Attracting Locals and Visitors with Engaging DMO Strategies
Attracting Locals and Visitors with Engaging DMO Strategies
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In this week's discussion, Emily chats with Rachel Greiner, the marketing and social media manager at Experience Grand Rapids. She joins to share her strategies for promoting the city and attracting both locals and out-of-town visitors. She discusses the Brewsader app, which highlights the city's breweries and encourages people to visit them all, and the Flights of Flavor program, which showcases food and drink flights at local establishments. Rachel emphasizes the importance of being a go-to resource for information about events and attractions in Grand Rapids, and she shares upcoming developments for the city. Listen in to hear more about how Experience Grand Rapids executes on a goal of fostering connections and community through digital marketing!
TUNE IN FOR TOPICS LIKE:
1:09 Rachel’s career history and landing at Experience Grand Rapids
3:53 Definition and explanation of DMO’s
4:45 Different audience tiers and catering to each of them through marketing
7:38 Brewsader App: highlighting Grand Rapids’ brewery scene
11:31 Flights of Flavor: sharing local food and drink flights
13:12 Evaluating growth and measurements of success
14:33 Strategy mix to attract visitors and locals alike
17:52 Trends in the destination marketing industry
19:38 Using a calendar of events as a marketing tool
21:59 What’s next for Experience Grand Rapids
Listen to this week’s Local Marketing School conversation!
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Emily Steele (00:12)
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Local Marketing School. I'm excited to dive into the tourism world with Rachel Greiner today. Let me give you a quick little intro to Rachel before we dive in and let her kind of take the mic and tell us a little bit about what she does in the world. So Rachel serves as a marketing and social media manager at Experience Grand Rapids, leading efforts to build and expand EXGR's digital community through engaging social media initiatives.
With a focus on highlighting Grand Rapids and Kent County as a must-see destination, Rachel leads multifaceted campaigns promoting events, local businesses and local stories. Rachel is passionate about fostering connections and community through the online world and promoting Grand Rapids to locals and travelers alike. Rachel, welcome to the show today.
Rachel Greiner (00:59)
Thanks for having me, Emily.
Emily Steele (01:00)
I'm so excited to dive into your world. Okay, so tell us a little bit about you and your background and ultimately like how you landed at Experience GR.
Rachel Greiner (01:09)
Yeah, so I've been at Experience Grand Rapids for about two years now. October will be my two year anniversary, which feels like a long time. But what is so cool about Experience Grand Rapids is we have a lot of employees who have been here for 30, 40 years. So we really have a lot of legacy at Experience Grand Rapids. So it's been an amazing place to be to really learn from a team of professionals who are just so passionate about Grand Rapids and promoting our city.
Emily Steele (01:14)
I love it. Okay, so how did you get into the role? Like, what is your background in this space or are you a marketing person? Like, tell us a little bit about you.
Rachel Greiner (01:40)
For sure. Yep. Definitely a marketing person. I went to Michigan State University and it was, I was one of the first people I believed to graduate with a degree. It was a new program, but it was telecommunications, information studies, and media, which is just a really fancy way to say digital marketing. I've always had a passion for social media marketing and really seeing how brands can create really unique content to showcase what they have to offer and really building community. And so those have kind of been the two things I've been really passionate about through my entire career. So I feel like it kind of made sense that I gravitated towards travel and tourism. I personally love to travel. I'm constantly going on adventures myself. So my career has kind of led me there through a couple of different companies. And then now I'm here to experience Grand Rapids.
Emily Steele (02:27)
I love it. Are you a Grand Rapids native or have you lived there forever? Like how have you experienced Grand Rapids?
Rachel Greiner (02:53)
Yeah, so I've been here for about six years now. My husband is from Grand Rapids though. So I found that a lot of grand rapideans, as we call them, it's a big word of grand rapideans. I call them boomerangs though, because they'll grow up in Grand Rapids, they'll leave for a couple years, and then they'll always find their way back to the city, which I also think speaks so highly to Grand Rapids and how it really is that perfect place when you're like, okay, I want to go explore, I want to go to college somewhere else, but no, Grand Rapids really feels like home to me.
Emily Steele (03:25)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. I feel like Des Moines kind of has something similar. Some of these like mid -size cities like maybe where family is close to or like you grew up with these friends in high school and you're like, I never see you anymore. I moved out to the East or West Coast, but I'm back. So I definitely have seen that as well. That's so cool. Okay. So Experience Grand Rapids is a DMO. Is that right?
Rachel Greiner (03:47)
Yes, that is right.
Emily Steele (03:49)
Can you explain for anyone who's listening and has never heard of that before, can you explain what that is?
Rachel Greiner (03:53)
Yep. So a DMO is also known as a destination marketing organization. And we're really tasked with promoting the city of Grand Rapids. So most large cities have a DMO. Fun fact, Visit Detroit, I think was the first DMO ever created. Which is really kind of cool. Yeah. And I believe Experience Grand Rapids has been around since the 1920s. So we've got a lot of legacy. So DMOs really we are charged again with promoting the city, promoting the events that are happening, new businesses that are popping up and really trying to bring people to Grand Rapids and boost the local economy. So
Emily Steele (04:36)
Yeah, so that's what you get to figure out how to do through social and your lens of marketing. So as you're thinking about it from the social media perspective, how are you thinking about how to get in front of people who maybe have never been to Grand Rapids or maybe live on the outskirts or live in the city, but they aren't getting involved? Are you thinking about all those audiences and how to meet them where they're at and what does that look like in terms of execution?
Rachel Greiner (04:42)
Yeah, absolutely. Exactly like you said, I feel like there's a few tiers here. So our biggest market is the drive-in market. So we get a lot of people that are coming from Michigan. So maybe they live on the other side of the state. Maybe they live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. And really, I think a lot of it is just educating on what Grand Rapids has to offer. We get a lot of questions from people that are further away from Grand Rapids. I shouldn't say questions, but we get a lot of people who are surprised, like, you're a big city. You have big buildings. I had no idea. You guys are on a river. You have these really cool amenities. So a lot of it is just kind of general awareness of, you know, where Grand Rapids is, what we have to offer. We have a lot of really cool events that happen. I'll dig into some of these in a bit. ArtPrize, for example, that's one that brings a lot of travelers and visitors to the area. So we're really looking at it as a few tier approach. One, how do we just explain what is Grand Rapids? What do we have to offer?
Emily Steele (05:37)
Yeah.
Rachel Greiner (06:01)
But then also we want to promote who Grand Rapids is to the people who already live there. And so what that can look like is, you know, yesterday I ran to the public museum and I was capturing content of a brand new exhibit. So how can we always keep things fresh for locals? And so they know what they can discover as well. And then my theory is if a local, and I feel like this is Hummingbird's theory as well, if a local sees something and loves it, they'll share it with their friends, they'll share it with their community. That'll just keep growing and growing with word of mouth and it'll bring those travelers and visitors to Green outfits.
Emily Steele (06:34)
Yeah. I love that. And I think so much of what you've approached in like their relationship with hummingbirds is getting locals talking about local things. And some people's experience is like, I want people not from my city to come into the city and talk about it. But I've always had like so much conviction that like when local people amplify where they live, their friends also live, like they can drive in or they live in the state next door, or they're like, my gosh, like we're thinking about a fall trip. Like you make your city seem so cool. Like we want to come visit you. And so it does have a lot of weight to put
Rachel Greiner (07:04)
100%.
Emily Steele (07:05)
put the power into like local people's hands. That's so much of the origin story of Hummingbirds too for us to be like, I really think we can drive like the local economy by getting just local people talking about what's happening in the city. So I think you've really executed that so beautifully and really pulled in those local voices to champion Grand Rapids. So if you want to tell us a little bit of how about how you've done that through some of the projects and initiatives you've undertaken, like I was gonna say, Brewsader app and Flights of Flavor and your Alphabet Eats series, like so many cool things happening.
Rachel Greiner (07:38)
Yeah, so we do a lot of different promotional things here at Experience Grand Rapids. One of my personal favorites is our Brewsader app. Grand Rapids is actually known as Beer City USA and we have a really cool beer scene here. We have a lot of different breweries, anything, you know, we have Founders headquarters that's in Grand Rapids. We also have a lot of really cool local breweries that have really unique styles of beer. So the Brewsader App is, you know, app you can download on your phone. And it shows you all of the breweries that want to participate in Grand Rapids. We have, I believe, just a little under 40 breweries on the app. And I know it's a lot. And the app allows you to go on, see where all the breweries are. And you can also check into the breweries. So when you go visit one, you check in. And it's a great way to You know, I'm a huge list girl. So for me, that was a win. I'm like, my gosh, I can keep track of where I've been, what dates I went. Love it. Same, makes me so happy. So when you go to eight breweries in Grand Rapids, you become a Brewsader
Emily Steele (08:38)
Yep. I love a list too. Ooh, what a status.
Rachel Greiner (08:55)
We yeah, we chose eight because we thought that if you were coming to visit, if you're coming for like a long weekend, that might be doable. But it also gives people a reason to come back to Grand Rapids. we started the Brewsader passport on this trip. we have three more to visit. Let's come back next time. Plan another trip to Grand Rapids and finish our Brewsade. And you can become an ultimate Brewsader. That's if you visit, I think it's 35 breweries.
Emily Steele (09:01)
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Well, that is ultimate. Because that's like almost hits your, you know, just under 40, right? Are you an ultimate Brewsader? I was gonna say like, do you kinda like, you kinda get to be, or maybe not have to be, but like, yeah.
Rachel Greiner (09:24)
Yeah, yeah. I am an ultimate first brewsader.
Yeah, it was really fun. We actually just relaunched our Brewsator app earlier this year, made a lot of updates to it. And a big thing I've been working on in my role is updating all of our photography for the Brewsator app. So we work really closely with all of our breweries. We have a really close relationship with them. So we've been popping into these different breweries, capturing photography, making sure our app is nice and updated. And so it's been fun. The few breweries that I have not been to, I got to do it with this rebranding program we've been working on. So.
Emily Steele (10:15)
Yeah, you're like, hey, I'm here for work. So you know, I don't know if you get to sample while you're on the job, but it does seems like you probably have to, you know. Of course, I know. How fun is that? So in in using that app, I'm so curious, you get to see like where people are from when they sign up, or is it get that granular, you just see like overall, like how people use it and how frequently they're checking in places.
Rachel Greiner (10:21)
Sometime. Yeah. I'm gonna be able to give a great recommendation.
So we do get to see, I think once they complete their Brewsade and go to the eight breweries, we ship them their t -shirts. So that's when we kind of get to see where we're shipping these shirts to. And we have Brewsaders from all over the United States and really all over the world as well, which is cool to see.
Emily Steele (10:44)
So cool. And then they're like representing this like wherever they live and they, it's a conversation starter, right? So love that. Okay. Okay. We'll download the app, plan my trip, make my list. There we go. Or just call you. Everyone's going to be like reaching out. They'll be like, who's this Rachel gal? Can she plan my trip? And she's got the list. You're like, sure.
Rachel Greiner (11:04)
Yes, yeah. Yes. Welcome to Grand Rapids. I will plan you a whole itinerary.
Honestly, there's nothing that would make me happier.
Emily Steele (11:24)
I love it. And then what is flights of flavor? I want to hear about like another initiative you've created or undertaken.
Rachel Greiner (11:29)
Yeah, so Flights of Flavor is our newest program. We just celebrated Flights of Flavor one year anniversary last month. And so we started with the Brewsader app. And how do we expand outside of beer? People love beer, but they also want to eat and explore other places. And so that's kind of where Flights of Flavor was born. So that is like a food flight, a drink flight. You can do a food and a drink flight.
Emily Steele (11:37)
Yeah.
Rachel Greiner (11:59)
We have an ice cream flight, which is very popular. It's at Love's, which is one of our local ice cream places. They put together a really cool flight. And again, this is not necessarily an app, but it is a website you can go to. And it's got the list of all the different participating businesses. We have anything from cocktail flights, food flights, we have a waffle and mimosa flight at Nonla Burger, that one's also really popular. So just a great way to get people into new businesses, new restaurants they might have never visited. And flights are so Instagramable, they're usually beautiful. So it kind of promotes itself, which is awesome.
Emily Steele (12:29)
Yeah, and do you basically are you then able like, because I'm always thinking, you know, I'm a marketing gal through and through. So I'm like, how do you know, like local people do it or doing it versus out of town or so you're probably able to see it at a website level, right to see where people are visiting from and spending time on that page and like, how much time they're spending on that page, like kind of assessing where they're going to go. Like, how do you know that things like this are successful? Like, I'd be so curious here, your perspective on that.
Rachel Greiner (13:11)
Yeah, for us, we're really looking at growth in the programs. So how many people are checking in exactly where are they coming in? Where are they driving from? We do have, like I said, a lot of data on our website. We also, there's some companies that work specifically with destination marketing organizations like this, it can help us track where are people coming in from and what was the success. We work really closely with them to build reports. For us with Flights of Flavors, we're really excited to continue to watch that grow. Sometimes these passport programs can take a little bit to start off, but when they get going, they really get going. So I feel like we're starting to see that. Another metric of success for us is seeing new businesses participate. Like, we saw, you know, this business down the road now has this cool flight. Like we want to be a part of that. And so the more businesses sign up that that makes us so happy.
Emily Steele (13:43)
That's so cool. Yeah, what a like indicator of success when other people want to be part of it for sure. Like from both sides of like users, consumers and the businesses. That's so neat. Okay, so I would love to like understand from kind of earlier before too of like how do you establish your connection and presence locally and also increase like out of town visitors? What other things are like part of your strategy and tactics?
Rachel Greiner (14:14)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so a lot of our strategies, we have a lot of different promotions that we do. One, you know, we'll have some that will be more for social media, which is a program I'm working on right now or a fun campaign that I'm calling it our Alphabet Eat series. So that's a really fun way. It has been a blast. That's just a fun way that we can promote all of the great restaurants throughout not only Grand Rapids, but throughout Kent County. And so, you know, food and beverage is one of our big promotions. I really think Grand Rapids has an awesome food and beverage scene that really stands out. And so that's kind of where this idea was born. Our CEO is really passionate about food. And he kind of brought some of these ideas to Grand Rapids or to Experience Grand Rapids when he began here years ago, but he himself, like I said, is a huge foodie. So him and his friends will go out to eat and they kind of started, let's work our way through the alphabet. So he was our inspiration for Alphabet Eats. So we are going, you know, A all the way through Z. I checked and we do have a restaurant for each letter, which is super exciting. It is. Yeah. It's like we've got, we've got a lot of restaurants here.
Emily Steele (15:37)
I'm like, well you gotta tell us what X is, because X is always like the hard one. Do you know what it is? It's okay if you don't.
Rachel Greiner (15:59)
Yes, it's escaping me already. For q is quarantinos. I do know that one. Yeah, that's it.
Emily Steele (16:05)
I love that. Yeah, I was like, some of the letters in the alphabet are just harder, you know, and X is always the one like I have young kids. So I'm reading books about alphabet. It's always the same. It's always the xylophone, you know, or an x-ray. So it's like same old, same old. I love that. So and it does it's so interesting because you create this content through your own socials and like it's going to reach the local people who follow you. But like with the reels and I don't are you on TikTok as well? You're mostly focused on the meta suite.
Rachel Greiner (16:13)
I'd say we're mostly focused on Instagram, but we are on TikTok as well, and we're sharing this series on both.
Emily Steele (16:39)
Cool, cool. Yeah, I mean, it's like inevitable that it's going to reach people beyond Grand Rapids. So it's like, you get the benefit of like your followers who maybe are more of those local people seeing all of this, like all these really cool restaurants, A through Z, and then the people who, you know, like, what's this? wow, this is Grand Rapids. Like, what's Grand Rapids all about? Like, just never know how those wheels can get turning, you know, the moment you start like clicking around in Instagram and you're like, how did I land here? Like, I don't know, but this is where I need to be apparently.
Rachel Greiner (16:45)
I'm here and I wanna go. Yep, that's why one of our biggest metrics that we look at for Instagram, especially our Reels is that save feature. How many people saved this video? Because to me, if I save something, like I truly wanna go there. That's, you know, I'm putting that on my list.
Emily Steele (17:15)
Yes, I have full intentions of like using the recipe or like whatever it is I save like yeah, I don't save things lightly. So I will share but not always saved. So I definitely think that's accurate. I love that. Okay, so those like you think about the app with the breweries and the flights like any other trends you see in the DMO space that people are listening and they're like in the tourism travel world like you like are you seeing anything that they're seeing or would want to share with them?
Rachel Greiner (17:31)
Ooh, that's a great question. I feel like for us, I really, this may sound kind of silly, but I always like to do like breaking news. So as soon as an exhibit opens, I want to experience Grand Rapids to be one of the first to post about it. Like I want to get out, get in front of it and share. We have such a large audience that I've, you know, I feel like if, again, if we can make locals aware of it, they'll come, they'll bring our friends and really build excitement. So that's what we're really big on as a team. What's going on, what's coming up. We have a really great relationship with a lot of our big tourist attractions here. You know, Meijer Garden, John Ball Zoo, Public Museum. So we're always working very closely with them. And then adding them as a collaborator too, so they can get more eyes on their page or someone's like, wow, I didn't know this zoo had hippos, like I'm gonna follow the zoo now. So however we can like break this news, that's been really big for us and just staying on top of, on these social trends.
Emily Steele (18:58)
Yeah, and I think too, like, I mean, it's harder and harder. There was a day and age, I feel like it was probably a decade ago, where I could pick up like a local magazine that told me everything going on in Des Moines and like that just doesn't exist in the same way anymore. So it's almost like when I'm trying to figure out what to do locally, I do go to my peers or these kind of more kind of like CVD, like DMO type of organizations on social media because it's like this is like how you get your information, how I get it. So I love that you treated us like breaking news of like, we're gonna be the first to talk about it because yeah, like how fun to get information sourced from your organization.
Rachel Greiner (19:29)
And I want to be like the go -to resource in Grand Rapids. And, you know, for people who live here, but again, people who are coming to visit, I don't know what to do this weekend. Okay. I'm going to go on Experience Grand Rapids. I'm going to look at their website. I'm going to look at their Instagram. We are really proud of our calendar of events on our website. We again, work really closely with all the local businesses to have them add their events.
Rachel Greiner (20:04)
I'm scrolling social media all the time. If I see an event, I will reach out to that business. Hey, please make sure this is on our website. We'd love to have it there. So we get a lot. That's a local community. If they don't know us from Instagram, they'll probably know us from our event calendar, because we really try to have that be the go-to resource for what do I do this week? What do I do this month? What concerts are coming?
Emily Steele (20:04)
Yeah, yeah, it's like a source of truth of like, this is like the hub, like where you can come learn as much as possible about what's going on in your city is, you know, there's so many things sometimes it's like, as it's like a charity event or like a farmer's market, it's interesting to consume calendars that way of being like open minded to like, what do we want to do and just see everything, you know?
Rachel Greiner (20:30)
100 % and that's one thing that I truly love about Grand Rapids. We are, we're a big city, but we're not so big that you could come here with very little plan and you can still get into our restaurants. You can go to the public music. You know, you don't have to have your trip entirely planned out second by second and you can have an awesome time.
Emily Steele (20:59)
I love that. I love all like the things you have mentioned too. I just got back from San Diego yesterday and like it's such a fun city too, but it also is like you kind of do feel like you have to play it by like hour by hour to be like, okay, how am I going to hit this and this and this and this and this? It can be overwhelming. Where I love like mid-sized cities for the reason you shared of like, you're just not going to go wrong. Like you could float over to this side of town and like hit up a zoo and like a great brewery and have an awesome lunch and then go on a walk on a trail. Like I just, I think that's the magic of mid -size cities that's kept me, kept me around personally. I love it. So anything else you're excited about at Experience Grand Rapids that you would want to share before we wrap up?
Rachel Greiner (21:44)
I really am just so excited to continue sharing all of the new things coming to Grand Rapids. We have a new amphitheater that's coming. I want to say 2026. Please don't quote me on that. I'll have to look it up. But it'll be the Acrisure Amphitheater and that's going to be right on our river. So it is going to be a beautiful concert destination. I think that's going to pull in a lot of individuals to come visit just for that really unique experience that's coming soon. We are getting a soccer stadium as well. We are. Yes, we just got a women's volleyball team. The Grand Rapids Rise and just seeing their first season has been so successful and fun to have something so unique here in Grand Rapids. So excited to share more sports that are coming and more professional sports teams. So yeah, there's just there's always so much going on in Grand Rapids. So there is an endless amount of content to share and meals to be captured and it just it fills my cup.
Emily Steele (22:53)
My gosh, what a fun experience you get to have as this part of using your marketing brain this way and doing something that really does foster community and connection and supporting the local environment and residents and tourists alike has to be such a fulfilling job.
Rachel Greiner (23:26)
Absolutely.
Emily Steele (23:26)
I am so excited that you were on the podcast today. Thank you for sharing a little bit about what you do in the world and what Experience Grand Rapids is up to. I just find what you do to be so like, it just is always moving always moving forward sharing so much information. It's so inspiring. And like I've said, we've like, you know, we're starting to map out our travels with young kids. And I'm like, okay, we got to make it over. So you definitely got me with your content. So I appreciate that.
Rachel Greiner (23:50)
Love it. Well, thank you so much for having me on, Emily. Like I said, you want to come to Grand Rapids if anyone listening, reach out to us, send us an Instagram message. Truly makes my heart happy to help people plan their trips here.
Emily Steele (23:59)
Amazing. Thanks for being on the show, Rachel.
Rachel Greiner (24:06)
Thanks, Emily.
