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“I love to talk and I love this business,” he said.
Traub took the reins of the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and its $1.1-million budget in March after heading the CVB in Huntington Beach, Calif.
He said he hasn’t been here that long, but soon project after project unraveled and admitted that much has been accomplished during his short tenure.
For Traub, he calls these first few steps of Marketing 101.
Billboards
By Labor Day, six billboards promoting Lake Havasu City in San Bernardino and Riverside counties in California are coming down from “primo locations” after their erection in May.
“(It’s the) first time we went right to the heart of the boating community,” he said.
Traub said a special website address on the billboards showed at least 600 people clicked on the link after seeing the oversized advertisements.
“I was stunned it was that high,” he said.
Traub also started an e-mail blast twice a month to 10,000 boaters in Southern California.
Jeff Blumenfeld
Traub said he reeled in a colleague he worked with at his first marketing firm in New York City 30 years ago.
Jeff Blumenfeld is now on a month-to-month contract with the CVB. He is paid $3,000 a month as the city’s “publicist.”
Blumenfeld stirred up national media coverage within the past week about the release of “Piranha 3D.” The movie was filmed almost entirely in Lake Havasu City, and Traub and Blumenfeld expressed their concern in ink that the movie would negatively impact tourism.
In one week, the Arizona Republic, the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly and about a dozen online entertainment websites picked up on the “tongue-in-cheek” comments both Blumenfeld and Traub made.
Now the bureau is gearing up for a two-month promotional sweepstakes on Woman’s Day website, a national magazine. The giveaway is a two-night, three-day stay in the city.
Traub estimates the advertising value of the sweepstake totals $80,000 and he expects almost 1 million views.
Blumenfeld also is working on a promotion with outdoor stores in the Los Angeles area, he said.
“He’s got many, many irons in the fire,” Traub said. “He was a mentor to me in my early days. He’s one amazing talent out there. We’re very lucky to have someone if his caliber.”
New website
Seemingly one of the biggest checks Traub will cut this year is for $100,000 for a new CVB website.
He’s chose a national designer who created websites for Atlantic City, and the state of Kentucky’s office of tourism, and the Huntington Beach’s CVB site.
Traub said the redevelopment of the online presence includes making Lake Havasu City’s site pop up anytime someone searches under certain key words.
“If you put in Lake Powell, I would love for Lake Havasu to come up first,” he said.
He said making sure Lake Havasu City was on the online forefront when someone entered boating, Flagstaff, or southwest vacation ideas was where most of the work lies and what most of the funding purchases.
The company then needs to develop all new editorial writing and photography for all of the pages, which will include event pages and even a wedding location page for the city.
“I know it’s a lot of money,” he said. “You got to do the job right. In my mind, we have the best agency in the world to do that.”
Brochures
For most people, a brochure is a brochure. But Traub flipped through the city’s current marketing brochure placed in visitor’s centers and pointed out several components that need changed.
He said the back of the current brochure is blank where a map should be. The top of the front of the brochure is hard to read in racks, and the inside pictures include sailing, which isn’t the most common activity here, and walking, which visitors can do anywhere.
He said the distribution of the brochures will be upped from 150,000 to 300,000 and will include airports in Phoenix and Las Vegas, and human resource offices in large companies in Southern California.
Dining Guide
By January, Traub said the city’s first dining guide brochure should be published and define the various cuisine here for distribution locally and within an hour radius. He said one of the primary funding vehicles is the restaurant tax.
“Why not promote them?” he said.
Visitor survey
Traub said he wants to know exactly who is visiting Lake Havasu City, why and where they spend their money.
So he’s spending $20,000 to figure that out through an internet-based survey.
“What if we find out boating isn’t the largest market here. What if we find out people are here because of the weather nine months out of the year?” he asked rhetorically.
Traub said a winter “guest” could potentially have a larger economic impact on the city than a family who comes boating on the weekends a few times throughout the summer.
He said the surveys might give some insight to branding the city. Currently, he said some officials want the city to be the high-speed boat capital of the West, others want the most patriotic city, and others want to be the event capital.
Event funding
How the CVB doles out funding to events is also changing.
Monies will be given based on if the event will be marketed outside of the immediate area and how many visitors the event might bring to Lake Havasu City. The events that receive the most funding from the CVB this upcoming year include the 29th annual International Jet Sports Boating Association World Finals, the Western Winterblast and the Desert Storm Charity Poker Run. Each event will receive at least $15,000 — but they all took cuts of at least $5,000 from previous CVB funding.
Traub said funding will be scaled back on local events that don’t typically attract outside visitors. This year, all organizations that receive CVB funding will be required to conduct surveys on their visitors to determine where and how they spend their dollars while attending the event.
“Impressed”
Lake Havasu City Mayor Mark Nexsen said he has been “impressed” with Traub’s ideas and work so far.
“I think what Doug is doing is bringing a fresh look at how we have marketed Lake Havasu City,” Nexsen said. “I’ve been quite impressed with what he’s been doing.”
You may contact the reporter at jleatherman@havasunews.com
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