TOPOSOPHY has been working with three DMOs in the SELEP region (Visit Essex, Visit Kent, and Sussex Modern) to map organisations outside the tourism sector that promote their respective regions nationally and internationally. By carrying out in-depth workshops and evaluating place-based campaigns, we’re establishing priorities and resources that will help set up a new, integrated approach to place-based marketing in each area.
Map businesses and organisations outside the tourism sector with a strong interest in place marketing (e.g. universities, housing developers, transport operators, food producers and economic development agencies), and understand their priorities.
Identify place marketing needs (in terms of messages, assets, collateral), and connect organisations that can support each other to market their places more effectively.
Give recommendations on how place marketing can be performed in a more integrated way between DMOs, local authorities, county councils and other public bodies.
Evaluate the performance of place-based marketing campaigns during 2022 to identify ‘non-tourism’ messages that resonate well with audiences outside the region.
Guide each region on setting up coalitions of organisations looking to collaborate on place marketing in the future.
The counties of Essex, Kent and East Sussex have been working together for some time to support entrepreneurship, encourage investment and boost economic competitiveness across the South East of England. More recently, during the pandemic efforts have centred around supporting businesses through difficult times.
With new infrastructure such as Crossrail and Thamesport coming online, the effect of the pandemic on keeping millions of ex-commuters working from home, and ‘staycations’ encouraging people to think differently about their local area, it was clearly high time to think about broader, more integrated ways of telling the region’s stories. With this in mind, in late 2021, the South East Local Enterprise Partnership asked TOPOSOPHY to start the journey of developing integrated place marketing networks.
Through a series of online workshops, we asked organisations as diverse as housing developers, healthcare trusts, vineyards, universities and train operators to explain their place marketing priorities, and identify how they could be helped to market their respective region more effectively. The findings from these workshops have guided the design of place marketing campaigns, which will be evaluated with the aim of setting up a long-term place marketing approach in Essex, Kent and East Sussex.
Mapping of all local stakeholders with a strategic and operational interest in place marketing
10 place marketing workshops across Essex, Kent and East Sussex to identify future place marketing goals and needs
Evaluation of place marketing campaigns to assess relevance and resonance with local stakeholders
Survey and interviews among strategic partners to assess common place marketing goals
Project report with recommendations on place marketing goals and delivery structures
The project is currently underway, with results to be shared as soon as the project has been completed.
