State-Level Meetings Marketing for Maine

By Kerrie Yancey, Melanie Cornwell & Colette DuChanois

Digital Edge pioneered the first-ever meetings marketing campaign in collaboration with the Maine Office of Tourism, elevating the state’s status as a bucket-list meetings destination and sparking interest in its targeted economic sectors.

Extend Resources & Bandwidth

Raise Awareness of Maine as a Bucket-List Meetings Destination

Drive Interest in the State’s Focused Economic Sectors

Generate RFPs

Challenge

With its enchanting lighthouses, idyllic beaches and lush forests, Maine is a top destination on travelers’ bucket lists. But before the pandemic, the Maine Office of Tourism had not had a meeting or destination sales efforts to raise awareness about the state as a bucket-list meetings destination.

Maine needed a marketing campaign to create awareness among key planner audiences about its meeting offerings while overcoming the challenge of its economic capital, Portland, not having a convention center and the city’s largest hotel having 500 rooms on peak. In addition, there was an opportunity to let meeting planners know that the state is not as remote as they may think and that it is open year-round, with the shoulder season offering affordability.

Solution

The Maine Office of Tourism — along with Visit Portland, Greater Portland’s official destination marketing organization (DMO) — began working with Digital Edge in the fall of 2021 on digitally-focused strategies and campaigns targeting planners who are likely to host a meeting in the Northeast or fall under one of the state’s economic growth industries — including medical, agriculture and aquaculture — and building a deeper awareness of the meetings assets while creating interest in the state’s shoulder season.

Digital Deliverables through Fiscal Year 2023

1 Meetings-Dedicated Microsite
1 Photo/Video Shoot
3 Meetings Videos
14 Pieces of Website Content

20 Emails
38 Sponsored Social Media Posts
Trade Media Management

Maine Meetings

Medical Meetings

Group Activities

Digital Edge helped develop a new brand leveraged toward planners and designed a customized state meetings microsite with a dedicated page to Portland’s meeting venues and hotels, group dining and activity options, and additional offerings that make the city a top-tier meetings destination.

Visuals

Our agency’s key team members traveled to the state for an image and photo shoot to provide the imagery necessary to support the marketing efforts. The footage was pivotal to creating a video series for Maine to visually showcase the group side of the state and show planners what meetings are like in this bucket-list destination.

“The three-video series we created so far are really the narratives that they want to tell meeting planners:

1. It’s a bucket-list destination.
2. If you come here, you can take over the city.
3. There are things to do within a two-hour radius.

Those three videos are really what they wanted to tell the story. It’s a sales tool. It’s an opportunity to use them as collateral and send them to planners. So, we’ve created almost a digital toolkit without it being sales-focused pieces — they’re indirect sales pieces."

Mae Bodine | DIGITAL EDGE

VP of Client Strategy & Development

Results

As our partnership continues, Digital Edge has been able to help Maine tell the “group side” of this bucket-list destination’s story.

Digital Edge has been able to serve as an extension of the DMO by providing resources for its team. Working together, Digital Edge, Maine and Portland have raised awareness about the state as a meetings destination and drive interest in events related to the state’s economic growth sectors, all while generating dozens of Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

Your organization has been doing awesome.

Hannah Collins

Deputy Director, Maine Office of Tourism

By-the-Numbers

Meetings Microsite Success
(January 2022–June 2023)

RFP Submissions

Pageviews

Unique Pageviews

Sessions

Users

2 :31

Time on Page

Contact Digital Edge directly to learn how our B2B agency for the travel & tourism industry can leverage your state’s existing brand toward planners and organizers and provide group-specific marketing support to showcase your destination’s meetings, sports and travel trade options.