Getting the Word Out

With budget cuts, economic woes and competition for the travel dollar, Travel Montana and the six tourism regions and 11 Convention and Visitor Bureaus (CVBs) use a variety of methods to get out the word about the attractions, events and value that can come with a Montana vacation.

Press releases, consumer ads in national and regional publications and attendance at trade and travel shows are three ways travel entities use to get out the word. Articles by freelance journalists, TV news stories and other media pieces also help plant images of Montana in the minds of potential visitors.

Dollars spent on vacations are expected to decline in the next two years, so competition for travel dollars among Rocky Mountain States will increase. “Bang-for-the-buck” is the catch phrase for any publicity or marketing effort. 

One way of getting folks to learn about Montana’s attractions and events is by conducting what are called “FAM” tours. “FAM” is short for “Familiarization,” and they are designed to introduce writers, photojournalists, videographers and tour operators to Montana. Travel Montana has compiled a list of qualified writers with proven credentials they know will produce stories be featured in publications like Cowboys and Indians, True West, Indian Country Today, Country and Persimmon Hill, to name just a few.  Custer Country and Glacier Country have also been featured in a video travel series that airs on PBS stations throughout the country. That FAM tour took place in 2004 and is still reaping benefits for the two regions

FAM tours aren’t cheap, however. The typical FAM can cost $3,000 for two journalists and an escort for a five-day trip. Travel Montana often covers transportation costs for out-of-state journalists, after which the regions or CVBs take over responsibility for itineraries, lodging, food and transportation for the journalists. The goal is to expose the journalists to as many unique places and opportunities in a short period of time as possible. Restaurants, Bed-and-Breakfasts, historic hotels and other locally-owned businesses are included in the tours and often times those places will get an author’s mention for their uniqueness, atmosphere or history. Such publicity in a national publication is usually too expensive for a small business to afford.  

Gayle Fisher, Executive Director of central Montana’s Russell Country, says, “FAMs are probably our most successful and trackable marketing (program). FAM trips would probably be the very last item that we would consider cutting in our budget.”

Russell Country conducts up to four such trips a year and has already conducted one this year.

Newspaper and magazine articles and video features are not the only results of our FAM tours.  In one instance, a Canadian journalist who participated in a Dinosaur FAM in 2005, which was a cooperative effort between Custer Country and Russell Country, wrote a novel, “Longhorns and Outlaws,” about two young brothers who came to Montana in the early 1900s after their parents are killed in a hurricane in Texas. Linda Aksomitis says she had the idea for the book before she participated in the FAM trip but the places she visited and her experiences  here helped flesh out the story in which she includes places like Billings, Pompeys Pillar and many other locations in eastern Montana as backdrops for the novel for young readers. The book is published by Coteau Books for kids and is available at Amazon.com. 

Missouri River Country, which covers northeast Montana and includes the Fort Peck Reservoir, conducts about three FAMs a year, mostly themed around hunting, fishing and dinosaurs. 

Carla Hunsley, Executive Director of Missouri River Country, says her return on investment is very good. “We spent $1,663 on three FAMs in ’08, but we got over $79,000 worth of publicity out them,” she says.  “We believe they are very productive for us.”

Custer Country in southeastern Montana, sponsors at least one full-scale FAM each year, but also supports writers who are passing through the area and aren’t participating in a formal FAM tour. Many times, Travel Montana will contact Custer Country’s Jim Schaefer and ask that they pick up meal costs or lodging for a journalist. That can sometimes result in a short feature in a major publication that the journalist wasn’t planning on writing after spending a little time in a smaller town and meeting the “characters” who live there.

Glacier Country’s Racene Friede also believes that FAMs are an important part of their marketing efforts. The region that is named after Glacier National Park conducted 19 of them last year, yielding an estimated $747,000 in publicity for an outlay of $39,000. Glacier and Yellowstone Countries probably generate a great deal more publicity than that each year because the National Parks are the focal points of their regions and people around the world want to visit Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  With the centennial of Glacier National Park, known as the Crown of the Continent, being celebrated in 2010, the interest there is bound to increase, meaning more journalists wishing to participate in FAMs.

All in all, publicity is an important factor in bringing visitors to Montana and FAMs have and will continue to play an important role in generating publicity for major and less-well-known destinations in Montana. 

Jim Schaefer is the Executive Director and Publicity Manager for Custer Country, P.O. Box 904, Forsyth, MT 59327     Phone and fax: 406-346-1876  custer@rangeweb.net