With more than seven million vehicles passing through Sundre every year, and in excess of 2,000 campsites located within 10 minutes of town, it’s important for businesses to take advantage of the influx of visitors our area experiences.
Most of the people visiting Sundre come from the Calgary area. To keep Sundre at the top of their mind, the municipality has engaged in an extensive marketing campaign. Since 2015, the Explore Sundre campaign has been successful at drawing people to Sundre, evidenced by record numbers of people stopping at the Visitor Information Centre, and constantly increasing traffic counts through town.
But the campaign can only do so much to get people through your business’s doors. The Explore Sundre campaign will draw people to Sundre, but it’s up to you to entice visitors to step through your doors.
Of course to do this, you need a good online presence (including a good website and managed reviews), good customer service (make sure you smile and welcome people into your business, no matter where they're from), and a well-priced, quality product or service.
Beyond this, businesses need to work together to cross-promote each other and make the visitor experience that much more pleasant. Reach out to retailers, campgrounds, the museum and other destinations, for instance, to let fellow business owners and organizations know what you’re up to.
The Town of Sundre’s Explore Sundre advertising campaign is being taken to the next level this summer, with the help of an extra-large grant provided by Travel Alberta. Although advertising will take place on TV and radio, with some print ads too, the backbone of the campaign will be the online social media ads being placed on Facebook and Instagram.
For local businesses, engaging in an effective customer attraction campaign does not need to be expensive or difficult. The following tactics and marketing tricks can help get tourists through your doors once they arrive in the area.
1. Visiting friends and relatives are typically the largest market segment of leisure travellers. Consider creating incentives for local residents to bring their visiting friends and relatives to your business.
2. According to Travel Alberta, approximately 70 per cent of tourism shopping is done after 6 p.m., after the day's activities are done. Consider creating extended hours on long weekends and certain days of the week.
3. YouTube videos get moved to the top of Google search results. Consider creating a YouTube account with short videos of about two minutes, using tags in the video description that people search for most.
GOOGLE HACK: We can see what people search for most in Google by simply typing the word 'Sundre' into the search box, and those suggestions that are prompted are typically the most searched for. Include the prompted terms in your videos’ descriptions and make videos about similar topics, if you can.
4. Social media is your friend and micro-videos are integral to it. Consider creating short videos of less than 30 seconds to post to your Instagram, Facebook and Twitter feeds. Short, dynamic content is way more effective at generating interaction — and they don’t need to be fancy.
SOCIAL MEDIA HACK: Those temporary stories on Facebook and Instagram appear at the very top of users' home feeds — that's prime real estate. Make stories about behind the scenes stuff and the things that will make you seem more interesting and approachable. This will help generate interaction with your social media pages more often.
5. Take advantage of provincial tourism business support programs. Check out the PRIZM service, which provides operators with information on the demographic profile of their clientele, along with other research to help locate, communicate with and create targeted ads for your best customers. Contact the province's tourism research division directly at 780-641-9326.
Hopefully, these tips and tricks will help you find new ways to draw more traffic through your business's doors.
— Jon Allan is the Town of Sundre's economic development officer.
