Everything you need to know about City Marketing or City Marketing

If we have learned anything in our life in the world of Marketing, it is that everything can be marketed and, in the right way, any industry can benefit from existing marketing strategies.

One of the most interesting branches of Marketing today is City Marketing. Here we tell you about this modality, its importance and most used techniques.

What is City Marketing or city marketing?

City marketing refers to a strategy where a specific city is promoted, in order to attract a greater number of travelers. It can also be designed to attract business investment and / or migration to the city. In general, the intention is for marketing efforts to make one city stand out from others.

Successful urban marketing strategies can serve to boost the local tourism industry. In addition to helping a city stand out, city ​​marketing can also help improve a city’s reputation, or allow it to be seen in a different light.

Why is urban marketing useful and important?

The wide availability of airlines, travel websites, travel agents and transportation shows that travelers have a wide variety of destination options. This may mean that a city is competing with many other cities, towns, regions and resorts for similar people with similar interests.

City marketing is useful and important because it can help promote a city by drawing attention to its unique qualities and strengths . It can help the local economy, including hotels, restaurants, retailers, and travel agents, increasing demand across the board.

What is the difference between city marketing and destination marketing?

The basic concept of city marketing is very similar to the concept of destination marketing, both with the aim of promoting the strengths or virtues of a particular location, in order to attract travelers. However, they are not exactly the same, as urban marketing focuses exclusively on a single city.

On the other hand, destination marketing could focus on a city, but it could also include aspects such as country marketing or marketing for a specific region or area. However, the main objectives and techniques are similar.

Who is responsible for city marketing?

A variety of different people and organizations, such as destination management organizations and groups, may be involved in city marketing efforts, but strategic responsibility will generally be delegated to marketing organizations or tourism boards. These organizations may have members or stakeholders, including local businesses and attractions, and these may pay a membership fee.

This group will defend the interests of the city, will try to attract business investment and will try to promote tourism and other forms of travel. Furthermore, anyone interested in tourism management, such as hotels, can also participate more unilaterally, promoting the city to attract customers.

10 keys to achieving a good city ​​marketing strategy

As in any strategy, urban marketing requires certain keys to be successful. Here are some tips to make city marketing actions successful:

Make sure your city differs from the others

One of the most important steps in urban marketing is to pinpoint what makes a city stand out and to pinpoint what makes it worth visiting. These could include famous landmarks, important tourist attractions, unique cultural aspects of the city, interesting architecture, etc.

Be clear about your target audience

All good city marketing strategies have a clear target audience, or a number of key target audience groups. This requires you to think carefully about who is most likely to be interested in traveling to your city and the reasons for doing so. You may need to break this down into several customer profile examples.

For example, your city may be modern, with a thriving nightlife, which will help it attract younger people. Or it could be steeped in history and culture, attracting older demographics, or a thriving business hub, attracting corporate travelers. It could be a retail hub, attractive to shoppers, or a national tourist hotspot.

Identifying the main audiences is crucial in guiding the city’s marketing plan.

Lean on data

City marketing strategies are best when they focus on evidence. Marketing organizations and their stakeholders have the ability to collect data and use it for all kinds of purposes, from identifying who visits particular hotel or restaurant websites, to using Google Analytics to find which pages attract people and which ones don’t. .

Hotels can identify their key demographics and their busiest times. Other travel companies can spot trends in demand. You can even learn about the preferred devices that people use. All of this information can be collected, analyzed and used to create a focused urban marketing strategy, targeting the right people, at the right times.

Don’t neglect branding

The brand helps to recognize, identify, understand and / or digest a product. Coherent logos, slogans, color combinations and messages are included in the framework of the “brand” and tend to play a key role in the best city marketing campaigns, because they help the city to stand out.

The branding of a city can be done in several ways. You can use a consistent logo or font that says something about the city. You can create an eye-catching slogan. The trick to a good brand is to stick with it as much as possible, because consistency and customer familiarity are crucial.

Create an attractive website for the city

A lot of potential visitors to your city will turn to the internet for inspiration, so it is essential that you have an attractive website to showcase it and what it has to offer. A website can help you promote your city’s unique outlets to your target audience in the precise way you want to promote them.

Use images, videos, and blog posts to promote city-specific features and offer travel information, tourist site promotions, coupons, or discount codes. Regardless of the precise content, your website must be optimized for mobile devices and offer a great user experience as well.

Design a search marketing strategy

Many people looking for a city break or a city to travel to will research their options on the Internet, and search engines like Google are a common starting point. Ideally, when they search for terms related to a city, they want them to be directed to their own website, to read persuasive content.

The main way to do this is through search marketing. Paid advertising on search engines allows you to get sponsored results. Greater visibility generates more website traffic.

Using good SEO practices, you can also improve the visibility of your videos and images.

Encourage user-generated content

City marketing efforts should also focus on promoting experiences, and a great way to do that is to try to turn visitors into ambassadors.

Think of ways to encourage visitors to create their own content. You can promote a hashtag on social media or include a section on the website for videos or photos. Many potential travelers will find this type of indirect marketing more compelling, because it comes from ordinary people, who do not have an agenda.

Make the most of social media

Social media is a powerful tool for promoting cities. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer different features and allow you to reach different demographic groups. Social media posts can help you build a global following, while sponsored posts and ads are often available as well.

With these features, you’ll have the ability to target very specific people, based on their interests, location, gender, places they’ve visited before, their browsing history, and more. You can also use social media sites to get creative with contests or quizzes, in order to generate real engagement.

Collaborate with influencers

Influencers, those with a loyal following on social media, have a lot of marketing power. By collaborating with them, it is possible to market your city to people who would otherwise be out of reach, and you will also earn their trust more quickly.

Additionally, different influencers appeal to different demographics, allowing you to run multiple campaigns simultaneously.

Use travel websites to promote your city

While having a website to promote your city is valuable, highly effective marketing strategies will involve reaching people who may be exploring their options, people who have not yet settled in a location, or people who have not paid any consideration to your. city ​​at all. Travel websites offer an ideal way to do this.

You can include widely known international websites, travel websites of specific interest, local travel websites, or travel websites that appeal to a specific demographic. Banners, video content, images, and VR walkthroughs are content options.

As you can see, city ​​marketing can be very powerful and activate various industries in cities if the correct strategies are applied and the right audience is targeted. To achieve this, you can count on a team of experts in content, design and digital guidelines to ensure that your efforts are well distributed (Source: Abdul Rimaaz )