I was recently approached by the Carson Valley Visitor Authority to create custom adventure video content based on my All-Terrain Family YouTube channel and blog. Visit Carson Valley is a destination marketing organization tasked with promoting tourism in the Carson Valley region of Douglas County, Nevada, including Minden, Gardnerville, and Genoa.
I worked with Visit Carson Valley to create a video guide to a backcountry adventure in the Pine Nut Mountains on the Sunrise Pass Road. The goal was to create an engaging content package that would attract visitors through search, imagery, and content of the target demographic and interest group to visit the area, have a fun day trip, and continue their visit to the Carson Valley.
Content Deliverables
The basic ask was to create a video like the many family adventure videos we’ve created over the years on the All-Terrain Family YouTube channel. But with my experience in travel tourism marketing and as a content creator for the past 15 years, I suggested and delivered a few extras.
The Video
The video I created for this project is a fun, fast-paced, engaging video with epic off-road vehicle footage, drone video, information about the area and natural history of the Pine Nut Mountains, and easy directions and route finding. This was posted to the Visit Carson Valley YouTube Channel. Every YouTube video has the option for additional information, which I also provided, including:
- Title
- Description
- Thumbnail
- Chapter markers
- Music licenses
Vertical Video
In order to promote this content on social media, I edited a short vertical video for them to post that would give a brief snippet of the content and invite viewers to click over to YouTube to see more. They turned this into an Instagram Reel in collaboration with our own Instagram profile and a Facebook post.
View this post on Instagram
Travel Tourism Blog Post
DMO (destination marketing organization) websites usually have a lot of pretty photos and attention-grabbing headlines. Still, they are short on actual actionable information for families looking for activities in the area. So, I turned the video script into a blog post for the Travel Planning and Resources section of the website. I included a couple of things in this blog post that are critical for posting destination activities on travel tourism websites.
Title: It’s essential to have an attention-grabbing and information-rich headline that is accurate to the content below it.
Content: Too often, DMO blog content is full of flowery prose that impresses the board but is not all that interesting for a potential visitor looking to learn about real experiences in the area.
Photos: I included photos from the trip for them to use in the blog post, giving an attractive glimpse at the adventure. The photos are also accurate to the content and area and give a realistic view of what the visitor can expect.
Links and Resources: To drive Sunrise Pass Road and other off-highway adventures in the Pine Nut Mountains, it’s good to have maps and guides. So, I included links to GPS tracks and digital maps from two different sources as well as a printed guidebook that visitors and purchase or download in advance of their visit to Carson Valley.
All in all I’m pretty happy with how this content package turned out and am looking forward to the opportunity to create more content with Visit Carson Valley in the future.
-M