Q244: What does visitor marketing strategy look like for small-town America?
“We’ve got full hipster culture going on over here.”
What happens when aging millennials tire of big city life and head for simpler living in towns like Joplin, Missouri?
On this episode, Toby Teeter, President and CEO at the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, talks about how his team is reworking the town’s visitor marketing strategy.
Joplin, Missouri is quintessential small-town America. The town of 50,000 inhabitants and the wider metro area of roughly 250,000 has gone through booms and busts and even devastating tornadoes. According to Toby, things are changing with new investments in education and commerce drawing new blood into the region.
Fifty miles away is Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters to Walmart and other Fortune 500 companies. Joplin recently inaugurated a medical school.
Toby is a former digital marker and Amazon marketplace consultant. He talks about how his team is re-writing the story of Joplin, as told online to visitors from surrounding areas but also to international folk coming in for educational opportunities.