By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
New Mexico Secretary of Tourism Rebecca Latham and Jordan Guenther Director of Brand Marketing and Advertising were in Raton Thursday morning to give a presentation on the New Mexico True campaign and how Raton can benefit from the many aspects of this program.
Latham started out explaining that tourism has increased over 40% from 2011 to 32.7 million visitors in 2014. She went on to explain to the group of business people and others that the New Mexico True campaign has done market research in major cities like Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles and as a result has been able to create a more targeted advertising campaign. As a result of the better marketing tourism is up and the state legislature has seen the benefit and increased the tourism budget from $2.5 million in 2011 to $9.35 million in 2016.
Guenther explained that the market research showed that in Denver people were interested in the New Mexico cuisine, shopping and non-snow sports adventures while advertising New Mexico architecture, hot springs and skiing failed to attract attention. While in Dallas tamales, architecture and couple massage didn’t get much attention but outdoor activities, cuisine and culture garnered the interest of those polled individuals.
In Houston Llama Treks, shopping native American shops and native peoples drew interest while tamales, architecture, art(opera) and hot springs failed but in New York the cuisine and architecture along with the native American culture drew a lot of interest. It turned out that New Mexico had a perception problem not a product problem.
Latham and Guenther went on to explain where the New Mexico True campaign was having success and one niche was in the food market by creating advertising for the food network. The ad targeted those who would travel for the cuisine targeting what food is unique to New Mexico.
The New Mexico True campaign is unique in that it helps change the perception of what New Mexico really is, a state with great diversity in culture and activities. Once the campaign began changing the perception of what New Mexico is the state saw an increase in tourism.
New Mexico has created a television program that also promotes tourism not only on TV but also in print, radio and digital media where people can watch and share the videos promoting New Mexico to a larger crowd. They promoted New Mexico and the different areas of the state by showing people exciting and beautiful scenery and enticing them to visit rather than saying visit New Mexico because we have this.
Communities around the state can tap into this program in a number of ways including assistance in creating advertising to help promote and highlight certain aspects of a community. By partnering with the New Mexico True campaign a town like Raton can easily broaden its reach to attract tourist.
Latham concluded the program with 20 ways the New Mexico True program can work for you which includes ways of being seen, getting listed within the organization. To use New Mexico True ad building tools and even some funding sources. And last but not least get informed with access to NMTG research and presentations as well as access to the New Mexico True digital media sources. (Link to the 20 ways New Mexico True can help you document)
