It is now less than six months out until the first annual Gainesville “Old Florida” Birding and Nature Festival! This fall, Gainesville Ecotours coordinated with Tampa Bay Online and Atlanta Journal Constitution to develop artwork for our ads in their online newspapers to begin advertising in these two markets. Thanks to the Visit Florida grant we were awarded for advertising, we have $5,000 to spend in these two markets, known for their Gator fan alumni! Check out our ad photo as well as a screen shot of our ad in a way that newspaper readers would have seen it. I know I would have clicked on this ad that displays our beautiful nature!
We are proud to announce that we had 208,000 people view our ad in Atlanta! Even better, we had almost 300 people click on our ad and visit our website. That means there is interest and excitement about our “fledgling” (no pun intended!!) festival in Gainesville and we hope that translates to participants! We will report back when we hear from Tampa Bay Online for their click through numbers. We will be continuing our campaigns in both online markets in January through March of 2014.
We are also working with Santa Fe College’s department of community education to run registration through their program. This would be a great help in placing classes and seminars online, paying instructors, and keeping track of course participants. They already have an amazing outdoor education course section so let’s keep our fingers crossed they are able to help us with the festival!
Check back soon for festival updates and let us know if you have any field or seminar course requests!
Contributed by Terri Mashour-Owner of Gainesville Ecotours and Executive Director of the Gainesville Old Florida Birding and Nature Festival.
