Apply Common Sense
to
Developing Your Own
Measurement Resources
Dean Campbell of the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Byway has thirty-odd years’ experience with marketing and measuring the impact of businesses, industrial and retail operations, as well as unique projects such as the relocation of the London Bridge to America, and the world's tallest fountain in Arizona. His experience is well-adaptable to marketing and measuring byway operations.
He shares the following how-to advice for developing your own measurement resources:
• Apply some common sense and planning before you begin the actual survey process.
For example: check your assumptions about your byway’s attractiveness and resources by conducting a mini-focus group with objective individuals who will give you an honest assessment of what is right and what may need improvement for your byway.
• Develop a measurement system that will allow you to establish benchmarks for future comparisons. In the planning and development stages, you may need to establish the geographical survey corridor – will you measure only at businesses directly on the byway and talk to visitors only at locations directly on the byway or do you consider the byway’s sphere of impact to reach 5, 10, 20 or more miles off the highway itself.
• Develop a measurement tool that allows you to check your internal realities vs. external realities to measure whether the public thinks your byway’s services, products, sites, ambiance, experiences are as good as the byway staffers think they are.
• Believe VALIDLY-OBTAINED results, even if they contradict your own perceptions.
• Carefully select the timing of your survey effort. The time of year can influence response and response rate.
• If you will be using a mail-out survey: ... create a short, concise, readable, easy-to-fill-out-and-return survey. Make it LOOK EASY TO FILL IN .
... ease readers into the survey by asking two or three questions that can quickly and easily be answered. This creates momentum for readers to complete the rest of the survey.
... use a crisp, clean page design and modern-day language with limited choices: (example) “it’s great” or “I hate it.” Do not offer more than four choices.
... use a short cover memo to explain how to complete the survey, emphasize how simple it is.
.. Use an incentive of no less than one dollar. Attach (with a short strip of Scotch tape) that dollar bill over even a rough sketch of a dollar bill so when readers take the money off the page the symbol of the incentive is still there to motivate them to return the survey in exchange for the cash. If you use a commemorative coin as an incentive, place it inside a protective sleeve to keep it from coming through the outer mailing envelope. Again, use a drawing of the coin on the page, as a motivator.
... Be specific. General research is wordy, but not usable in most cases. Don't ask "What do you like about...?" Give specific items, and ask respondents to rate them from 1 - 4.
... Don't ask "why" questions primarily--you will often get rationalizations instead of real reasons. Ask a question for an opinion of something, then ask why they feel that way.
Anecdotes as Measurement
Dean shares a couple of anecdotes that could assist in the qualitative measurement of the Cherokee Foothills byways impact. One concerns a young bachelor visiting a friend living in the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Byway region of South Carolina. That young man enjoyed the area’s ambiance and quality of life so much that he applied for a job almost immediately. He stayed and called home to enlist the help of friends to ship his belongings to him.
The second story is about a retired company executive, who fell in love with the Cherokee Hills scenic byway region from his numerous motorcycle excursions on it. He purchased a hilltop location (known locally as " Squirrel Mountain"). After building his log cabin and two modern "barns" for offices, workshops and horses, he built an authentic replica of an open-side covered bridge just off the roadway shoulder and invites all travelers to pass through it and circle back to the byway on a portion of his private driveway. It is his gift to the people of the "Dark Corner" section of the Cherokee Foothills Byway.
These types of anecdotes say a lot about life on the byway and the type of ambiance that visitors can experience there. Consider developing a formal system for collecting and presenting oral histories as a measurement tool. For example, you might keep a “guest book” of names and addresses of people, such as the young man, who would be willing to speak to funders about their byway experience that convinced them to stay in the area.
You might include such individuals as the young man or the retired executive in Dean’s stories in byway promotional materials, with proper release forms signed for use of photos and editorial text. An advertisement with the following text: “’I loved my visit to the Cherokee Foothills so much I never went home’ - a true story” can be packaged with a copy of a personal release form as validation of the authenticity of the experience and shared with funders.
Of course, anecdotal information that is accompanied by economic indicators of the byway’s impact on quality of life via tourism-related jobs, sales, etc. creates a stronger funding request, but this type of anecdotal information can help put a human interest element into that request.
Resources:
America ’s Scenic Byways: The Colorado Report
Best Practices Study of Colorado Byways
Developing Your Own Visitor Profile Surveys - click on #4
Geographic Information Systems
Identifying Your Target Market Through Research - click on #4
National Scenic Byways Awareness and Image Questionnaire - click on #4
North American Industry Classification System
Quantifying the Economic Impacts of Scenic Byway Designation
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