Transcript:
Andi Jaspersen: [00:00:01] You know, at a DMO our job is to help people create memories. Like yeah, we can show them these things and we can give them information and help them figure out where they want to go. But ultimately the product that we want to come out with on the other end is that they're walking away with good memories and good things to think about when they think back to Cheyenne.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:19] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. We have a very, very fun post-Thanksgiving episode for you here today. We're all kind of, it's Monday. We just got back from our Thanksgiving break and trying to get back up to speed and I thought, man, what a time to bring my friend Andi Jaspersen on the show. She's a familiar voice. She's been on the show before. But today she is in a completely different capacity than she was when she was on before. So a lot has changed in a few months. Andi, how are you doing?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:00:55] I’m good. Thank you.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:56] Well, I think we should start I guess. Andi with the fact that when we talked before you were a guest from the DMO side and you were at Visit Cheyenne. Now you are the Director of Public Relations at Relic, which is a really, really exciting announcement for us to be able to make. And it actually all stemmed from that discussion when we had the podcast before.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:01:18] It is. That was not on my radar at all at that point in time. And then we just chatted and here I am now a couple months later. It's crazy.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:29] Yeah, really exciting and I do want to dive into a little bit of the decision to make that move. But before we do, we learned about your dream destination before. So I think what I want to know today and this is a question I haven't asked before on the show, what is your favorite city that you have ever attended a conference in and why?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:01:49] Ooh. I think that I would probably pick Anchorage, Alaska. It was the farthest I've traveled for a conference but it had a lot of really cool excursions. Like it was a town that I felt comfortable in. It had a lot of similarities to Cheyenne, but it also outside of town had a ton of really cool things to do. So there was this really neat balance of experiencing the destination in a real way and then having the conference. I just felt like it had a really good balance, but I got to go on a helicopter and land on Knik Glacier. I went to a musk ox farm and bought more yarn than I probably should have because I'm a knitter. It was expensive, but totally worth it. I'm just finishing that hat up.
Adam Stoker: [00:02:39] You are the first person that I've ever had tell me that you spent too much money on yarn. This is a first for me.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:02:47] Oh my goodness, you don't have many knitters in your life, do you?
Adam Stoker: [00:02:51] I don’t.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:02:52] Yeah, this was definitely the most expensive yarn I've ever bought. It's like- so, qiviut is underfur of the musk ox. It's got black long. If you picture a yak, most people know what a yak looks like. So it's essentially the northern hemisphere yak. But underneath its long black hair, it's got this like really soft, fuzzy fiber called qiviut, it's the lightest, warmest fiber known to man. So they hand-comb it out- at the farm they hand-comb it, otherwise, they collect it off the ground. They then spin it into yarn but it's like $125 an ounce.
Adam Stoker: [00:03:39] Wow.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:03:41] Yeah, it's expensive but it's really lightweight but super, super warm. So I thought I'm here, I may as well and I bought some blended so it wasn't like I spent- I didn’t spend like $1000 or anything but it was really cool and it's my souvenir from Anchorage is to have that hat that I made myself.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:05] So I actually do know what a musk ox is Andi and it's because I don't know if you've ever seen the show “Alone,” but it's where they send these people out to live off the land and see who can last the longest living off the land. The guy that won, in the season I watched, happened upon a musk ox, a wild musk ox and was able to use the fur and the- I guess the qiviut is what I should say and the meat and everything to be able to survive and outlast everybody else. The guy definitely, it seemed like he was going a little bit bananas by the end of the show. But he did win and was able to survive longer than anyone else because of a musk ox.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:04:48] That’s awesome.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:48] And so I did learn what it was because of that.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:04:50] Yeah. Yeah, they're really cool animals. I never thought I would be such a musk ox fan, but it's- I have like a little sticker on one of my coffee mugs. I bought an ornament for my tree. I'm a big fan, big fan.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:06] I love it. Well, we've digressed from your favorite conference you've been to, to your favorite animal, which I didn't expect and that's totally on me. But what conference was it that you were in Anchorage for?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:05:20] So that was for NTA Contact. It's like the CEO retreat for NTA that puts on travel exchange. And so that's mostly tour bus operators and then destinations pairing up and making those connections. So Contact is the group that is, most of the decision-makers are the owners and they've got smaller, it's more educational rather than selling face to face. So Cheyenne is actually hosting it next year. I got to announce that. I was part of that process, but now I won't have to do all of the hard work, I’d make sure to volunteer a little bit, but it's not on my plate any longer.
Adam Stoker: [00:06:03] Nice. Well, that does sound like an amazing conference to go to. Alaska has a very special place in my heart. I drove tour buses in Alaska. Those who have listened to this show have probably heard me talk about that too many times, but, it was my first kind of foray into the tourism industry and, I didn't even realize that I was part of something that was going to be a huge part of my career long term. It's really become a special place for me because I think it was critical to me being interested in the tourism industry. But Alaska would be an amazing place to go to an event.
Andi, I know those that listen to the show fairly often may have heard you, but I know we also have people that didn't hear your previous episode. Why don't you give us a brief rundown of who you are and maybe what led you, to be the Director of Public Relations at Relic?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:06:58] Okay, well I, for the last four years up until Labor Day this year was working for Visit Cheyenne, I was the Experience and Marketing Manager there, which covered a lot of things as a small DMO I had a lot of different hats on. I did the tour bus sales, I did the international sales, I did marketing and oversaw, eventually got an employee that I oversaw do social media. But the experience part of my job was probably my favorite part and it allowed me to work with our partners in the community to help them develop more engaging and immersive experiences for travelers instead of just like, oh, come see our museum. It was, come to our museum and maybe see the behind-the-scenes aspect or like a good example-
I've got a woman who lives out east of town who owns a ranch and she has homesteading experiences that you can go and you go milk the goats and you churn butter and you make farmer's cheese and bake some bread and you're doing all of the things that you would do if you were actually a homesteader or pioneer in the old days. It's just a cool hands-on experience that families can do when they come out here.
I helped her kind of develop that out and expanded her idea and her vision of that. So that kind of applied. I helped put together the rodeo that we've got during the summer. We were known for Cheyenne frontier days, but we also have the Hell on Wheels Rodeo. We started in 2020 to help engage the community and get that economic development kind of flowing because frontier days had canceled. So we said we can't have a year without rodeo. So we developed our own and that's been an ongoing thing and that's been cool.
But all of the experiences that are wrapped up in that are so memorable for people and at a DMO our job is to help people create memories like yeah, we can show them these things and we can help them give them information and help them figure out where they want to go. But ultimately the product that we want to come out with on the other end is that they're walking away with good memories and good things to think about when they think back to Cheyenne or your destination.
That's where I was at when I went to Toronto for the Destinations International conference and Adam and I kind of ran into each other and we were just kind of chit-chatting about what I enjoyed about my job and what I liked to do at my job. And when I started talking about PR, Adam kind of perks up in his chair a little bit and because I was heavily involved with the public relations part of Visit Cheyenne that I did a lot of the responding and I wrote a few press releases and worked on a daily basis, nearly daily basis with our PR firm.
That part of it being a writer myself, I had that knowledge and just that interest in the written part of that job. I just felt a lot of fulfillment in that. And so Adam said, “Well, what do you think about maybe helping drive the strategy of the public relations side of things?” And, I was like, I don't know. It was kind of one of those like I wasn't thinking about that, but the more we kind of chatted, the more my wheels got turning. Adam, you were kind enough to say sleep on it, like let's circle back around to this after you’re home and the excitement and the endorphins wear off a little bit and so, but I did reach out and I said, hey, this actually I want to know more.
It was the easiest interview process I've ever had because it didn't feel like an interview at all. It was just like, okay, now I'm going to talk to these people and now I'm going to ask questions to these people. So it was just such a very natural transition over to this job. No, it was really hard to leave my position at Visit Cheyenne. Even now- I was supposed to go to Paris- Disneyland, Paris has a hotel called Hotel Cheyenne. That was one of the hotels that opened up the very first year that they opened up that resort. That was 30 years ago. So we were going over to deliver belt buckle to the general manager there and have like a whole experience and I was supposed to go on that trip. They just went and I've been looking at all their pictures and they visited Cheyenne’s Sister City in Louvre, right at the foot of the Pyrenees and I'm like, “Aurghh”
But I'm like, you know what, I'll go over and get to do the whole trip on my own timeline instead of just like trying to cram in as much as I can in this small window and so I know that I can get over there, but it has been a little bit of like my tummy has turned a little bit as I look at Facebook last week. But I know that I'll get some really cool opportunities. I already have had some cool opportunities here and I've gotten to see new parts of, well, Utah that I've not been to and then I just got back from California and I hadn't been to California since I was like three years old so it was sort of like having a new state. So I don't know there's just a lot of really cool things that go with both sides of this equation, the DMO and the agency.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:46] It’s not Paris. But we promise we'll send you places.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:12:51] Perfect. You guys can't see me but I almost spit out my water, on my computer.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:58] You know Andi, I think it's important that that maybe we give a little bit of context and backstory here that I think one of the reasons it was the easiest interview process you've had is because you and I had a chance to really get to know each other in the CDME Program. We shared some classes together. Man, I think it's- when was it? June? June of this year? Or was it before that? Maybe April?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:13:23] I think it was before that. Maybe April, March or April?
Adam Stoker: [00:13:24] Yeah, March or April. In Dallas, right? And we had the opportunity to get to know each other there and kind of learn a little bit probably about how each other thinks and built a relationship there which I think first of all would speak to the value of the CDME courses that Destinations International has because it's provided the opportunity for me to be able to network on a different level with people than I had before. I know you're one class away from finishing your CDME and we'll be working on getting that done in the spring, right?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:13:55] Yeah. I'm going to head over to Washington D.C. and take my advocacy class. The last one I've got. Between now and then I need to really dig in and get my claws into the huge paper that also needs to get written to get the certification. But I'm very excited and I think when I started the process of that certification I had my eyes on becoming CEO of a DMO at some point and that might still happen down the road. I don't know. But I really do feel like everything that I walked away from that class with, even changing from DMO into the agency has still been valuable and I've got a I feel like I've got a good grasp on the industry that we specifically serve and can really speak knowledgeably on those higher levels.
I was on upper management at Visit Cheyenne but this has broadened my horizons to be able to look at not just one destination deals with and struggles with but the industry as a whole in the United States and Canada primarily but just having that opportunity to see that big picture, has helped me understand some of our clients who aren't in my immediate region that I understand.
Adam Stoker: [00:15:24] Right. And that's where I think the I'll give the remainder of the context here, that earlier in the year I had gotten a little frustrated with our PR product and that that's not to say that our- we didn't have a team that was working really hard and doing a great job, but what I felt like is we didn't have someone who really understood what was happening on the other side of the table, what it was like to be in the DMO chair, and that actually inhibited our ability to create PR product that was going to provide the necessary value for destinations to need us. I think it's probably the best way to put it from a PR perspective.
I actually called my clients early in the year and said, hey, we're going to push the pause button on PR as a service until we can get the right person heading this up. Then I went to the annual conference and as you and I were talking in preparation for our episode, you talked about how you had just gone through the RFP process to hire an agency for PR for Cheyenne and that you had really discovered that PR was your passion or at least a really key passion point in your role. As I saw your excitement and passion for PR in destination marketing, I thought this really could be a fit and it helps to already know you and trust you and understand how you think.
Anyway, I was really, really excited to hear that you were so passionate about PR. You had been in a DMO for several years, you had done the RFP process for Visit Cheyenne, you knew what destinations are looking for from an agency. So it seemed to make a lot of sense to have you kind of break down and rebuild our public relations product in such a way that it would win that RFP, if we were to go through the process again. Right?
I'd love to hear from your perspective as you had to sit down and say alright, public relations for DMOs. I have a clean slate here. I can kind of break it all down and build it back up with what I think would be best for destinations. How did you prioritize the reconstruction of that product and decide what you felt like is going to be best for the destinations that we’re serving?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:17:48] I think that when I began the process, I’m kind of digging in looking at what Relic had done before and comparing that to what my experience as the DMO PR person, there were some gaps there, there were differences that I'm like, okay, well we haven't really been lining up journalists to be in the market. I mean, I know that happens sometimes, but it wasn't necessarily a priority or we haven't necessarily done some desk sides with different journalists and getting to do those one-on-one meetings.
Finding those little pieces that were missing, and then being able to look at it through the lens of what a destination would actually need and what worked in my experience and what didn't work, it's really just a matter of looking at what have we done and what could we do. I always kind of joke that I say I have a potential vision, it’s my superpower, that I can see what something could be fairly easily that I've got this base product, and I'm like, oh, you know what? If we did this and this and this, it could be huge.
My friends who own businesses sometimes don't like that about me because I'm like, oh, have you thought about this or this? And they're like, totally overwhelmed because they would have to do all of that. I guess this has been something that I just broke it down to its elements and started thinking about, okay, well, how much time would we need to put in for that particular product and really kind of itemizing things so that our side could figure out what's a fair- when it comes down to the money side of things, what can we charge for this service? What is this service worth to the DMO in order to make this a viable option for everyone?
Adam Stoker: [00:19:54] I like it. And still kind of in the process of putting the finishing touches on that, right? Like obviously we've started the process with some of our clients and things like that, but still kind of in its infancy, I would say. Is that fair?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:20:11] Yeah, that's totally fair. I think that with any new product or reimagined product you're going to have the trial by fire and it doesn't always come out unscathed. You know, like some things won't go over as well, some things don't carry the value that the time needed to go into it would from the client's perspective. Finding what our team can really hone in on and specialize in, I think is going to be key, that yes, I would love to grow a team that we can do a full spread of all of the PR things you could ever want and more, but you've got to start small.
I think that we have the capability of growing and I think that we have the capability of doing the things that I'm putting out there. But it's that relationship building and rebuilding the trust in the client that if they had a bad experience or they don't know how I'm going to do, where they want to dip their toe in before they jump all the way in. Finding the ways to make that happen is kind of my big challenge.
Like the products I understand, the DMO world I understand, but right now we're building relationships. I am building relationships with the clients and earning their trust as an individual and saying, oh well if this happened, I would love to do X, Y and Z to piggyback on that and get you guys additional earned placements around the media.
Adam Stoker: [00:21:50] Well, I think what you actually open up there as you talk about rebuilding this product, I think we have a lot of destinations listening who would like to do a better job of public relations for the destinations whether it's somebody in the role or an agency that's serving a destination or whatever. So maybe if I'm someone that's new to the industry or if I'm someone that's new to my role, now that you've gone through this process, what is the step-by-step process if you were Andi starting as the PR director at Visit Cheyenne for the first time, how would you build your plan?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:22:27] Well, I think that starting with Destinations International just put out a, well just as in like six months ago now, but they recently put out the public relations playbook, I believe is what they called it. The point of that is using the Barcelona principles that allow you to be able to quantify earned placements that before it's just kind of like, oh well here's this piece and sometimes it would be based on the ad value, the equivalent ad value that the article or whatever would have. It just was very, but that would, there were sometimes some like equations that, oh well if it's only a blog, then it's this and you've got to divide it by and it was just a mess. And so what the PR world is trying to do is come up with a more uniform system.
So I will with the clients that engage with PR will be developing a scale for them, it’s kind of a customized scale to determine what are the values of this article. Like doesn't have a picture or video content? Do they mention your key talking points? Do they mention by name, your partners? So they have links outward if it's online? Those kinds of things and giving them a numerical value allows you to determine- it allows you to compare articles and blogs and like all of these pieces that you've earned, give them a value, compare them to each other and be able to speak to your stakeholders in an educated way that you can say, well we did this work, we paid- whether you're doing it in house or you're paying an agency, we had this agency put this out, we hosted these journalists and this is what results and here's why it's good. Here's why this one is stronger than the other one.
Having that ability, so making it less qualifiable but quantifiable with actual numbers and values I think will really help DMOs understand the value of public relations as a whole. I think that that would be a good starting point is to determine how you're going to rank the pieces that are out there even if they weren't put out by your PR firm or by you. If there are articles out there that are talking about Cheyenne or wherever your destination is, having the means of being able to rank that is phenomenal.
Then after that, I think that understanding and part of that process will be developing like truly understanding more of this about yourself, but figuring out what are your key messages, what do you want the media talking about. What are your priorities for your destination to get out into the world? So identifying those is going to be key because then you know which audiences you want to reach and which media outlets you want to go through and which journalists are working through those people.
I think knowing yourself is absolutely essential and I think that sometimes we kind of take for granted we're like, oh yeah, well we know ourselves. But like really, really understanding and sometimes it comes down to good branding. I think that definitely helps the process because you've identified, oh well Cheyenne is like a cowboy town, but it's really kind of the new old west that has incorporated some of that new ideas through the lens of that frontier. Like that’s a very specific example but truly being able to understand what you want, then you can successfully push it out. Making sure that my clients understand that is key.
Adam Stoker: [00:26:38] Yeah. Andi, I think one of the things that you said that I just want to make sure I point out very clearly is because I think this is unique. I didn't expect this to be your first answer but step one is, understand how you're going to measure your success because you need to go to the Destinations International playbook that they put out and how to measure public relations, decide what your plan is to measure, set goals, and then go into key messages and audiences and all of that.
I really like that you said, let's start with how we're going to measure it first because so many of us will go through the process of starting these initiatives and then at the end, okay, now was it successful? How are we going to measure that? And we decide the measurement or the metrics after the fact instead of understanding them at the beginning and planning to those metrics all along the way. I think that's a profound first step that you've said needs to be there.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:27:36] It's always good to hear that from you, boss.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:38] It's still fresh. I don't feel like your boss yet. I feel like we're chatting at Destinations International.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:27:48] For sure. For sure.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:49] Well, so Andi you said we will get in and start with the key messages, you identify your audiences. You've used a term several times that I think I want to dig in on. You keep saying the word “earned.” It's very important to me as kind of someone that's trying to look holistically at destination marketing. I think there's 3.5 types of media. I'll tell you why. I think the first one is paid media. I think that's a very traditional way of attempting to generate attention, right, is renting access to someone else's audience through paid media, that's advertising, right?
The second one is earned and that's where I believe you're getting other people to talk about you through mostly unpaid means. I do think the lines between paid and earned media are kind of blending more than they ever have before, but I do still think there's a layer of separation there. Then the third one would be owned media, which also I believe is blending a little bit with the shared media function as well. Owned media is where you're actually pushing stuff out through your own channels and where we as an agency have been able to make a real impact on the industry is encouraging destinations to start owned media channels, like a podcast, which has really kind of taken off and kind of expanded the industry's view on owned media as a whole.
The reason I said and a half is because a lot of people will classify social media under a category of shared media. Whereas I kind of feel like I would classify what you're posting on your channels as still owned media and then I would classify what other people are posting on social about you as earned media. I feel like the shared media could potentially go away, but I do understand the argument for shared media being that fourth category.
Anyway, the whole reason I give that background is you've talked about earned media several times and I'd like to understand from your perspective: what is earned media and why does it have such a significant value for tourism destinations specifically?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:30:03] I love earned media because I feel like it can be the most authentic. It's not always, I mean you kind of hinted at the- I feel like it's kind of gotten a little weird with influencers because many influencers get paid for their work and so it gets a little timey-wimey so to speak, but- for the Dr. Who fans out there. But I feel like earned placement and getting people to talk about your destination on your behalf is a more trustworthy source of information than the destination itself from the audience’s perspective.
If you follow a travel writer, whether they call themselves a travel writer or not, if they've got a blog or their social media channels or whatever that you're following along on and you enjoy watching them travel all over, once you start really respecting their opinions and wondering what they like about a place and want to know more about a place, you're trusting them. So if someone who you trust is saying, oh you should come see this great restaurant in Cheyenne because they're doing amazing forward-thinking things. You're more likely to go there. Whereas I could buy an ad or I could put out social media and hope that you see it and say, hey, Cheyenne’s the best place ever. But of course, I have to say that they're paying me to say that. I always made that a joke. Like I said, I love Cheyenne, they paid me to say that, but I really mean it, you know.
I think that getting other people to tell your story is a more interesting and more believable, in some ways more authentic way to get the message out there because the audience believes it. I personally put a lot of value in that type of media just because it's not just me saying this is a good place because I work for the destination. This is an outsider saying it's cool.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:18] Yeah, absolutely. So as you're talking about that that it's more authentic because other people are talking about you without like an overt, hey, I was paid to do this. This is an advertisement and all that. It doesn't appear that there's any incentive for the person to say that other than they're telling you their opinion or they're telling you the truth, right which I think is really interesting. But earned media would insinuate that there's some action or work that's taking place to earn that placement, right? So I guess what is the work that earns that placement and how should destinations that are hoping, let's say my dream as a destination is, man, I would love for National Geographic to come in and do a feature on my destination. I know that everybody is like, sure, that'd be great, right? But what kind of work goes into generating that kind of earned media placement?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:33:18] Well I think it's two-fold, and I think that it's on both sides of this table. Your PR firm or your in-house PR person is going to need to build some serious relationships for such a huge, I mean, like that is an extreme example. But you've got to have relationships with the writers who are working for these publications. That can take the form of responding to their tweets or following them getting alerts on what they're putting out and so that you’re understanding what they're working on.
Finding the right writer for your destination is huge. So, doing the research to figure out who would be the best fit. Okay, we've got these 17 people who write and contribute as freelancers to travel and leisure, for example. Which one would be the best fit for us now and what other publications do they also write for that they could put additional content out to on your behalf or could use you analytical or a roundup or whatever. Really being strategic on who you have that connection with and eventually, ideally you've got them coming into the market. So they're not just reading about it and imagining and then writing about it.
Having them in destination is so vital to have them have the experiences, smell the smells and do the activities and get their boots dirty, and all of those things that a visitor really would do if they came here. That onus is then on the destination to create an engaging, thoughtful itinerary and host them and whatever that ends up looking like if you're covering the whole bill, awesome. If you're just getting some of your partners to donate some attraction tickets or whatever your destination can afford and your partners are up for, in exchange for that media can be a huge, huge bonus if you're doing it strategically and finding the right people, but you've got to do the work to get the right people.
Adam Stoker: [00:35:42] So these writers, if they are the right writers most likely get a lot of pitches. A lot of people want to, you said get them there in person. Right? Well, a lot of people want these writers there in person. How do you craft a piece of communication to make your destination stand out from the other destinations that might be requesting their attention?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:36:02] There are a number of thoughts on this. Basically the format, I'm going to pitch to them and I heard a figure it's only like 8% of pitches actually get placement. So don't get discouraged. As rule number one, keep trying. But really getting down to the nitty gritty, right out the gates and saying not wasting their time, they’re getting all of these things. So just saying, we've got a really good opportunity for highlighting the women's suffrage movement in Cheyenne because that was the first place that they were allowed to. Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote while it was a territory. Anyway, I digress.
Finding a creative and interesting story that would fit their beat, that fits what they are writing and the things that they write about, carefully honing what you're pitching to whom you're pitching it is key. Cutting things down to what are relevant to them is going to be your key to success there because you may have the coolest story idea and you're like, oh well there's this guy who cooks hot dogs on the beach, but he uses shrimp in them or I don't know. Anyway, you've got this, but then you pitch it to somebody who covers tech. It could be the best-written pitch in the world, but if you're sending it to the wrong person, you've just wasted everyone's time, your own included.
Adam Stoker: [00:37:35] So what it makes sense, let's say have identified a writer and I know it's the right writer to come to the destination and maybe they've written about other destinations in the past. If they said that they had some sort of experience while they're in the destination, maybe they tried a dessert that's unique to the destination. Would it make sense for me as someone trying to generate this writer to come to our destination to find a comparable dessert or maybe a treat or something like that's unique to our destination and send that with the pitch as opposed to just another email?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:38:08] I mean you could do that. You would definitely- like you send the dessert itself. Is that what you're saying?
Adam Stoker: [00:38:14] Well, I'm thinking more along the lines of, if you've got like a candy shop or if there's a, I know that one of our clients is in Vernal Utah and they've got this little candy shop that I got to tell you is just every time I go there I make terrible decisions for my health. It's called Little Sweet Pea and every time I'm there I go, kind of stock up on their different chocolates and things like that. It makes me wonder if I found a travel writer that had written about a candy shop somewhere else or had written about something that could be comparable, man, if I sent them some chocolate-covered raisins or whatever their treat of choice seems to be that they've written about, wouldn't that feel so much more personal than just an email that says “story pitch.” You know what I mean?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:39:02] Yeah, yeah, no, I think that that's a really great tactic and actually what I would probably do is incorporate that into a desk side. So those of you who are not familiar with desk sides, basically you're sitting down one on one with journalists one at a time and it would most likely be if I were your PR person, it would be me and then someone from the DMO and then together we talk to these different journalists, you would line up a bunch of them in a day or two that you're getting all of these meetings lined up that you can talk to them about different things and identify what's important to them on their beat.
But that's a really great place for them to- for you to identify, like, okay, well, they talk about this. I'm going to bring this gift for this writer. If you really wanted to get down and dirty and personal with them, that would probably blow their socks off. They might assume that everybody got those chocolates. But who cares? If you're really narrowing it down to them, that would be a really great strategy.
Adam Stoker: [00:40:07] Well, but what you just highlighted though is I think exactly why it makes sense to make sure that you are either hiring someone that has experience with this or that you're working with someone that has this kind of experience because maybe I would be wasting that tactic on just a mailed pitch, whereas you're like, no, this is much more appropriate for a desk side. Right? I think, I think the reason I'm really excited to have you Andi in our organization and work with our clients is because we might have ideas that we've done bits and pieces of in the past, the client may have ideas that they've tried before and you can take those ideas and really tailor them to the specific goals and metrics that you're setting out as step one as you're building the plan. Right? And I'm really excited to see that come to fruition.
Is there anything, Andi, that I haven't asked you that you think would be good for either our current or potential clients or listeners to hear about PR for tourism destinations?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:41:11] I think that there is a lack of, I don't want to say understanding, but I think people really seem to stick to the pitch writing and I mean maybe some of those face-to-face things but there is a lot of power in event-based public relations as well. So whether that is a luncheon with a bunch of journalists from a market that does well as far as website traffic goes, for example. Going to that destination and meeting the journalists where they're at is a really great way to get to know them, understand who you want to bring into the community and who you want to work with. That is a strategy that people aren't necessarily thinking of first and it was a strategy that when I was a Visit Cheyenne, it was actually our marketing firm, pitched it and they worked with our PR firm in order to make connections with some of the journalists and it worked out really, really well.
We also talked about going down to Denver and having a very Western experience to bring the destination to them. Right? So it depends where you're at but finding something that's unique to where you are and finding a way to capitalize that and take it to journalists I think is such a cool, cool experience and it's memorable and again is an incentive for them to actually come visit you in the destination. They get a little like an appetizer in a way. And yeah, it's an investment. It's definitely an investment in your public relations budget. But you're making an impression and truly building those relationships because it's so much easier to go into a destination as a writer if you know somebody, you've met them before, this isn't just cold turkey.
Adam Stoker: [00:43:08] Yeah, I mean that's why it's called earned media right is because it does take a lot of work to earn that placement and I think those event-type tactics are underutilized. I think that's a great point.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:43:22] Yeah. Yeah. So just kind of finding that what is something that we're not doing, what haven't we tried, what could we do? What's unique about us that we can find a way to package in a unique way to get people thinking about your destination.
Adam Stoker: [00:43:39] Great. And if somebody heard this and was just like, I got to have Andi helping me with my PR, what's the best way for somebody to get a hold of you?
Andi Jaspersen: [00:43:46] Well, you can always email me at andi@relicagency.com or you can visit our website at relicagency.com.
Adam Stoker: [00:43:54] Great, Andi this has been so fun. It's great to now have you in a different capacity here working with me here at Relic and really excited for all that you're currently doing and what you're going to accomplish in your new department. So, thanks for joining me for a few minutes.
Andi Jaspersen: [00:44:09] Thanks for having me.
Adam Stoker: [00:44:10] Absolutely. And thanks everybody for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't hesitate to leave us a rating or a review. It really helps us bring you amazing guests like Andi. Thanks everybody. Have a great week.
[End of Transcript]
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