15 Things to Expect from a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO)

Twenty years after DCVB’s launch as the community’s marketing agency, two challenges remain, 1) improving stakeholder understanding of a DMO and 2) getting them to understand what to expect from a DMO.

Here are just 15 things that DCVB's 3,000 visitor-related stakeholders can expect from the community’s destination marketing organization in the course of its core mission of visitor centered cultural and economic development.

• To be incorporated into the community’s story and woven where appropriate into marketing messages to draw attention to the community as a destination.
• To be given consideration within tactics and strategies to market the community as a whole for visitor centered cultural and economic development.
• To generate an ongoing stream of visitors to the community to help make individual organizations, events or facilities sustainable.
• To prospect, qualify and distribute leads to attract group visitors, e.g., meetings, conventions, group tours, reunions, etc.
• To provide primers, consultations and updates on destination marketing and about how to harvest a fair share of visitors drawn to the destination including coop marketing opportunities.
• To be included in inventories of all visitor related businesses and organizations located in the destination.
• To be populated into publications, information centers, websites, sales promotions and other promotional vehicles both produced and distributed or operated by the DMO and those for which the DMO is a gatekeeper.
• To be populated on to maps and into map databases nationwide including hard copy, Internet, navigation systems and cell phones.
• To have events included in the community calendar and images included in the community image bank.
• To generate or aggregate to research on what visitors do and how they make decisions, how the destination performs and to inform development decisions and individual marketing strategies.
• To generate publicity or earned media in news releases and provide access to media lists and relay releases to news media.
• To distill and provide an overall community brand under which to incorporate individual or organization, neighborhood, event and facility brands.
• To maintain and provide a database of community accolades and media quotes to incorporate in individual marketing materials.
• To field and forward complaints and to generate categorical visitor satisfaction feedback.
• To steward place based assets and a protect the community’s brand and unique sense of place.