Learning the many ways to promote Sikeston and Miner

I can't even begin to explain what a wonderful weekend we experienced at the 18th Annual St. Louis Women's Show. Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Pansy Glenn and I spent a few weeks before the show preparing "Sweetheart Get-A-Way" packets advertising events in Sikeston and Miner taking place throughout the year.

The cover of our weekend get-a-way packet explained that couples could look through the booklet and chose a weekend get-a-way to our area. Inside the booklet we advertised a fantastic package from the Bootheel Golf Club featuring unlimited golf and cart, two nights lodging, and lunch or dinner coupons. The next was for nearby Charleston's 37th Annual Dogwood Azalea Festival which will be April 14-17.

We advertised a great trifecta featuring shopping at the Sikeston Factory Outlet stores, a Swedish massage and dinner at the world famous Lamberts Café. Also we advertised the Tour de Corn event held in July at East Prairie.

Our top notch 53rd Annual Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo was another get-

a-way that was quite popular. Beggs Family Farm also had three pages of advertising featuring their Spring Festival, Strawberry Festival and Fall Harvest Festival. We summed the booklet up with the great 11th Annual Redneck Barbecue which is held on Saturday of the Rodeo.

We collected e-mail addresses for future advertising and rewarded those persons with gifts from our area such as rodeo tickets, dinner at Susie's Café, dinner at Lamberts Café, Beggs Family Farm passes, framed posters from Charleston's Dogwood Azalea Festival and gift certificates from the Sikeston Factory Outlet Stores.

The Hope Center kids assisted us in putting together over 10,000 pieces of paper. A task of which would not have been completed by the CVB staff alone. They worked two days diligently in cutting, punching holes and tying ribbons on the packets which looked great when we finished. They even loaded them into the van for us!

I visited my doctor on Thursday morning and the good news is we're having a baby girl! My mom and I then took off to St. Louis where we met up with Mrs. Pansy who had been to Chicago for the American Bus Association Marketplace.

At the America Center, we decorated our booth with our new panels and table cover we purchased through cooperative funding with the state. After decorating our table with the weekend get-a-way packets, we retired for the evening.

The next morning the alarm began ringing 30 minutes before we wanted. Little did we know that the work would be so tiring but that we would have so much fun.

We spent the entire Friday talking to thousands of different women (and a few men believe it or not) about Sikeston and Miner. The majority of these had heard about Sikeston and Miner, however some had not. We had many opportunities to encourage these men and women to take their next weekend get-a-way to Sikeston and Miner.

By Saturday afternoon we had handed out over 2,000 packets. From the reactions we received I feel that our advertising of Sikeston and Miner was very successful at the St. Louis Women's Show and should be continued in the future.

The Women's Show ended on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. I must say that the experience was one that I will never forget. I never dreamed that when I started my internship with the CVB that there were so many avenues with advertising and marketing and that I would have so much fun doing it!