To some, Branson, MO evokes images of country music and seniors on bus tours.
But the Ozarks-area city has much more to offer. And the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau is using a coordinated program of DRTV, radio, Web and print to invite both tourists and business travelers to hear its song.
“The further out people are from Branson, the more limited or distorted their view is of what we have to offer,” says Dan Lennon, vice president of marketing and public relations. “While we're very proud of our country shows — it's a huge part of our draw — we're not exclusively country. And the average age of our adult visitor is about 56, only a year or two older than other places like Nashville, TN.”
While the Missouri city “doesn't have a turnstile,” Lennon estimates that roughly 8 million people will visit this year.
The typical visitor varies depending on the season. In spring, fall and during the Christmas season, the split is about 40% seniors, 40% empty nesters and 20% families. In the summer, 50% of the crowd are families, while older folks stay home generally because of the warm weather.
Indeed, in addition to the 100 or more music shows (including Andy Williams, Ann-Margret and Tony Orlando), the city also boasts mountains and lakes, the world's largest Titanic museum, the Silver Dollar City theme park, a new $6 million spa, the $70 million-plus Sight and Sound Theater (set to open this year), and Branson Landing, a $420 million dining, shopping and residential area built in 2006.
Lennon says Branson is primarily a leisure destination. About 11% of the visitors last year were groups, approximately half of them from churches, schools and veterans' organizations. The city has been courting the convention market for 15 years or so but it's taken until now for those efforts to bear fruit, thanks in part to the opening of the Branson Convention Center last year.
Branson's main promotional vehicle for reaching consumers is television. This year some 77% of the destination's $7.5 million marketing budget is allocated for local and national TV. Lennon says 75% is national cable, running seasonally on about 14 different networks. Spot TV is done in Kansas City and St. Louis as well as Little Rock and Fort Smith/Fayetteville, AR and Tulsa, OK, with further efforts on radio and online at www.explorebranson.com.
Each year, Branson does some prospecting and new market testing. In 2006 Dallas and Chicago were tried, resulting in a 20% bump from those areas. Six new markets will be tested this year: Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, IA; Lincoln and Omaha, NE; Shreveport, LA and Champaign, IL.
The TV spots feature both 800 numbers and the explorebranson.com URL as calls to action. Several different themes alternate within the various markets. One series of spots, “Listen to the Music,” features the Doobie Brothers song of that name and highlights the variety of shows and attractions. The tagline is “Someone you love is always playing in Branson.”
A different take is the “Memories, made daily in Branson” commercial, which shows a family enjoying the region's outdoors activities. Another uses the tagline “Romance, now playing in Branson” and shows an empty-nester couple holding hands in a theater, while Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers performs on stage.
“By itself, it would not be a good destination spot. But in rotation with these other product spots, it works,” Lennon says. “It's difficult to [present] a destination in 30 seconds.”
The city places print ads in Missouri's AAA tour book and the state vacation planner. It also participates in some insert programs and co-ops, and does newspaper promotions as support in markets where radio and TV are running.
Online, geotargeted marketing is carried out on the four or five most trafficked sites for particular areas. Some paid search is used too. While the obvious keywords — like the name “Branson” — work, terms like “family vacations” are too general to be of use, Lennon says. Ozarks-related terms also perform well.
Branson doesn't use much direct mail on the consumer side.
“We've done postcards in the past, but they're not very cost-effective because as a convention and visitors bureau, we're not transaction-based,” he notes.
To target group and meeting planners, Lennon says his team attends about 23 trade shows a year. Branson mails a teaser packet to each of the estimated 1,000 attendees before each event, encouraging them to stop by the city's booth at the show.
The Branson CVB has an internal database of nearly 1,000 meeting planners and mails out a newsletter about local happenings four times annually. Each year some 250 planners are invited to tour the area.
Approximately 5,000 meeting planners are sent e-newsletters four times a year using an opt-in list from Philadelphia-based Navigate, while 75,000 e-mails go out monthly to travel agents and group operators using a database from Mail Pound and E-Marketing. On the leisure side, an internal 70,000 name e-mail database of consumers is contacted regularly.
Another e-mail newsletter, Branson Buzz, targets 6,000 tour-group operators and travel agents six times a year, and a 10,000-piece postcard drop goes to the internal list twice a year.
Branson also maintains a database of 2,000 high school and college music directors, who receive a full package about the city annually encouraging them to bring their classes for a trip. While there, students not only get the chance to visit shows and theme parks, but to perform on a professional stage as well.
On the “reactive” marketing side, Branson mails 10,000 or so sales kits and vacation guides every year in response to requests.
Public relations is part of the city's promotional plan as well. Branson reaches out to a database of 850 journalists four to six times annually with information about the city. A select segment of 50 reporters are contacted once a month. They receive things like CDs, local craft items and food.
“As the World Turns” featured Branson for five episodes last year, a real PR coup. This was great, Lennon says, considering that the soap opera's viewers — women age 35 and up — are the city's core target market. To capitalize on this exposure, pricey packets including an iPod loaded with video showcasing the best of Branson were sent to travel editors and journalists at entertainment publications and TV channels such as E! and Variety.
Branson is working with Dallas-based Camelot Communications on media buying, and to expand its Web program and social media use. Currently, the city has a MySpace page (myspace.com/bestvacationdestination) and a blog (explorebranson.com/blog), but isn't doing much in the way of podcasts or online video.
A continual challenge for any convention and visitors' bureau is tracking whether information requesters eventually went on to visit. Lennon says that for years Branson did conversion studies and the rates were high, but such research hasn't been done for at least two years.
“We do know that about 80% of visitors have been here before, and many ask for the vacation planner every year,” he says.
As for meetings and conventions, Branson is working with Hilton, which operates the new convention center, to fulfill proposal and information requests. “We are able to track that somewhat,” Lennon says. “As people communicate better, we're getting a [good] sense of who is booking Branson.”
Population: 6,500 city residents; 40,000 in region
Annual marketing budget: $7.5 million
Marketing media: 77% television; the rest is a mix of Web, radio, print and some direct mail, mostly to meeting and group planners
Local theaters: 52, presenting about 115 shows
Annual visitors: Approximately 8 million
How they get there: 85% visit by car, driving from a 500-mile radius
Projected 2008 tourism growth: 3% to 5%
The Welk Resort and Champagne Theater was one of the first places to open in Branson when the city's entertainment venues started to expand in the early 1990s. Among the initial performers was a signature act from Lawrence Welk's television program — The Lennon Sisters.
Yep, that's right. Dan Lennon is a Lennon Brother.
Lennon and his family grew up in California, where he was involved in various aspects of the entertainment and marketing business. In 1992, Larry Welk Jr., president of Sugar Hill Records (Dolly Parton's label) wanted to continue his father's legacy in Branson. The 60-plus member Lennon clan had a family meeting and about 30 decided to pack and move to Missouri.
Dan and his brothers had a swing quartet which performed some 2,000 shows in Branson over a 10-year period. He also served as director of marketing for the Welk Resort, moving over to the Branson Chamber about five years ago.
When this writer mentions remembering personalities such as the dance team Bobby and Cissy, from watching the show with her parents every Saturday night, Lennon laughs.
“I grew up with all those people!” he says. “With my sisters on the show, they would come to my house occasionally and we'd have Wiffle Ball games and picnics. I grew up with those characters in my life. Lawrence Welk was almost like my fairy godfather.”
— Beth Negus Viveiros
