Fostering Strategic Collaboration with Atlanta & the CVB’s Partner Agencies

By Colette DuChanois

Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau and Digital Edge had been working together for over a half-dozen years when they decided to take their relationship to the next level: strategic consulting.

Not only has DE’s partnership with Atlanta CVB evolved, but our collaboration with the Destination Organization’s agencies of record has strengthened, which in turn has provided more support and meaningful cooperation to better aid our client for mutual success.

Results

Offloading work to give the CVB more time to concentrate on additional impactful goals and objectives

Providing customized support through strategy and content development

Creating more successful agency partnerships built on trust and specialized expertise

Mae
“We've made even more progress in the past two years in this relationship through our strategic consulting partnership. We've guided a lot of the conversations, and they have been able to make more actionable plans and movement in their internal organization."
Mae Bodine | DIGITAL EDGE
VP of Client Strategy & Development

The Challenge

Atlanta CVB Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Wilson has built a powerhouse in-house content team. Still, the editorial writers needed that meetings & conventions expertise, which he knew they could gain from Digital Edge. So, we started to educate and infuse our knowledge into the ATL CVB content team to empower them to write industry-related content.

Andrew has also formed a strong team of agencies to provide specific services for the CVB. With many of them offering a wide gamut of services, he decided it was time to maximize their contributions and give each a definitive, specific focus. DE’s role: Creating value through our meetings & conventions intel, audience expertise and strategic recommendations.

The Solution

So, how do you translate what’s in your brain into a client deliverable? As part of our strategic consulting partnership with ATL CVB, sometimes it’s just time and communication. Digital Edge Vice President of Client Strategy & Development Mae Bodine makes herself available on-demand to jump on a phone call with the internal team or other partner agencies. In addition, Mae — and often other members of our team — travels quarterly to the destination to meet with the client’s sales & marketing departments, as well as research and email platform teams. Digital Edge Founder Mya Surrency, Director of Content Strategy Kerrie Yancey and Mae went in-market last year to hold a meetings marketing workshop that included trends and challenges for planners.

Kerrie has supported the account through strategic content advisement and development, including key industry pages: supply chain, Fintech, tech and medical. Other support has been providing the ATL CVB team with content guidance aligned with specific planner audiences, devising an internal linking strategy and creating meeting content pillars so that the Destination Organization’s editorial writers can create website content pieces around them.

Digital Edge’s Strategic Program of Work for ATL

  • Content Audits & Strategy
  • Content Development
  • Case Study Development
  • Email Marketing
  • Account-Based Marketing (ABM) & Lead Generation
  • Website Personalization
In addition, Mae has been instrumental in facilitating the relationships among ATL CVB’s partner agencies. Since 2017, the CVB has hosted an Agency Love Fest, bolstered by Andrew’s leadership and push for the collaboration dynamic among the partner agencies. The gathering ensures everyone is efficiently realizing the client’s vision and not stepping on each other’s toes.
Trust has been built between the CVB and the partner agencies, most of which have been working with the ATL CVB since the first Agency Love Fest, so they have the autonomy to do what their mutual client needs. Mae is the conduit for all the external teams and is at the helm of All Agency Meetings so that the agencies can discuss projects and what each is working on.
She also had the opportunity to talk about her role when she served as a panelist for the eTourism Summit 2024 session, Partnering for Success: Atlanta’s Recipe for Agency Collaboration & DMO Excellence, providing proof of how it’s possible for Destination Organizations like ACVB to partner with multiple agencies and deliver seamless multichannel campaigns.
Mae
“I think the biggest takeaway has been the opportunity for ATL’s agencies to not look at each other as competitors and look at each other as partners who are all here for the success of the destination.”
Mae Bodine | DIGITAL EDGE
VP of Client Strategy & Development

The Results

Consulting + Collaboration = Happy Client.

The strategic consulting that Digital Edge has provided through specialized, customized support has helped Atlanta CVB raise awareness for Georgia’s capital as a top meeting & convention destination and supported the ACVB team in reaching their booking goals. The content strategy has helped elevate the destination’s brand for B2B marketing purposes, leading to relevant, informative, entertaining and brand-consistent content experiences across all meetings-focused channels.

With Digital Edge focusing on the meeting & conventions consulting and content strategy and ACVB’s other agencies tasked with other marketing aspects to take the load off the internal teams, the CVB has had more freedom and bandwidth to concentrate on more impactful goals and objectives and accomplish even more successes, like hosting ASAE’s 2023 Annual Meeting & Exposition and launching a MICHELIN Guide on the Discover Atlanta website.

With the partner agencies working as strategic partners without the CVB having to act as a facilitator or mediator, there has been more trust and successful agency relationships. Now, we do not look at each other as competitors — but as partners coming together for the success of the destination.

Kerrie
“Our program of work has really been supporting their high-level goals, and the collaborative partnerships with the client’s internal teams and agencies of record is key because that’s a pain point a lot of other Destination Organizations have.”
Kerrie Yancey | DIGITAL EDGE
Director of Content Strategy

Contact Digital Edge to see how we can provide strategic meetings marketing consulting for your Tier 1 destination.