Central Florida’s retailers and attractions
are pushing Orlando’s presence across the globe, trying to hook tourists with digital ads.
Long before visitors get to Orlando, their cellphones and Web searches are flooding them with pictures of the City Beautiful, its stores and attractions.
Tourists from Brazil will start seeing ads for the Orlando Magic as soon as they start browsing for hotels, trying to sell them on the world’s best basketball players.
Pictures of local malls and restaurants are populating the Twitter and Facebook feeds of Brits months before their visits.
Retailers and other attractions are pushing Orlando’s presence further across the globe, trying to digitally hook tourists on malls, eateries and other Orlando businesses before they fill their travel sched-
“If you wait until people get here to try to market to them, it’s often too late. As soon as they start searching for hotels and airfare, we can find ways to get them.” Frank Vertolli, digital marketing firm Net Conversion
ule.
The growing data and search histories available online are helping local businesses to get their name out in the midst of a growing number of local destinations.
“If you wait until people get here to try to market to them, it’s often too late,” said Frank Vertolli, co-founder of local digital marketing firm Net Conversion, who started working with the Orlando Magic on a tourist outreach strategy in 2013. “As soon as they start searching for hotels and airfare, we can find ways to get them.”
Vertolli and his 20-person team at Net Conversion has also worked with retailers such as Mall at Millenia and even theme-park related attractions including Blue Man Group.
With the area pulling in more than 60 million visitors in 2014, stores and malls know they need to start getting their name out to those tourists long before they arrive.
Artegon Marketplace, for example, has been working with a local digital firm on placing advertisements in the Web searches of foreigners, as well as buying ads on social-media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
Using a less high-tech method, the mall is also putting advertisements in the tourism pamphlet given to Brazilians applying for a travel visa to the United States.
“There is a lot of competition here, so we want to get our image in front of them as fast as we can,” said Frankie Sanchez, director of marketing for the shopping center.
The firm has plenty of billboards and other physical ads throughout the Orlando area, but Sanchez said they are try-
ing to use more data to figure out where to put their ad money.
Matt Certo, who works with Orlando marketing firm Findsome & Winmore, said they’ve been trying to increase the exposure of Artegon, one of their clients, by giving tourists a photo-friendly spot at the shopping center
“You’ve gotta be visual, especially on social media, because sometimes people look right over the text,” he said.
The Orlando Magic started targeting Brazilian tourists and managed to double their ticket sales to buyers in that country, Vertolli said. Team officials were unavailable for comment.
“After Dwight Howard left and they weren’t winning anymore, they actu- ally had to go out and sell their tickets,” he said. “They weren’t actually selling the Magic specifically, but telling them to see the authentic NBA experience during just one of their vacation nights in Orlando.”
It’s difficult to target tourists for a specific night, he said, especially when plans are being made months in advance. So the Magic have been using a rotating list of Web advertisements showing a block of games, although they do sometimes promote key matchups, such as those against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Lake Buena Vista Factory Stores has been using targeted Facebook ads, particularly with visitors from the United Kingdom, Brazil and Argentina, said marketing director Terry Lynn Morris.
Orlando already has a reputation among tourists for its shopping, Morris said, but not everyone knows exactly which stores when they start planning trips.
“It’s actually a combination of old and new methods,” Morris said. “We have to get out there and get them prior to arriving and when they are here.”
But even with targeted digital ads, some say old methods such as billboards and magazines still do the job.
“Especially for the convention crowds, we find it very hard to convince them what restaurant to go to before they get to Orlando,” said Susan Godorov, vice president of marketing and general manager at Pointe Orlando. “And when the go to the theme parks, people tend to plan out their days but not their nights.”