Cadillac, Michigan – Convention & Visitors Bureau

christina5443
Jul 30
2 min read

Turning a New CRM into a Scalable Tourism Engagement System

Client Overview

The Cadillac Area Visitors Bureau promotes year-round tourism in northern Michigan, supporting regional economic development through seasonal events, outdoor recreation, and lodging partnerships.

The Challenge

The Bureau had invested in HubSpot but struggled with data disorganization. Lists were fragmented and overlapping—some pulled from past events, others from unclear sources. Some included tourists, while others listed regional vendors and lodging partners. The lack of segmentation or workflows made it difficult to deliver relevant messaging or track lead behavior.

Our Solution

To bring clarity and functionality to their system, I:

Conducted a full audit of existing lists and contact properties.
Cleaned, deduplicated, and segmented data into key audience groups: tourists, venues, vendors, and partners.
Designed a new, public-facing lead capture form tailored to tourist interests—including seasonal preferences and specific activities like fishing, hunting, and golf.
Overlaid behavioral data (page visits, form submissions) with interest-tagging to build more accurate user profiles.
Created automated campaigns to deliver personalized messages to tourists based on their interests.
Developed outbound communications for local venues and hospitality partners.
Crafted workflows that provided tailored, customized journeys to re-engage cold leads and deliver progressive, interest-based messaging sequences to engaged prospects.

Results

Contact database was reorganized into usable segments, saving time and reducing email errors.
Tourist leads are now tagged and nurtured based on actual interest, rather than inferred behavior.
Workflows now support sustained engagement across all audience types, with journeys aligned to prospect behavior and interest.
Staff reported a dramatic increase in marketing efficiency and confidence in HubSpot’s capabilities.
Outreach to vendors and local venues became more consistent and strategic.

Testimonial

“Before Christina came in, we just didn't have a handle on how to organize our CRM data. She helped to clean things up, giving it structure and providing tips that made things easier.”— Lindsey Westdorp, Cadillac Area Visitors Bureau

Strategic Impact

By transforming an underutilized HubSpot instance into a clean, targeted, and automated system, the Bureau dramatically improved its capacity to promote local tourism year-round. More importantly, the system now scales with their growth—allowing them to engage seasonal visitors with the right message at the right time and coordinate with partners more effectively than ever before. Tailored journeys for different audience segments helped revive cold leads and deliver ongoing engagement that felt personal and timely.