| Destination audit
| What are the destination’s main assets in terms of its visitor appeal?
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| How powerful are these compared to other destinations?
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| How accessible are these assets/experiences for visitors?
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| In order of priority, which assets are the strongest and most appealing for visitors?
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| Segmentation analysis
| Identify key market segments.
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| Prioritise them
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| Identify the main target of the key segments
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| SWOT analysis
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| Stakeholder engagement
| Include key stakeholders from the beginning of the brand development process.
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| Develop a core group of stakeholders who will participate in the development of the brand.
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| Explain the purpose and value of a brand to stakeholders, and the importance of their eventual contribution as brand advocates.
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| Consult with key stakeholders to obtain their perceptions of the destination.
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| Keep this core stakeholder group engaged and informed on progress throughout the brand development process, seeking their input at key stages.
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| Provide stakeholders with a simple, comprehensible toolkit containing key brand messages that enables them to convey clear and consistent messages about the destination.
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| Communicate with a wider group of stakeholders.
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| Ensure that all stakeholders are engaged with on an ongoing basis and with appropriate messages.
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| Consumer perception research
| Research amongst consumers to understand how people view destination.
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| Qualitative research of people’s motivation and how your destination satisfies, or falls short of satisfying, this deeper psychological need.
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| Consumer focus groups usually elicit the best insights.
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| Focus on key target segments.
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| Include both previous visitors and ‘non-visitors’.
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| Probe for true motivation.
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| Appoint an experienced research agency with experience of eliciting consumers’ deep-seated motivations.
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| Observe the early focus groups.
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| Interview outbound tour operators who sell destination in key source markets.
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| Competitor Analysis
| What are visitors from your core market segments looking for?
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| What are your destination’s main assets?
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| How competitive are they?
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| Where is the destination situated in relation to your competitors?
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| Brand-building Models
| Brand Pyramid
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| Brand Wheel
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| Integrating the Brand into Marketing Activities
| Create a strategic message.
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| The strategic message needs to be interpreted and projected through creative marketing execution in order to excite its target audience.
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| The destination’s brand values, which underpin the strategic message, should run through all marketing activities, no matter how small.
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