Take Care of Your Marketing House; Reflections of the 2025 Iowa Tourism Conference

Take Care of Your Marketing House; Reflections of the 2025 Iowa Tourism Conference

By: Kennedy Wilson, AACC Events and Marketing Coordinator

Earlier this year, Melissa and I attended the 2025 Tourism Conference at Prairie Meadows Casino, Racetrack and Hotel. After checking in, we listened to the first keynote speaker that discussed on the This is Iowa website. Something interesting that was mentioned in the presentation was the use of Reddit and Pinterest for marketing. While Reddit is paid advertising, Pinterest doesn't have to be when paired with a content creator/influencer OR created by you through your own personal account. The use of influencers has become quite the strategy for larger corporations and some small businesses. I can't remember that last time I hopped on Facebook or Instagram and didn't see a video for Crumbl Cookie or the Dubai Chocolate Bars! So would this work for Altoona businesses? My answer... yes!

Social media and the use of influencers is no different than word of mouth marketing in fact IT IS word of mouth marketing. Now there are risks as I've said before because influencers can either put you on the map with your product or cancel you, so you have to be careful and make sure that your product is a top seller to get feet in your doors.

As the speaker continued talking about Pinterest, she noted something about the 20-30 year old demographic that was very surprising to me. According to their research, that target audience is using LinkedIn more than Pinterest! I've always referred to LinkedIn as the professional's Facebook, because you're basically doing the same thing just in a more professional tone and it's usually centered around career excelling material. For example, I post about our events at the Chamber, video promotions that I've made, or cool things I'm doing professionally.

The speaker also stated that younger demographics are really interested in the "why." Why should I buy this? Why would this help me in my life? Why spend my time doing this? Having the "why" incorporated in your marketing is golden! Pair that with awesome visuals and you're set!

Example: why do I want to go to Crumbl Cookie? Because they look absolutely delicious and the influencers I watched on social media said they were, so I'm going to try them! So in your marketing content, are you making the impression of "people WANT to ____ here"?

 

People want to SHOP here.

People want to EAT here.

People want to WORK with us here.

People want to REFER us to their friends here.

If you can provide a unique experience, people will come!

 

After the morning keynote speaker, we sat in on the breakout session titled "Taking Care of Your Marketing House." Brian McMillin, President and Founder of Neapolitan Labs, covered both website and email marketing strategies focusing mostly on a housekeeping checklist for your website. Throughout this presentation he asked many rhetorical questions that I found would be very helpful to you as members to ensure that your websites and email marketing strategies are strong. Check out the questions below and see where you could make improvements!

Your website is sometimes someone's first impression of you!

-Do you have stunning visuals right on the homepage? A video? A crisp high resolution photo pf product? A carousel of services with images?

-Is your website mobile friendly? What does it look like from a phone? (a higher percentage of people are using their phones to look up websites than desktops)

-Is everything current? Your basic contact information, online forms, services offered, picture gallery, your team, your location?

-How user friendly is your content search? How quickly can someone find information on your site?

-Do you have good title pages on your website? These should help navigate people to the information they're seeking.

-How is your search through Google? Are you in the top 5 on first page? Not in the top 5-- dive into your keywords and make sure they're specific and match trends.

-Do your keywords and verbiage on your website align with your keywords and verbiage on your social media accounts?

-Is your Google Business Listing up to date and accurate?

-Are you tracking your analytics? Where are people going when they're on your website? What page gets the most traffic? Why does it get the most traffic?

-If a page isn't getting very much viewing, is it necessary to keep?

-Does your website connect back to your community? (Younger demographics really care about and support businesses that are connected to their community)

Email marketing can be a great tool for your business, but here are some questions to consider before taking the leap!

-Are you growing your audience or growing engagement? What's the goal behind it?

-If you've started one already, what's your open rate? Are you keeping track of that? Industry standard is 30%.

-Are you overthinking your content? This isn't a magazine so you shouldn't spend oodles of time on it everyday. Now if it's weekly or monthly, that's a different story.

-If you're doing video content on your social media- are you sharing it with your valued customers via email first? Then posting it on social media?

-Are you providing content that's more than just "please come back and pay me money?" Fashion tips, do's and donts' of your trade, testimonials, behind the scenes information, shout outs to your team/staff etc.

 

Thanks for reading! Next time I'll be covering the second breakout session I attended titled, "The Content Factory: The Golden Ticket to Writing, Repurposing and Trendspotting."