Tourist association sets aside 30K for marketing

By Taryn Plumb
Turley Publications Reporter

STURBRIDGE -To further its charge of putting more “heads in beds,” the Sturbridge Tourist Association has earmarked $30,000 in its Fiscal Year 2011 budget to aid with the advertising and marketing efforts of the Central Mass. South Chamber of Commerce.
To get access to it, the Chamber must return to the committee's August meeting with a strategic plan for using the money.
Chamber executive director Alexandra McNitt lamented the overall funding situation. “There's just not enough money to sufficiently market this area,” she said. “The state really is cutting, cutting, cutting.”
McNitt initially requested $60,000 from the STA for advertising and marketing campaigns, but members decided that allotting money out to the Chamber in smaller chunks would allow it to promote funding for other projects. Similarly, Chairman Kevin MacConnell, of the Sturbridge Country Inn, noted that he could get “much more excited” about the chamber's marketing efforts if local businesses were included in it, to which McNitt replied, “It's not gonna happen.”
In another boost to marketing, the committee voted to allot $7,000 for advertising the Sturbridge Townships. The money comes from a roughly $9,500 remaining surplus in its Fiscal Year 2010 budget, and will cover extra ads on the website for the Times Union newspaper in Albany, as well as additional exposure through at least one other market (which could include NBC Connecticut or WFSB.com, another Connecticut news source).
The Sturbridge Townships campaign, which highlights the attractions and qualities of Brimfield, Holland, Sturbridge and Wales, as well as Southbridge, the Brookfields, Charlton, Spencer and Warren, was launched in summer 2008.
McNitt explained that banner ads with the Times Union website have been displayed 500,000 times – what's known as “impressions” – and have also experienced a “good” click-through rate.
“It's producing results, which is what counts,” said McNitt.
Both the Times Union and the Hartford Courant are driving traffic to the Sturbridge Townships website, which touts the area as “everything but ordinary.” The biggest direct referral, however, is Old Sturbridge Village, McNitt explained, while a good amount of attention is also generated through a Facebook page.
The Albany campaign has been successful, McNitt posited, because people are likely more inclined to come in from that area and stay overnight; she also noted that Sturbridge, at the apex of Routes 84 and 90, fosters in-between meet-ups between distant friends and relatives. The website also taps into Sturbridge's ideal market: Adults, age 35 to 64, who have disposable income and enjoy staycations and the bed and breakfast experience.
Meanwhile, the Boston and New York City markets are too expensive – McNitt said that one ad in the New York Times travel section costs $115,000.
In other news:

–Up to $3,000 in surplus funds were re-purposed to pay for a high-quality, portable trade show booth. “Right now what we have is not even close to being competitive,” said McNitt, describing the current booth as outdated and tired. The goal, she said, would be to purchase a display with interchangeable parts, either something that rolls down like a window shade or fits onto a wall like a backdrop. Once purchased, the display would be available to any town business attending a trade show.
–Up to $1,000 was allotted for the purchase of light bulbs for the Route 20 bathrooms, the installation of automatic light sensors that will be set from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the installation of automatic thermostats to resolve heat problems. Previously, the committee, which is charged with maintaining the facility, appropriated $250 to fix and paint the outside gate and fence.
–With approval, an extra $793.88 was given to the Chamber to cover an agreed-upon 35 percent coverage of the info center budget. The decision corrected a previous math error.
–An additional $57.75 – appropriated from remaining Fiscal Year 2010 funding – was approved for the Chamber's lawn care expenses.
–The committee decided to let $800 previously set aside to cover expenses for extended info center hours on Friday and Saturday nights be used until it runs out.
–A new brochure rack is in place at the info center and available for Sturbridge businesses. “It really needs to be communicated to businesses in town that it's something that's available to them,” McNitt said. Those businesses looking to include their brochures in the rack can do so by contacting any member of the committee, preferably via email (so members can keep a list of featured businesses).