HomeMy WebLinkAbout5.2 Visitors Guide and Business Newsletter
TO: Board of Directors, Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau
FROM: Julie Prior-Miller, Marketing and Communications Specialist
DATE: August 19, 2022
RE: Update on 2022 Visitors Guide and Business Newsletter
Background/Discussion
Update on the 2022 Discover Cottage Grove Visitors Guide
On Tuesday, January 18 the CGCVB held a special meeting to review the 2022 Discover
Cottage Grove Visitors Guide and provide feedback. Edits were made and on Wednesday,
January 26, the first ever Cottage Grove Visitors Guide was sent to the printer and placed
online. Since then, to the best of our ability, we have been tracking our online performance
measurements of the digital version of our Visitors Guide.
Below are highlighted statistics from the online version of the 2022 Visitors Guide to date.
• 73% of people view our guide from their mobile phone device.
• We have approximately 28,000 total impressions of our guide.
o (Impressions are when an advertisement or any other form of digital media
renders on a user's screen. Impressions are not action-based and are merely
defined by a user seeing the advertisement.)
• The highest impressions and clicks on links are to the videos we embedded in the online
version of the guide.
Below are the highlighted statistics from the physical version of the 2022 Visitors Guide to date.
• Over 5,000 guides have been printed and distributed throughout Minnesota.
o Approximately 2,000 to date throughout 11 Explore MN Welcome Centers.
o Approximately 900 to date at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.
o Approximately 800 to date at the Mall of America.
o Various events such as Cottage Grove Community Night, Strawberry Fest,
OneFamily Sports Fest and more.
o Various sporting events like tournaments.
o Local businesses, hotels, and advertiser locations
Update on the Business Newsletter
Beginning in January 2022, the CGCVB introduced a ‘Business Newsletter’ aimed at informing
area businesses of upcoming large-scale activities coming to the community that could
potentially impact their business. Examples of such activities include the Strawberry Fest, a
large influx of workers at Marathon Oil over the month of July, and a 90-team softball
tournament hosted in Cottage Grove.
Board of Directors, Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau
August 19, 2022
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We are able to provide this information to business with our partnership to our city’s facilities,
that receives the permits for these large events.
To date, we have 76 businesses on our contact list. The industry average for opening email
campaigns such as this is 16%. We are happy to report that we are well over the industry
average, with an average open rate of 52% over the eight months we have been sending our
newsletter.
Recommendation
Receive the Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau Visitors Guide Information and
Business Newsletter Information.