Director urges updated impact calculator, LinkedIn targeting and short video clips to boost bookings

The Director said the meeting would focus on marketing and sales and asked the group to help update the facility's "impact calculator," which she said no longer produces reliable seasonal numbers and may need replacement or a new scope of work in the next one to two months. "There's one tool I would really love to use...it's by Destinations International, and they won't let us as a convention center only buy into it," the Director said, noting that the product is sold to CVBs and DMOs rather than a standalone convention center.

Why it matters: The Director said better seasonally adjusted impact numbers would help quantify how events translate into local spending and jobs, and would let the center tell a clearer economic story to prospective clients and funders.

Marketing tactics discussed included ending the use of geofencing (which the Director said Oregon law now restricts), targeting position titles on LinkedIn instead, and adding short moving images to digital ads. "We're targeting position names...marketing or events planner," the Director said. She suggested 15–30 second video clips that show the attendee experience — leaving a hotel, attending meetings, eating lunch, visiting the beach — to correct misconceptions that the venue lacks nearby hotels and retail.

Members asked for more booking and rotation data to focus marketing where there is true incremental capacity, and suggested trialing new digital approaches for short periods to test performance. The Director asked members to send ideas over the next couple of weeks and offered to circulate a recap for comment.

Next steps: The Director said she has contacted several companies to scope the impact-calculator work and expects proposals in one to two months; she asked volunteers for marketing video participation and for feedback on proposed tactics.