Since the Northeast Kingdom Travel & Tourism Association phased out staffing and active projects in 2016, a number of Chambers of Commerce and other organizations that had once participated in NEKTTA have worked together through the NEK Regional Marketing Partnership—facilitated by the Northern Forest Center—to develop a strategic plan for collaborative marketing of the region.
Based on that plan, the Center contracted with Adjust Communications of Waterbury to develop and implement a regional digital marketing campaign for the NEK. That campaign— playfully named getNEKedVT launched Monday, June 10!
The basics of the campaign:
Create social buzz
Drive website traffic
Increase visitation of NEK businesses and events
Create a revenue stream that will be able to generate funds that can be used to sustain and expand regional marketing efforts
All while having some fun with the way people have come to abbreviate the kingdom!
Check out the following [getNEKed] channels:
Website: https://getnekedvt.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getNEKedVT/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vermonts_northeast_kingdom/
There will be a ton of storytelling going on at getNEKedVT, both in text and more engagingly in video the campaign unfolds.
The stories will be plotted around the NEK’s unique nature and offerings and delivered through social advertising to targeted audiences. But in a more direct way, the site will offer an ever-rotating and expanding menu of tours throughout the NEK.
The tours are built around categories: Events, arts & culture, nature, music, creemee stands, and so on. Tour takers can win prizes such as getNEKedVT stickers and t-shirts for the number of businesses they visit, mountains they climb, or events they participate in. New tours will mirror Vermont’s seasons. For more info, check out the getNEKedVT fact sheet.
Join in!
Follow the facebook and instagram feeds. Check out the [NEKed] tours and document your achievements with #getNEKedVT to build the campaign (and win some stickers and t-shirts while you’re at it!). And if you’d like to be involved in shaping the future of the campaign, email Joe Short at jshort@northernforest.org for details.
Why the campaign?
The Northeast Kingdom, like many rural areas across the country, faces related systemic problems: declining school enrollment, failing infrastructure and an aging population, partially due to the outflux of young workers and families.
Fortunately, the region also has many of the natural and cultural resources sought by this same demographic: outdoor recreation, small schools, affordable real estate, abundant locally-grown food and walkable town centers.
Tourists and vacationers are drawn here by the same assets. There is a great opportunity to support, market and expand on these strengths, particularly where the creative, recreational and agricultural/culinary resources of the area overlap or might enhance each other.
But there are challenges to overcome: the geographic isolation of our communities, limited capacity for coordination among organizations and the need to bring resiliency to these three sectors, which can be among the first to suffer during slow economic times, through local patronage and support.
Reflecting upon these challenges and opportunities, the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative, as a part of its Task Force on the Creative, Recreation, and Food Sectors, highlighted the need for effective regional marketing of the Northeast Kingdom and five strategies to accomplish that.
