The Meetings Industry Turns to Content Marketing to Get Ahead
Photo Credit: Columbia, SC is duplicating the drama and energy of its leisure destination content for the meetings portal beginning this year. Columbia SC CVB
Skift Take
North American DMOs are starting to shift content marketing efforts to the meeting side to align with the shift to more content-oriented, education-based group sales strategies.
The new Visit California website amply illustrates the shift among destination marketing organizations (DMOs) toward sophisticated content marketing on the leisure side.
The meetings and conventions side however has been completely ignored on almost all North American DMO websites. Australia, New Zealand, and some European DMOs are ahead of the curve, but in the U.S., typically meetings information is bucketed between convention facilities, large hotels, reasons to book, and a slight look at destination attractions, maybe. And that's it.
There's almost zero brand storytelling defining and delineating the destination's unique experiences within the meetings landscape, and no industry thought leadership highlighting industry trends. The content and layout of DMO meeting sites is basically the traditional meeting planner print guide recreated online, existing like a black hole where modern digital engagement marketing trends go to die.
Things are slowly beginning to finally
