Tools for writing a successful JEM application

Click here to download the FY 2008 JEM map

Department of Tourism Resources

There are many resources available to non-profit organizations applying for a JEM grant. You can find more details here.

Co-op Advertising Program: The goal of this program is to pool the resources of the Department and the individual to create a more powerful advertising message. Wisconsin travel advertisers share in frequency and volume discounts that translate into dollar savings. Click here for more information.

Co-op Direct Mail and E-mail Program: Direct mail lists from the Department's database may be rented for one-time use. Advertise your signature events or lodging packages and deals through the Department's admail program. Click here for more information on Co-Op Direct Mail Program or here for more information on the E-mail Program.

Wisconsin Welcome Centers: There are several opportunities to showcase your area in the numerous Welcome Centers statewide. Click here for more information.

Educational Series: A series of educational courses designed to help develop marketing plans. Content is focused on media buying, developing a public relations campaign and understanding the customer.

Department of Tourism Staff: The Department of Tourism has Tourism Development Specialists and staff available as a resource for you. They are knowledgeable on the Department's programs and can meet with you to discuss them. Contact the Tourism Development Specialist in your area or contact Abbie Hill at 608/261-6272 or ahill@travelwisconsin.com.

Click here to download a JEM Application Worksheet

Writing a Project Description

Tell us about the event or promotion you are planning by answering these questions:

• What is the event or promotion that you are planning?
• What events and/or activities should we include?
• How will you develop self-sufficiency so that your project continues after JEM funding is over?
  
• How can local businesses, community groups, and/or surrounding communities get involved and benefit financially from this project?

Choosing the most appropriate JEM category

• Three or more communities are working together together to market your area,
• The goal for the area is to attract visitors during a time of year that does not traditionally receive substantial numbers of travelers (during your shoulder season),
• The project highlights what is special and/or unique about your area (promotes your area's brand image),Your project description meets one of the following three requirements:
• Identifies attracting meetings and conventions
• Identifies attracting motorcoach business
• Identifies attracting leisure travelers.

New Event
This is the appropriate category if the event:

• Has not previously been held in your community or area,
• Will repeat regularly,
• Is beyond the scope of daily operations,
• Does not incorporate portions of a previously held event,

Sales Promotion
This is the appropriate category if your project description:

• Creates a promotion that lasts 6-8 weeks ,
• Offers visitors significant incentives (hotel discounts and value add-ons).

Existing Event
This is the appropriate category if your project description:

Includes an event that has already occurred or is an ongoing event

Includes one of the following three goals:
- Attract visitors from a new geographic market,
- Attract a new demographic audience,
- Place advertising in a new media (ie. advertise on television when radio and print have been used in the past).

To qualify in this category, you will submit the previous years advertising budget and demonstrate how JEM funding will substantially increase the number visitors over the previous years visitor count.

One Time, One-of-a-Kind
This is the appropriate category if your project description includes an event that:

• Is a one time event of major significance for your area and will not be repeated (ex. a national art exhibit),
• Will generate interest and media coverage in the Midwest (including Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota),
• Is not an anniversary or a birthday celebration.
  

Establishing Goals for Your Project

Your goal(s) must be clear, stated concisely, be believable and reasonable. You must present a goal(s) that can be measured and reported.

REMINDER: It is not the quantity of the goals, it is the quality. This task is manageable when you focus on doing a great job with one or two goals rather than having many goals that are difficult to define and track. Use real numbers to define your goal, not percentages.

Here is a good example of how to state your goal:

"The goal of our campaign/sales promotion is to increase the number of hotel rooms sold by an additional 1,000 rooms."
-or-
"In 2007, the City Artfest had 200 people attend and 10 room nights were rented. In 2008, we will increase attendance to 500 and fill 100 lodging rooms."

You are required to track and report the results in your JEM project evaluation. This is a much easier task for a JEM event where attendance can be counted and a representative sample of the attendees surveyed. With a Year 1 or One Time, One-of-a-Kind project, your goal may be a good faith guess based on similar, past events or promotions.

If your JEM project is a Sales Promotion or Destination Marketing campaign, tracking your results will require careful planning and dedicated community support. To accomplish effective tracking, select something tangible to measure and relate it to the purpose of the grant, justify it and count it. Counting additional area room nights is an excellent way to determine the results of your Sales Promotion or Destination Marketing campaign. For this to work, lodging partners must be committed to tracking and reporting the increase in room nights during the campaign period. Prior to submitting your application, have your lodging partners sign an agreement that defines participation requirements.

Here's an example of a tool from the Chippewa Valley Convention and Visitor's Bureau that they used to develop business participation in a spring sales promotion.

Chippewa Valley sample agreement

Calculating Visitor Spending

Going back to the City ArtFest example, here is a suggestion on how to calculate the estimated visitor spending using the room night goal:

The City Artfest has a goal of 300 more attendees and 100 room nights (2 per room).

You may use our charts to determine the average per person/ per day expenditures.

Per Person/Per Day Expenditure Charts

If you have a reliable source of your own, use that data, but be sure to tell us the source of your numbers.

The estimated visitor spending of the City Artfest JEM project would look like this:

200 new overnight visitors x $139 (urban chart)=$27,800
100 day trippers x $45=$4,500

Therefore, the estimated visitor spending of the City Artfest JEM project is $32,300.

Tracking Expenditures

Once your estimated visitor spending expectations are set, next you'll put measures in place to track the actual numbers.

Here is an example:
City Artfest will count the event attendance because they are producing a gated event and are selling tickets. To track the number of overnight stays, City Artfest is surveying a representative sample of attendees. Here is an example of a survey that City Artfest might use:

Joint Effort Marketing Survey

Tips for Implementing the Survey:

Use the survey throughout all days and times of the event or promotion and attempt to get a minimum of 300-400 completed surveys (100 if your attendance is less than 200).

Collect the survey data and take the total number of nights (Q 3) for each type of lodging or day trip (Q2) indicated on all surveys and divide these totals by the total number of surveys - this gives you the percentage of visitors by lodging type by the average number of nights. Be sure to discount the percentage of responses to Q2 who note they live in the area as non-tourism attendees.

Multiply each percentage of lodging type/number of nights and day trip percentage by the total number of non-area attendees (your total ticket count) and you will have the approximate visitor category size per day for each lodging/daytrip category. (e.g. 20% of 500 total attendees stayed 2 nights = 100 people x 2 nights = 200 people/night/dollars spent.)

Use the per-person per day lodging expenditure chart that best describes your community (urban, rural or resort area) and multiply the number of visitors in each lodging category from your visitor estimates with the corresponding expenditure amount from the expenditure chart.

Add each of the categories together and you will have an estimate of the total expenditures made by the visitors or attendees at your event, attraction or promotion.

Use the results from question #1 to gauge your PR and advertising effectiveness and report those findings in the research measurements required by the JEM program.

Use the findings in question #4 to get a sense of how much your community was also able to financially participate and report those finding in the research measurements required by the JEM program.

Use the responses from questions #5 & #6 to determine the kinds of group sizes you served and the best media mix for promoting future similar events, attractions or promotions.

What if you don't have a gated or contained event? Then what? Because it is impossible to project expenditures into an unknown volume of visitors to determine the estimated visitor expenditures, an acceptable alternative is to measure the overall effectiveness of your marketing plan. (See section Tracking The Marketing Plan's Effectiveness)

Creating a Marketing Plan

Your marketing plan is your roadmap to success. This is where all of the promotional elements are outlined and integrated communication objectives and strategies are presented. Remember, public relations is a great way to stretch promotional dollars.

Continue crafting your plan by choosing appropriate target markets, and consider the following:

• Who comes to your event or destination now?
• What age and gender?
• How many in the travel party?
• Where are they coming from?
• What geographical markets provide growth potential?
• What do I want the target market to do after receiving the message and how can I encourage the call to action?

Creating an Effective Public Relations Campaign

A public relations campaign is a very cost-effective form of marketing and capitalizes on the most important method of information delivery, word-of-mouth.

In planning a public relations campaign, you will want to determine the best time to provide information to the media. The more opportunities you create to have your project discussed in the media, the more attention it will receive. It is customary to plan public relations activities before, during and after the event.

Your JEM grant application should include detailed information on your public relations campaign. Use the Department of Tourism's education series to plan an effective public relations campaign. In public relations, creativity is rewarded! Show us your inspired public relations campaign.

Creating a Media Plan

A good media plan is needed to provide significant exposure to your project. Use your target market information as a guide to determine your media strategy. Click here for more information on the Co-op Advertising Program.

Make sure your application clearly identifies that media you will use and specifics about the buy complete with dates and ad sizes.

Tracking the Marketing Plan's Effectiveness Once you have created your marketing plan, you need to plan how to track its effectiveness. You'll propose the tracking plan in your application and document results in the evaluation. Here are some tracking methods:

• Create a bounce-back component to your direct mail piece. Count the direct mail pieces that are mailed back for the project,
• Create a dedicated 800 number used specifically for the project. Keep track of incoming calls to this number,
• Survey callers who request information about the project and ask where they heard about it. Keep a log of what advertising is mentioned,
• Create a special banner or link on your web-site for information about your project. Ask your Web-master to keep track of the web hits,
• Create a form on your web-site that the visitor fills out to get more information. On this form, have a survey asking how they heard about the project,
• For e-mail campaigns that link to your web site, track from the launch to the end of the campaign to see if there is an increased number of hits on your site. Use e-mail software to track open or click-through rates of the e-mail message,
• Monitor the number of people who have completed an e-mail subscription form,
• On radio and/or television ads, put tags on them such as "Tell them Mark sent you" or "Tell them you saw it on WZOO". Give an incentive for people to remember these lines and call for more information. This is a good way to track where callers heard about your project,
• Use coupons in your print advertising with a variation on each so you can track what print outlet they came from. Ask local businesses to save these coupons and report back to you,
• Encourage local lodging, retail, and/or restaurant establishments to ask visitors to fill out a brief survey with their name, address and where they learned about the project,
• Hire or recruit volunteers to perform intercept/personal surveys during the project, asking visitors where they heard about the event.

Matches - Promotional & Operational

The Joint Effort Marketing (JEM) program is just that, a joint effort between the Department of Tourism and you.

Promotional Budget: The JEM program can help reimburse funds for promotional costs only.

Year One: the Department of Tourism will pay for 75% of the eligible expenses in the promotional budget. Your financial responsibility can be covered either by costs your organization pays for or services received in-kind.

Example: if your promotional budget is $10,000, we will reimburse up to $7,500 of the eligible expenses. Your organization will be responsible for at least $2,500 of the promotional budget.

Year Two: the Department will pay for 50% of the eligible expenses in the promotional budget.

Example: if the promotional budget during the second year is increased to $15,000, we would reimburse up to $7,500 of the eligible expenses and you would be responsible for the other $7,500.

Year Three: the JEM grant covers 25% of the promotional budget, and your organization kicks in the other 75%.

Operational Budget: Along with the promotional budget, you need to submit an operational budget. The operational budget should include all costs not in your promotional budget. Examples of operational expenses include staff salaries, travel costs, facility rentals, insurance, computer equipment, promotional incentives and port-a-potties.

The match in this program depends on the amount of your JEM request. Here's how to figure it out.

non-JEM promotional costs + operational budget=Allowable JEM request

Creating Your Budget

Promotional Budget Worksheet

It is now time to turn your marketing plans into your budget plan. First, research the cost of your public relations campaign and media plan. The Department of Tourism's Co-op Advertising Program is a good resource for finding advertising rates.

Once you have researched the cost of your marketing plan, you will need to fill out the Promotional Budget Worksheet.

Place costs that you are asking for JEM reimbursement in the "JEM Dollars" column. Costs your organization incurs and/or in-kind services belong in the "Recipient Dollars/In-Kind" column. The total of the JEM Dollars and "Recipient Dollars/In-Kind" should appear in the "Total Dollars" column. The total of the JEM dollars column must match the total JEM request. Remember to meet the match requirements discussed earlier.

Operational Budget Worksheet

Define all non-promotional costs and list each item on the Operational Budget Worksheet

Income/Revenue Statement Worksheet

This statement is necessary to determine the profitability of your project. Fill out the Income/Revenue Statement Worksheet without the JEM grant funding you are requesting. Include all sponsorships, cash donations, contributions, in-kind services or goods, and expenses and earnings your organization is anticipating.

REMINDER: Profits from JEM funded events must be included in the income/revenue statement and used in the following year.

Years of Funding, Award Amounts and Submission Deadlines

Click here to view a chart showing the maximum number of years a grant can receive funding, the maximum award amounts and submission deadlines per category.

REMINDER: JEM may fund only one project per event.

Eligible JEM ExpensesJEM can reimburse costs for eligible promotional expenses only. Eligible out-of-state markets under the current overall strategic marketing initiatives developed by the Department of Tourism include non-local Wisconsin areas, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan. JEM applicants must present marketing rationale for in-state markets.

Advertising with a wider reach may be possible for Destination Marketing, with meetings and conventions, motorcoach or niche-targeted projects. Here are some ideas:

• Advertising design/production,
• Billboards,
• Direct mail: pieces must be mailed, DVDs, postage costs,
• E-mail marketing,
• Fulfillment pieces: these are only an eligible expense for Destination Marketing and with an approved distribution plan,
• Internet: banner ads, development/production, site updates,
• Print media: magazines, newspapers, newsletters, trade journals,
• Public relations campaigns: media kits (excluding gifts and coupons), press releases, postage costs,
• Radio,
• Sport/promotional shows: this is only an eligible expense for Destination Marketing grants and only includes booth space, support equipment, material shipment, and promotional imagery,
• Television.
  
  

Ineligible Expenses While the following promotional expenses will not be reimbursed by JEM, they can be used as part of your matching funds:

• Any local advertising: banners, flyers, posters, buttons, stickers, place-mats, fulfillment pieces (unless included in a Destination Marketing grant), print/radio/television advertising not outside of the local area where the project will occur,
• Memberships,
• Brochures not designed for direct mail,
• Research/tracking cost, including 800 numbers,
• Sport/promotional shows for all categories except Destination Marketing.

When Funding Can Begin

The JEM Coordinator in the Madison Office must receive your application and if approved, funding can start 90 days after receipt. For example, If you want to begin advertising your project on November 1st, submit your application by August 1st.

REMINDER: If a media organization requires pre-payment, you can pay before the start date, but you can not be reimbursed until after it. Under no circumstances can the advertising appear before the funding start date.

Contracting and Reimbursement

This is a reimbursement program! The Department of Tourism will not pay for promotional expenses before they are incurred. We will only reimburse an invoice that has already been paid by your organization.

REMINDER: Don't create a budget your organization cannot financially assume. However, we do allow progressive reimbursement.

Contract
In your contract packet, you will receive an official state contract for services. This is a binding legal document outlining the expectations of the State of Wisconsin and the applicant organization. If you find it necessary to change any part of your contract, you must get pre-approval through the JEM Coordinator.

Reimbursement
Also in your packet will be a reimbursement log. This document is where you'll clearly note each invoice, the date it was paid and the check number.

Invoices will be reimbursed only for the amount that was contracted in the approved budget

Once an invoice is submitted for reimbursement, it will be processed based on the contract between the Department of Tourism and your organization. Payment is made approximately thirty (30) days from the date you receive a pay memo from the Department.

Samples
Tear sheet, DVD, printed pieces etc. of all JEM funded advertising must be provided to the Department prior to reimbursement. All samples will be checked to ensure the appropriate logos or copy points are included. If they are not, the expenses will not be reimbursed

Evaluation
Within 45 days of completion of your project, you'll submit a written evaluation complete with copies of all promotional and operational expenses, documentation of in-kind services and the campaign results and actual traveler spending generated by your JEM campaign. Finally, complete another Income/Revenue statement reporting your actual profit/loss.

An extension of the evaluation due date may be arranged by contacting Abbie Hill.

REMINDER: 10 percent of the approved JEM funding will be withheld until receipt of the final evaluation.

Final JEM Checklist Check to make sure that each of the following is included in your JEM application:

• Completed application form or cover sheet with required information
• Project description, including information specific to your grant category
• Goals
• Target markets
• Public relations campaign
• Media plan
• Media tracking plan
• Estimated visitor spending
• Visitors spending tracking plan
• Promotional budget
• Operational budget
• Income and revenue statement
• Mock-ups of your brochure/advertising

REMINDER: You are required to show/mention the Wisconsin Department of Tourism's logo, WISCONSIN - Life's So Good and travelwisconsin.com, on all JEM funded advertisements. Electronic files of this logo are available at agency.travelwisconsin.com.