Being able to market the region means having data that shows how that marketing is going.
Executive Director of the Bay of Quinte Regional Marketing Board, Dug Stevenson, says that means that having more data available to the board will be a big goal for 2024.
“You know, when you’re a marketing organization, sometimes it’s difficult to show execution and we’ve always been able to show that our ads, and especially the digital advertising that we put out into the world, have results in conversion of people coming to this area and we’re able to attach a formula to that and show multi-million dollar economic activity specifically as a result of our advertising each year,” Stevenson tells Quinte News.
“But there’s still a big gap in terms of what we want to be able to see with activity respective of tourism and also with attracting residents and so we’re going to be undertaking a brand new data plan in 2024.”
Stevenson says the new data plan will be able to give the board access to data such as visitor activity, resident movement, event activity and spending.
“We’re really excited about that because that’s going to allow us to fine tune our marketing even more than we’ve ever been able to as a result, and ultimately, do even better work on behalf of these communities on the north shore of the Bay of Quinte who have hired us for the purpose of destination marketing.”
Also happening in 2024, Stevenson will be looking to spread the word around a local job search website that was recently acquired by the board.
“We recently took over a jobs marketing website in the region called workinquinte.ca,” Stevenson tells Quinte News.
“This was previously managed by the cities of Belleville and Quinte West in partnership and so, as a result of the resident attraction work that we do for those two communities and the employment attraction that we do for that portfolio, we’re now taking over the the full marketing program and the website management for workinquinte.ca.”
He says they have expanded the reach of the website to attract residents in Brighton, Napanee and the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte.
“We’re putting together a budget that’s going to see trade show activity across the province to attract people here,” Stevenson says. “Reverse trade shows, where we actually take employers on the road, to say communities in the GTA East, and in an effort to attract people to move here to fit specific positions and then just continued growth of the site.”
Stevenson says there are currently hundreds of resumes in the database for the site.
“Ultimately, we want workinquinte.ca to be the local trusted jobs matchmaker site for this region so that when people are either looking for a job or want to post a job, that’s the website they’re going to because they know that it’s going to be worthwhile, versus say some of the larger competitors,” Stevenson tells Quinte News.
He says there will be real humans that will be reviewing all of the information coming in and out of the website.
