The MRC de Témiscamingue has mandated Agence Sparkling to run its Vivre au Témiscamingue and Tourisme Témiscamingue en 2022 campaigns. One of the objectives of these campaigns was to increase awareness of the Témiscamingue region. This vast territory on the Quebec-Ontario border is rich in distinctive features and stands apart from its neighbor, Abitibi. In addition to an extensive summer-long advertising campaign, we suggested to the MRC that they introduce a weekly newsletter to continue the efforts begun this summer and keep in touch with potential residents and tourists in the region.
The Mission
1.
Creating a concept to guide creation
2.
Attracting registrations with lead magnets
3.
Establish a process that is easy to reproduce
1. Finding an engaging concept: the Témiscamingue moment
A weekly newsletter is an excellent strategy for building relationships with customers, consumers and visitors. However, it needs to add value for them, and be both interesting and engaging. First, we had to find a concept that could live for fifty-two weeks a year, and that could be easily reproduced from week to week.
So we analyzed the MRC’s strengths. Témiscamingue has a lot to offer, since it’s an immense and diverse territory: endless forests with a rich and varied flora; the fact that there’s one river for every two people living on the territory; activities to do 365 days a year and a terroir rich in history and resources. On the subject of content, the MRC de Témiscamingue has invested a great deal of resources in the creation of a quality image bank in recent years, so we also wanted to exploit this content.
With these factors in mind, we opted for the Temiscaming Moment concept. Each newsletter is divided into 2 content blocks:
Your Temiscamingue moment
This block is built around a powerful photo that evokes an emotion and highlights an aspect of the region.
An opportunity
In line with current events, the time of year, the seasons, an activity or resource is proposed to take action: a new museum exhibit, a hiking trail to see the autumn leaves, a reference to a pick-your-own farmer, and so on.
2. Find an audience to share content with using lead magnets
The very first newsletter sent out had an audience of 18 people, including the MRC and Sparkling teams. We then launched a series of Facebook ads throughout August, attracting people to sign up for the newsletter via lead magnets. Among the magnets used, we suggested :
- A list of 5 water sports activities in Témiscamingue
- A map of snowmobile trails
- A guide to 10 local products available online
- A list of incredible facts about Témiscamingue
- A competition
Each piece of content was then sent instantly to people who signed up for the MRC mailing list. We targeted readers primarily by interest and not by geographical location, since we wanted to attract potential tourists, but also talk to residents of the region and surrounding area to help them discover their territory too.
We set up a series of automations in the MailerLite software, which enabled three actions for each lead magnet without us even having to worry about it:
- Send promised content almost instantly upon registration;
- A day later, send them an e-mail welcoming them to the MRC mailing list, and a little preview of what to expect in the future;
- Another day later, transfer them to the newsletter subscriber database so that they can receive the weekly newsletters.
3. Establish a structure that's easy to reproduce
As a marketing agency, we often have short and medium-term mandates with our customers. That’s why we always aim to offer communication and marketing solutions that meet our customers’ needs, and that they can easily use even after our mandate has ended. As always, we wanted this newsletter to be clear, simple and efficient for the team to produce.
So we trained MRC team members to use MailerLite with individual presentation sessions as well as assisted practice. The choice of this platform was not insignificant, since it’s easy to use and there are many tutorials and resources available online.
We’ve also created e-mail templates in the platform with clear indications, such as “Write subject here”, “Change link here”. One copy and all they have to do is enter their new content.
Finally, we also did a little brainstorming to give them a list of images and subjects to develop in case they ran out of inspiration from time to time.
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