WHAT THEY NEEDED | AN IMAGE MAKEOVER
The Village of Kleinburg is an incredibly unique village with many interesting retailers, historical architecture, and shops, but lately, the village has started to lose its luster. As retailers began to leave the village condos started sprouting up, making the area more mainstream and service based, diminishing the charm of the Kleinburg shopping district while removing the village’s historic qualities.
WHAT PHOENIX AGENCY DID
The question Phoenix Agency faced was: how do we preserve Kleinberg’s charm and revitalize its tourism-based economy while attracting visitors from the Greater Toronto Area? Below are some tourist industry facts about the three types of visitors to Kleinburg:
> Local residents – 2-5km radius
> Regional visitors (Vaughan, York Region) – The City of Vaughan attracts 8,000 to 10,000 new residents annually.
> Destination – Tourists who live within the Greater Toronto Area; 7 million people within a 1.5-hour drive of Kleinburg.
With these numbers in mind and the potential for a significantly improved influx of tourists, Phoenix Agency took a multi-faceted approach.
1| COLLABORATED WITH ONTARIO’S CENTRALCOUNTIES TOURISM & KLEINBURG BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION
> Secured a grant for Kleinburg from Central Counties, allowing for advertisements and promotions to reach all of Southern Ontario.
> Informed, unified & collaborated with Kleinburg BIA merchants with an initiative to improve tourism.
2| DEVELOPED & DEPLOYED QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
> Exclusive newsletter highlighting all aspects of Kleinburg, featuring an up-to-date bulletin board on the front page.
> Hand delivered to all merchants in the Kleinburg Village; dedicated to promoting local businesses.
> Merchants provided content for the newsletter: latest promotions, original content, business cards and additional information.
3| BRANDING
> Developed and maintained a website specifically catered to the Village of Kleinburg.
> Online content included: merchant directory, community events, attractions, latest retail news, and location information.
> Created the official logo for the Village of Kleinburg.
4| CUSTOM VISITOR GUIDES & BROCHURE HOLDERS
> Developed & printed 79-page visitor’s guides for the Village of Kleinburg.
> Distributed guides to hotels surrounding the Vaughan area, the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce and various 400 Series Highways On-Route locations through Ontario Travel Tourism.
5| SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY & DEVELOPMENT
> Developed an aggressive Twitter & Facebook campaign to promote the village.
> Campaign consisted of daily postings highlighting: merchants, events and interesting facts about the Village of Kleinburg.
> Cross promotion through the Village of Kleinburg.
6| DIGITAL PROMOTIONS
> Produced a monthly electronic lifestyle magazine (e-zine) titled In and Around Kleinburg; distributed through an email database accumulated by Kleinburg business partners.
> Produced blog: In and Around Kleinburg e-zine was transitioned to a digital blog and community hub, featuring: up to date news, events and content (articles, reviews, etc.) for visitors.
> Promoted blog through an email database and various social media outlets.
7| VIRTUAL TOUR CAMPAIGN
The campaign developed to garner interest in the ten historic buildings in Kleinburg.
Posters with QR codes were placed in each building; scanning each code with a smartphone would provide historical content regarding the building, offering a historic tour.
8| EVENT PROMOTION
> Phoenix Agency used social media, broadcasting, word of mouth, online and print/newspaper advertisements to promote the following popular Kleinburg based events:
1. Art Beat
2. Canada Day Celebration
3. Tree Lighting Ceremony
9| DIGITAL CAMPAIGN
Executed a seven-week digital campaign inside the Vaughan Mills mall; this included on-going advertisements with a call to action to visit the merchants in the Village of Kleinburg.
