advertising
Thanks to help from our marketing partner, Marcus Thomas LLC in Cleveland, Lake Erie Shores & Islands advertises our region to millions of potential visitors. This year we focused our efforts on digital advertising and engaged with millions of potential visitors online. We targeted potential visitors in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Cincinnati, and Detroit. Our campaign this year was titled “Start Coasting.” The commercials specifically target friends, couples, and families, with “coasting” taking on different meanings to best resonate with each group – whether that is parents trying to slow down and enjoy time with their families, or millennials looking to unwind and unplug with friends.
With nearly 11 million people visiting Ohio’s Lake Erie Shores & Islands annually, are they finding their way to you? By becoming a partner with us, your business can harness the brand strength of this region’s premiere destination marketing organization known as Lake Erie Shores & Islands. Your presence in our travel guide, welcome centers, and on our website is just part of the many ways we advance the economic environment and quality of life in this region. Through your partnership you can take advantage of additional benefits including: discount offers, networking, email newsletters, blog postings, group packets, travel and leisure shows, media exposure, travel writer tours and so much more. Let us help you save time. Contact us at 419-625-2984 or via email at info@shoresandislands.com.
By Bryan Edwards, Director of Marketing & Communications for Lake Erie Shores & Islands
