Pitching the Crescent City

A multichannel effort by Smithsonian magazine and the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism was set to lure thousands of travelers to the state in late October for CultureFest, a celebration of various locales throughout the United States.

New Orleans is the ninth city to host the event. Previous sites include Philadelphia; Phoenix; Providence, RI; and San Jose, CA.

Most of the prospect names came from Smithsonian Publishing, which contributed 225,000 e-mail addresses from traditional Louisiana feeder markets such as Atlanta and major cities in Texas and the Southeast, according to Rosie Walker, the company's marketing director.

Smithsonian Publishing also pitched the approximately 21,000 people who registered on its Web site as of September to win a trip or asked to receive more information about CultureFest.

Besides e-mail, the magazine used a printed brochure as a mailer. And the event was touted in the magazine itself: The May issue featured a special guide to Louisiana culture, and readers could send in a reply card for the brochure.

Even before the pieces were mailed, Smithsonian queried its in-house panel — 40,000 readers who agreed to participate in research — about which aspects of Louisiana resonated with them.

“There was a high response, and it confirmed that our readers respond to information on food and music, history and art,” Walker says. “That research helped shape our message.”

CultureFest's event partners — Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, the National World War II Museum, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and others — were given paper and electronic copies of the promotional materials. While all were encouraged to solicit their house files, a lack of central coordination meant some targets might've received multiple mailings. Smithsonian urged participants to customize the e-mailing with tailored subject lines or greetings in the message.

While the final number of participants wasn't available at deadline, it shouldn't be too hard to determine who visited the city. You'll know them by the content smiles on their faces and the trail of crayfish shells they've left in their wake.