So you’ve decided that you’re going to go outside of your comfort zone and target a new market or two. Determining a marketing budget to accomplish that task efficiently and effectively is difficult, but it’s something that can be done. And you can do it well. To determine how you should shift your marketing budget to pursue opportunity markets, you have to start by asking yourself some important questions: 

• How much of our budget is going to our core markets?
• How much of our attendance comes from these markets?
• How much, if any, are we already spending on opportunity markets?
• How lucrative have our efforts been in each of those opportunity markets?
• Which ones are the most lucrative?
• Which ones have been busts?
• What types of media have been most effective for each market?

Whether you run marketing for a giant theme park or the local zoo, answering these questions will give you a preliminary idea of where to make shifts in your budget. What it won’t tell you is how much. The short answer to that is: it depends. But a rough starting point – for tourist attractions of all sizes – would be about 10-20% of your marketing budget.

“A rough starting point would be about 10-20% of your marketing budget.”

That may seem like a large amount to shift away from local and regional media partners with whom you’ve developed close working relationships (maybe even personal friendships). But if you’ve already saturated your core market, it’s important to make the shift (as long as you do it fairly across competing networks – you can read more about that in our white paper on conquering opportunity markets). Think of this as an investment; you are making your current dollars go further, and ultimately getting more people through the gates of your attraction.

Whether or not you’re at the lower or higher end of the 10-20% range will be determined by just how saturated your brand is in the core market(s). Over time, you can begin shifting more dollars into the best-performing opportunity markets and exploring new ones with any additional dollars you’re able to procure – either through grants, donations, or the giant increase in profits you get from the changes you’ve been making.

To learn more about opportunity markets, including how to choose them, when to begin researching, and how to deal with local media vendors when you shift dollars away from your core markets, download our full white paper: How to Conquer Opportunity Markets.