5 steps to creating a compelling positioning for your destination

Creating and sustaining a great positioning is one of the most crucial aspects of effective destination marketing. In this post, we will take a look at 5 things you need to do in order to create a compelling positioning for your destination.

1. Identify your differentiator

Coming up with and executing a great destination campaign means a lot of the hard work will need to happen way before you unleash your creative team on your brief. First and foremost you need to determine how your destination is different from similar destinations. Remember that on the Internet, your competition is just one click away. And most people start planning their travel through research on the Internet.

Not only do you need to be found, you also need to be memorable to make it to their consideration set. If you are able to differentiate yourself well, it is one step in the right direction.

2. Conduct a tourism audit

What is marketable about your destination? What is unique or different? Do you have several attractions near one another or are you a single-option destination. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and pick the one thing that will help differentiate you in the minds of your target audience.

When you have identified your key selling point, figure out how it caters to the wants and needs of your audience. It is one thing to be different. It is an altogether different thing to be popular because of that difference!

3. Develop a positioning statement

Great destination marketing requires a great positioning. How many of us can fail to identify the destinations connected with the following:

• God’s own country
• _________, Truly Asia!
• It’s more fun in the ___________
• Incredible _________
• 100% Pure ________ ___________

To develop a great positioning statement, you need to ask the following questions:

• What is important to your target audience?
• How do they perceive your destination?
• How do they perceive other similar destinations?

Remember that positioning needs to resonate with the audience. If your target audience doesn’t perceive the image, the image doesn’t exist!

4. Target your audience

No matter what you do, you can’t appeal to everybody. There are those who prefer beaches and those who prefer mountains. Some travelers are looking for all modern day conveniences while others are willing to go back to basics or rough it out. Just as there are all sorts of destinations, there are all sorts of travelers. Your task is to conduct research to identify the right kind of audience for your destination.

In all likelihood this will not be one homogeneous group. There are likely to be several sub-divisions within your overall audience. We will dive deeper into ways of segmenting your target audience in another post.

5. Communicate the right message, consistently

One cannot stress the importance of have a communication strategy in place in order to communicate with your identified target audience. Rather than using a singular message for the overall audience, you need to consider structuring the message to appeal to the specific sub-groups within the target audience. It is also important to be consistent in your communication. Whether it is offline or online your audience should get the same message. Especially online, remember that social channels give you the ability of two-way communication. So use this to secure feedback from your audience as well. Monitoring your communication as well as your reputation is of crucial importance.

That’s it! If done in this manner, you will be well on your way to developing an effective destination marketing plan! In another post, we will look at the elements of a good destination marketing plan.

P.S: In case you were unable to guess the destinations in the short quiz above, the destinations in order are: Kerala, Malaysia, Philippines, India and New Zealand.