Florida Tourism Seeks Marketing Agency

The Original Florida Tourism Task Force is seeking a marketing agency. The Original Florida Tourism Task Force is a governmental entity consisting of member counties located in north central Florida. Current member counties consist of Alachua County, Bradford County, Columbia County, Dixie County, Gilchrist County, Hamilton County, Jefferson County, Lafayette County, Levy County, Madison County, Suwannee County, Taylor County, Union County and Wakulla County. The Task Force seeks to promote natural, historic and cultural attractions of the 14-county region to increase the number of visitors and to extend their stay.
The Original Florida Tourism Task Force seeks a marketing company to design and create the following three products which together comprise The Original Florida Tourism Task Force 2017 Marketing Project:

• Overlay map and topic-centered landing pages for its Things to Do, Places to Stay and Places to Eat sections of its existing WordPress website (www.vnnf.org), map-based filtering of these menu items by county and town, and changes to the presentation of pins on its Things to Do, Places to Stay and Places to Eat pin maps, referred to as Topic-centered landing pages.
• Changes to the order of presentation of sections of its website, changes to its footer and header, as well as changes to its header menu on mobile devices, referred to as Home Page Modifications; and
• A geographically-targeted digital advertising campaign, referred to as the Digital Advertising Campaign.

Scope of Work Topic-centered Landing Pages:

Overlay Map. The development of a Regional Map of Visit Natural North Florida which automatically overlays on the existing Hero Banner on the website home page when a user’s cursor is placed on a “Places to Sleep,” “Places to Eat,” or “Things to Do” menu category. The Regional Map shall be designed such that the specific menu items which will result in the appearance of the map will be selectable by the Task Force website administrator from the website Dashboard.

The overlay map will be designed so that the Task Force website administrator, from the website dashboard, can select which counties comprise the overlay map. The Task Force website administrator will have the ability to add or delete counties from the map from the following group of 16 Florida counties: Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Marion, Putnam, Suwannee, Taylor, Union and Wakulla.

Topic-centered Landing Pages. When a county is selected from the County Map or a town is selected from the Town Map, a topic-centered landing page will be displayed. Each topic-centered landing page will consist of an Overview of the selected topic as it pertains to the selected geographic area, an option to further refine/filter the selection by subtopics, a listing of up to four (4) thumbnails of the most-recent Related Stories of the area from the website blog database and, following the display of Related Stories, up to six (6) randomly-selected thumbnails of applicable Related Features about the selected topic and the selected area will be displayed from the website database. Subtopics consist of existing website menu categories. Subtopics for Things to Do currently consist of Agritourism, Culture/History, Ecotourism, Fishing, Outfitters and Guides, Paddling, Parks and Trails, Recreation, Shopping/Antiquing, Springs and Visitor Services. Subtopics for Places to Stay currently consist of Camping/RVs, Hotels/Motels, Resorts and B&B’s, and Vacation Rentals. Subtopics for Places to currently Eat consist of American, Bakeries & Delis, BBQ/Southern, Bistros & Cafes, Ethnic, Seafood, Steakhouses, as well as Wineries, Breweries and Pubs.

When a Related Story thumbnail is selected, the full Related Story (blog) will be displayed to the user.

The home page theme will be modified to allow for the display of a footer menu in both desktop and mobile devices. The footer menu will contain two top-level menu categories consisting of “Contact” and “About Us” from the existing header menu (which will subsequently be removed from the header menu). The footer menu will also continue to display the logos of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Visit Florida, the Florida Rural Economic Development Initiative, and the current “Funding Provided by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity” statement.

Digital Advertising Campaign:

The Task Force seeks to drive substantial additional traffic to the organization’s website, naturalnorthflorida.com through a geographically-targeted digital advertising campaign to increase awareness of tourist-oriented activities and resources located within the Natural North Florida region. The Task Force desires to target residents of specific metropolitan areas in which it attends tourist-oriented travel expos and shows. The digital advertisements shall highlight attractions and events within the region as well as highlighting the Visit Natural North Florida website.

Scope of Work:

• A. The selected proposal must:
  • Demonstrate familiarity with the tourism products of The Original Florida Tourism Task Force and its member counties, the Task Force website and the Task Force Facebook page;
  • Describe a digital advertising strategy which shall maximize impressions and conversions to the Task Force website and Facebook page;
  • Demonstrate creative campaign design and implementation approaches;
  • Identify the maximum number of metropolitan areas to be included in the Digital Advertising Campaign; and
  • Provide analytics, accessible by the Task Force, on campaign performance including;
    • Number of impressions, click-thrus and click-thru rates to the Task Force website for the duration of the campaign for each targeted metropolitan area;
    • Analytics of each advertisement displayed, including number of impressions, click-thrus and click-thru rates, frequency and display report listing web sites where the advertisement is being displayed/delivered; and
    • Task Force Marketing Committee Involvement. The selected proposer shall work with the Task Force Marketing Committee to design and implement the advertising campaign including advertising strategy, publisher strategy and bidding strategy as applicable.
• B. The Task Force Marketing Committee shall approve
  • The selected metropolitan areas;
  • The websites on which the advertisements shall be displayed;
  • The timing and length of time the advertisements shall run; and
  • All advertisements prior to publication.
• C. The selected proposer shall provide to the Task Force Marketing Committee copies of all advertisements placed, the name of the websites on which they were placed and the period of times that the advertisements were run.
• D. The Task Force reserves the right to divert impressions to target another audience, web site, or metropolitan area throughout the campaign.
• E. Advertisements placed on social media and other websites should include photographs from the region depicting tourism products, associated text, and a link to the Task Force website (www.vnnf.org). All such advertisements shall be approved prior to placement by the Task Force Marketing Committee. Creativity is encouraged in the design of the advertisements.
• F. The selected proposer may use multiple ad exchanges and real time bidding to place display advertising, which may include mobile. The proposal shall specify the specific ad exchanges to be used.

Proposal due by 5:00 p.m. April 24, 2017 to:

The Original Florida Tourism Task Force
2009 NW 67th Place
Gainesville, FL 32653-1603

Zimmerman PR & Advertising is a major Florida based agency.