Small and regional destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are
successfully applying influencer marketing with a grassroots twist—by leaning
into local creators, authentic storytelling and community-focused campaigns. With
limited budgets and lean teams, these organizations make strategic use of
micro-influencers, storytelling and
collaborative platforms to punch well above their weight.
Some DMOs have
found success by connecting with content creators who are rooted in their
communities.
“We have a few
local creators that we have been contracting with,” said Makenna Tschetter, marketing manager at OneSpartanburg, the DMO for Spartanburg,
South Carolina. “It helps break
it up. You’re not having the same voice over and over.”
The DMOs that have successfully employed creators as
influencers focus on their storytelling strategy.
“We’re working hand
in hand and helping them with their content strategy,” Tschetter said. “They’ll
put in a few recommendations, and we’ll kind of fine-tune it from there.”
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“Ultimately, we’re
leaning into those local creators, because it’s their personality that helps
sell the destination,” she said. “We’re relying on them because they have
something we don’t—a completely different audience and voice.”
Tschetter has found
that these partnerships are often mutually beneficial. “We’ve seen a lot of
growth on our page from their audiences,” she said. “It also helps our local
creators, because we have a lot more followers than they. So it’s helped grow
their platform and help gain their trust on their platform as well.”
The tone of the
content created builds that trust. “We want to stay authentic and true to our
voice … our community is just as we call it, that
small town charm with big city energy,” Tschetter said.
OneSpartanburg’s
focus is mainly on serving the community, informing them of local events and
activities they might enjoy.
“We want to be the
go-to platform for our residents and visitors alike,” Tschetter said. “We’ve
created a kind of cult following around our ‘Weekend in the Burg’ roundup. People
look forward to it.”
While short-form
video content—such as Instagram Reels—has experienced significant growth,
different social media platforms cater to various content types, and some
themes consistently outperform others.
“Reels do perform a
lot better than still photos,” said Tschetter. “Food and beverage content
always performs well, especially something that has a cool drink … Coffee shop content always does well for
us. People love seeing what’s new and what they can experience for themselves.”
How small DMOs connect with creative talent
Finding the right
influencers with the content creation capabilities the DMO requires can
sometimes be a challenge. Platforms like CrowdRiff
have specialized in finding the right talent for the job.
“What you get is
like a natural desire to support your city and your local businesses,” said
Kash Miah, VP of marketing at CrowdRiff. “Even
though they have a smaller footprint, they tend to be more supportive of these
smaller destinations.”
“We have a creator
operations team that can sift through local destinations based on location,
hashtags and certain criteria,” Miah added. “Are they high quality? Do they use
a GoPro? Do they understand the assignment?”
CrowdRiff helps
DMOs manage these relationships at scale. “Sometimes a small destination has a
major event coming up, and one creator just can’t handle it,” Miah said. “So we’ll
work with them on multiple creators from different angles.”
Creator collaborations drive authentic reach
Tourism Saskatchewan in Saskatchewan,
Canada has further developed
this model with its long-running Saskatchewanderer program.
“They traveled all
over, focusing on culinary and accommodations and unique tourism experiences,”
said Brooke Lochbaum, executive director of marketing.
We’ve got a bit of a template, reaching out to the individuals and explaining what we’re looking for, developing a contract ... and setting out our expectations for five to seven pieces of content over a one-week period.
Brooke Lochbaum, Tourism Saskatchewan
The program began as a one-year contract,
but the frequent changes in creators required significant time and involved a
learning curve, which was a disadvantage.
“It would take them a couple of months to
get a feel for the position ...
and then all of a sudden, the year was over, and we’d start all over again,” Lochbaum said.
Eventually,
Saskatchewan converted the Saskatchewanderer into
a full-time job for one creator, Andrew Hiltz.
“Having Andrew work
for Tourism Saskatchewan—he gets what we’re trying to do as an organization ... that makes it easy in identifying the
stories that he wants to tell and where he’s going to travel to,” said Lochbaum. “With a platform dedicated to telling
Saskatchewan stories, it’s been really important that Andrew has been part of
the team and really understands the organization’s marketing needs.”
Still, Saskatchewan
ensures variety by featuring the voices of other creators.
“We started what we
call Wanderer of the Week,” Lochbaum explained. “Every month, for one week, we
have other local influencers take over the channel.”
It’s not always a
one-off arrangement. “We have gone back to a couple of Wanderers of the Week
who have performed stellar,” she said. “The audience engages with them.”
Saskatchewan collaborates
with local businesses and organizations to develop content that appears on the
account.
“We’ve got a bit of
a template, reaching out to the
individuals and explaining what we’re looking for, developing a contract ... and setting out our expectations for
five to seven pieces of content over a one-week period,” Lochbaum said.
The content focuses
on the tourism experience and unique lifestyle aspects of the region, featuring
local businesses. Whether it’s a post explaining the pleasure of a dill pickle
donut or showcasing a backcountry lodge, the approach yields tangible impact.
“All of a sudden, a
week later, they’re sold out of dill pickle donuts,” Lochbaum said.
Storytelling through other
trusted channels
Influencer
marketing isn’t the sole tool in the toolbox for small DMOs. StyleBlueprint—a digital lifestyle
publication—offers another layer to the storytelling mix, which focuses on
reaching the right audience.
“We are working
with destinations to create both written content and social media campaigns,”
said CEO Liza Graves. “We have over a million pieces of first-party data, and
with that, we can create custom audiences and lookalike audiences.”
StyleBlueprint helps
DMOs determine the success of their content campaigns by embedding pixels in
campaigns that feature their articles, which can track whether visitors have
read the content, proving a connection between inspiration and follow-through.
We have over a million pieces of first-party data, and with that, we can create custom audiences and lookalike audiences.
Liza Graves, StyleBlueprint
“They’re able also
to have those case studies that prove that working with us works,” Graves said.
South Carolina’s
Old 96 District has found success in this storytelling partnership.
“We’ve worked with
Liza and her group now for about three or four years,” said Barbara Ware, executive director of the Old
96 District Tourism Commission. “It’s probably been one of the better—not
only in the press we get but just the great customer service.”
Liza Graves believes
small DMOs benefit most when they start with a strong story. “Why would someone
want to come here? What is the story that makes our destination amazing?” she
said.
Jay Graves, COO of
StyleBlueprint, added: “When you’re publishing content, whether written or
video, it’s important not just to be promoting—it has to be informative,
entertaining and ideally both.”
Finding the right
audience attracts more of the right audience as content is shared, Liza Graves suggested. And while social media is now
an integral part of disseminating the message, a significant number of travelers
still respond well to email campaigns.
“Our primary source
of traffic is our in-house email list,” said Jay Graves. “That subject line is
appealing enough that they will open it up, and then ... click on that email to go read the
article.”
“We’ve got almost
50,000 emails, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but we just started doing it a
couple of years ago,” said Ware. “We’ve had a lot of success with giveaways.”
“Email makes them
more warm,” said Kimberly Snyder, marketing
director of the SC Regional Tourism Board. “They’re
more likely to visit if they’re subscribed.”
A consistent
storytelling strategy helps cement audience loyalty.
Snyder said that
festivals and holiday events drive engagement, especially in drive markets.
“In the summer,
festival content is absolutely the best ... post a video, everyone shares it … At the holidays, we have a lot of holiday events,” she said. “In
slower seasons, we try to create itineraries like ‘25 things to do in 2025’ or ‘48-hour road
trip in South Carolina.’”
The destination’s
content reached about 7 million people on Facebook last year, with positive results.
“We did see about a 10% increase in web traffic,” Snyder said.
Tech-enabled and people-powered
To make the most of
limited staff time, the small DMOs we spoke to support their content strategies
with a variety of tools. For instance, Lochbaum’s team of four uses Monday.com and CrowdRiff to manage content
and collaborations.
“We often like to
create content that we can re-share in the future. Because it’s never one and
done,” she said.
Snyder relies on
Eagle for assets. “It’s a wonderful photo and video database ... not subscription based ... great tagging system.”
Tschetter points to
Sprout Social for analytics. “Their data is so rich … for reporting and
analytics, Sprout excels,” she said.
CrowdRiff handles
creator vetting, payments and campaign logistics for small teams and creators. “We
handle a lot of the work for them,” said Miah. “The outreach, making sure
payments are paid on time ... they just get the content.”
Liza Graves finds
that smaller destinations spend their limited time and energy quite effectively
by tracking campaign performance on a granular level. “Sometimes what they do
have is someone who has the ability to dig into it and is just ... not gonna give it up,” Graves said. “They’re
gonna figure out exactly what’s working.”
As small DMOs
navigate a fast-changing digital environment, one thing remains clear: Marketing doesn’t have to be big-budget to
make a significant impact. However, it does require a sense of place and a
love of it.
“We believe in our
five counties,” Ware said. “They have something to offer the visitor. We have
this tagline that says ‘unexpected wonders,’ and I think that’s really what we’re
selling—we’re selling memories.”