Objective:

Impact PR & Communications (IPR&C) was brought on by Dutchess Tourism, the nonprofit tourism bureau for New York’s Dutchess County, to accelerate awareness of, and generate quality media interest in, the county and its evolving status as a leading tourism destination. The IPR&C team was tasked with positioning the region as an all-season tourist destination to visit from the tri-state and beyond and encourage overnight visitation throughout the calendar year.

Strategy:

Impact PR & Communications began the onboarding process by meeting with Dutchess Tourism representatives, as well as its branding agency, to further understand Dutchess Tourism’s goals and initiatives, discuss positioning and story angles – and the tight budget challenging us. The agency:

• • Crafted a curated media list, consisting of local, regional and national consumer publications of interest.
  • Assembled a PR messaging timeline to ensure news and creative angles about Dutchess County were being communicated to key reporters on an ongoing basis.
  • Drafted and disseminated press releases and pitch letters alerting media of destination updates, including new openings of hotels and restaurants, events and attractions.
  • Organized and executed a media tour in New York City for Dutchess Tourism’s executive director and director of communications, just three months into the campaign.
  • Secured an opportunity with Hearst Media to host a happy hour event for editors and writers from each of Hearst’s 30 media outlets, where Dutchess County representatives were present to speak firsthand about the region and its local farms, wineries and distilleries.
  • Inked a partnership opportunity with Escape Brooklyn, a curated online travel guide for New Yorkers to experience the destination first-hand for both editorial and social media content, as well as executed a destination trip giveaway to one of Escape Brooklyn’s readers.

Results:

• Secured 42 media placements for the destination in outlets such as Departures, Lonely Planet, Time Out New York, Thrillist, USA Today’s Go Escape Magazine, and more.
• Garnered more than 64.5 million media impressions.
• Secured executive interviews with CNN Travel, Forbes and Fodor’s Travel.
• Coordinated individual press trips to the destination for CNN Travel, Telegram & Gazette and Escape Brooklyn.
• Yielded coverage on Escape Brooklyn’s site, along with more than 10 geotagged posts and stories on the Escape Brooklyn Instagram, which has more than 80,000 followers. This partnership also culled a list of more than 1,100 email addresses that were collected to be used for Dutchess Tourism’s marketing efforts.

Notably, every opportunity secured for Dutchess Tourism was earned and executed under the confines of the nonprofit’s very defined budget, bringing enormous return on investment to the tourism agency.