Ep 41 - From Hidden Gem to High Demand: How Influencer Strategy Is Driving PGEB’s Growth

Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas. Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience. Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Hi, welcome back to Aqua Talks. My name is Maddie Dudley. I'm the public relations director for Aqua Marketing and Communications. Our podcast is meant to reach marketers whether you're just getting started out or you're professional in the business.

This is a podcast brought to you by Brunsys Technology llc. And I'm joined by my co host, Larry Aldridge. Hello, my name is Larry Aldrich. I'm President CEO of Brennsys and Aqua Marketing Communications.

Hello, Mady. How are you again? Larry, I'm great. Doing really good.

But I still ask you how you're doing. Good. Today we're going to talk case studies and again we're going to talk. This time we're going to talk about Punta Gorda, Englewood beach: PGEB.

And that's one that you have personally been publishing in public relations. So before we jump into that and I'm gonna, you know, take still your spotlight a little bit here. Do you have a case study or not? A case study?

Excuse me, we'll get to the case studies later. Even though we're talking about case studies. But do you have a kind of a trend in PR or anything that you see happening? Larry, I'm still hung up on the sauna travel.

I really like have to go. We talked about this, right? Yes, yes. Yeah, I have to go somewhere that has a fabulous sauna in this year.

I just have to check it off my list. It's the biggest trend. I've been seeing so many articles about it. Astro tourism is still pretty popular too.

But a lot of what I'm seeing is reporters are requesting stories, whether they're outside, they want to be immersed in nature more or they want to be included in these unique wellness experiences. I went to a spa one time and it was actually a really unique spa because I had a couple different services in a row, but one of them I sat in a sauna and you know, or steam room, whatever they call them. Today we'll go with sauna. And it had a bit of a menthol mist to it.

Oh, is there a specific name for that? I don't know, but I kind of like that wake you Up. Yeah, I get sinus issues. I mean, it cleared me up instantly.

I mean, it was hot in there. You can only stay for so long. And. And it was, you know, it was.

It was steamy, but it had a bit of a menthol. Not a menthol, but, you know that. That mist. Yeah, that was.

That was. That had the antihistamine in it or something. I don't know. I hope not.

Yeah, it was. It was refreshing. It completely went through and clean cleared out all of my sinuses. I mean, it's fabulous.

And it went from that. Went from that to a hot tub, to massage. But, yeah, I think. I think this is really my year of exploring more wellness things.

I don't care about getting the best cocktail anymore. I don't care about whatever. I want to just relax as much as possible, go to sound bowl classes, get a massage, get a facial, do all the things. So this is my year to do that.

Like, there's some ridiculous. There's something called. There's this method out that a lot of influencers are doing. I can't remember the name of it, but you essentially, like, lock away your phone and do a bunch of journaling.

And people are doing retreats more so for their vacations to come back to themselves rather than just going and partying a bunch. Yeah. Have you ever had acupuncture? Yes, I just started.

Oh, have you been? No, I'm curious about it, but I've never done it yet. That's maybe my catalyst for why I want to do all of the different wellness things this year. Okay.

Yeah, I love it. That seems interesting. I know. Like a wellness workout retreat.

That would be something pretty cool. Oh, now that you say that, too. Did you ever watch that show Jury Duty? No.

It was this show where they took a bunch of actors and they had one. One guy who really thought he was in jury duty, and they had hidden cameras everywhere and they all acted out all these crazy scenarios and it turned out this guy was this lovely soul. Like, he was a great person. So at the end, they awarded him with a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And now instead of jury duty, they're going to be doing it at a Wellness Resort. So TVs aligned with our predictions. Yeah, there's a lot of people out there creating and developing these wellness resorts now or these retreats, and it is a good break away from technology. Count me in.

Yeah, I need less screen time. Yeah, me too. Doesn't happen often, but I need some. Yes, me too.

So let's jump into PGEB Yes. Punta Gorda, Inglewood Beach. Let's start with. That's obviously it's a client of Aqua's.

What do you do with pgep? So as public relations director for Aqua, I handle press relations, media relations, influencers, content creators. While working with our fabulous client, who is the public relations director, Lois Croft. Hi, Lois.

Shout out to Lois. She does a great job. So we work very closely together. And when I say we, I mean the social media department and I.

We meet with her weekly. We meet with the full team bi weekly. And we just have this integrated marketing approach, but specifically focus in on, you know, destination awareness and getting influencers to talk about it and to experience the best of the best of what we have to offer. It's quite a fun job.

Speaking of retreats, we have a retreat coming up in a couple weeks with pgeb. Oh, yes. And it's not the kind of retreat that we were just talking about, but touch a little bit about on with that. What retreat we'll be doing with PGB with all of our clients.

We like to come to a point where we look at the past year together and we sort of go over highlights and what worked, what didn't work, and then look to the year ahead on what we want to focus on and campaigns that we want to roll out and projects that we really want to prioritize. So there may not be sound bowls, but it's still a very exciting retreat that we'll have with them in a couple of weeks. Is it your first retreat with them? It will be my second.

Third, actually. Oh, perfect. Yeah, I enjoy it. I believe we, like you said, we go over what we've been doing, what works, where we can make some adjustments, where we can pivot the marketing plan.

There's context too, that Dave DiMaggio will share with the client. It's fabulous. They get research from either travel studies or just out in the wild. And then they bring that research forward, whether it's like travel or spending habits, the types of people coming into destination, how old they are, what they're interested in.

It's quite fascinating as a PR director, you know how important it is today. Social media influencing. What is your role with bringing influencers to destinations like pgb? I like to say we're all hands on deck.

So we have done everything from researching influencers to then implementing protocol. So that means creating the contracts for them, sourcing the influencers, vetting them to make sure that they're appropriate to come in destination, but also just that they have good engagement initially. So we do everything from the beginning stages to then reporting on the back end. We create the itineraries.

I've been in Destination with reporters before and have literally been their chauffeur, driving them around from spot to spot, making sure that they make it to their appointments on time. We've been talking to a lot of destinations and CVBs at conferences and meetings over the last couple months and a lot of them were saying influencer marketing is becoming a bigger initiative for them in 2026. Why is influencer marketing important in marketing destinations? So there's a couple of reasons, but first what I'll say is that news is so multimodal right now.

Everyone is getting their news from so many different types of sources. They may not receive the Wall Street Journal in the mail every single day and read through it. Like my dad had a paper that he would sit at the breakfast table and read every morning. People aren't doing that as much anymore.

So they're instead doing what's a little bit more efficient, what also may be a little bit not exactly accurate, which is scrolling through social media to hear the news of what's happening in the world. So a lot of people are staying informed through social platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and so on. So as a result, you're going to be following people who you believe are like minded or that you would like to emulate. And that's what influencers are.

So they have the job of introducing new products or new routines and yeah, they're wonderful to work with. Yeah, you have a lot of experience with airports also and influencers. And for example, we had an influencer that came from Chicago to pgeb. What was the significance of the influencer coming from Chicago to pgeb?

So shout out grace from Allegiant. They really helped us. They are the ones who actually sourced Alana and Alana was fantastic. Would love to work with her again.

We did have her on the podcast a couple episodes back so you can go and watch that. But the reason we really wanted someone from Chicago. So Alana specifically has a Chicago based account where she has a lot of Chicagoan followers. It's mostly like here's what to do around the city, here's some insider info on anything Chicago.

So we wanted someone with that audience rather than someone who already lives here because we want people to come from Chicago in the cold and come to Florida and thaw off and enjoy our destination. So we did a couple days itinerary with her and her partner and it just was a really big success. She's a fantastic photographer, so she was able. The beauty of working with influencers is also you kind of get another creative director in the mix.

So rather than just your agency or the visitors and conventions bureau being the only one to tell the narrative of a destination, we're able to provide a couple of things and say, hey, this is what we think is really cool. But also like, feel free to go out there and explore on your own. And we want to, you know, what works best for your audience. So Godspeed.

If destinations want to increase viewership, visitors from a specific area, is that where influencers will really help to increase that marketing plan or increase that viewership or get that visibility? Like, let's just say PGEB wanted to get more Canadian visitors. Would, would you look in Canada for influencers and maybe try to have some Canadian influencers fly into PGEB and do content on their whole journey? Yeah, exactly.

So just the ease, specifically when it comes to the Chicago influencer, we have many different non stop flights through Allegiant, which is why I shout out their team. They helped us to source her as well as host her. So thank you. We're working with them again this weekend.

Actually we have an influencer coming in. So PGD specifically has all Allegiant nonstop flights from specific cities. I can't list them all off the top of my head, but if Canada was a nonstop and even to like if they fly into Fort Myers or if they fly into Sarasota or if they fly into Tampa, it's just the quick, like the quickest drive away. And it's just this kind of hidden gem destination that's a lot less laid back than your Tampas or your crazy clear waters.

I was getting to that point. Actually. Florida is an amazing destination all over. And when you think of coming to Florida, people thinking Orlando, Miami, Tampa, a lot of different places.

Tell us about what is. Tell us something about PGEB which is close to Fort Myers. And again, you'll hear Fort Myers, you'll hear Naples. And PGEB is a great destination.

I thought it was beautiful. I think it's beautiful. Not thought. I think I never heard of it before I came to Florida.

So talk a little bit about, like you said, this hidden gem of Punta Gorda, Inglewood beach and why we should visit. Absolutely. So Punta Gorda, Englewood beach, our best side is outside. That means that we have a lot of fantastic outdoor activities to explore.

Whether that's hiking, going paddle boarding, going kayaking. There's a lot of beautiful wildlife within the destination too. So it's an outdoor lover's haven, no matter what age that you are. Something that recently launched that we're really proud of is the Pure Florida Flavor coast campaign.

It's a tongue twister. I had to say that at a conference recently. And that is giving insights into one of the best small towns for foodies. And that's Punta Gorda, Englewood Beach.

So we have the historic downtown and then we have the beautiful award winning beaches. And together it's just this fabulous destination. But the Pure Florida Flavor coast is then highlighting these small owned businesses and locally owned businesses that are really like zesting up the place, like giving it a delicious, just a path, a delicious path for travelers to go through. We talk about all the time how we travel specifically for food.

It's top of mind when we go places. So we've now created this online portal for foodies who are, I guess I should say travelers who are food driven or just completely food driven people. And you can go on and create a food based itinerary based off of our recommendations and hear the stories of local chefs. And there's some really, really fascinating stuff in there.

Like this restaurant owner of a wine set house. He is a third generation Punegordian and he has bees all over his restaurant because his family used to keep bees. So he also uses honey in a lot of his dishes. And yeah, he just has the taste of locality and local knowledge.

But then also this beautiful lineage of his family being farmers out there. And now he has a restaurant in an old building which I think is like this beautiful historic building which I think is really cool. I could talk about the Flavor coast forever. It's so cool.

And the food, yes, we have an award winning pizzeria there. We have Sunseeker which has their food hall. We have all types of an authentic Irish pub. There are no TVs in the pub because they want people to interact with one another rather than just staring up at sports.

So no TVs in the pub. And that's from an authentic Irishman. And he has some award winning fish and chips. Yeah, I could go.

Oh, the perfect caper. Chef Jeannie Roland is a seven time nominated James Beard nominee. I already said nominee. But she's been nominated for James Beard award seven times.

She's a golden spoon recipient. She also beat Bobby Play. Oh. On tv.

So fabulous food. I love talking about food. It's hard to walk away from food. I know.

But before we go, I wanted to thank you and congratulate you for being part of that team that won two Adrian Awards for Pure Florida. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of that. The whole team did an amazing job along with the whole Punta Gorda Inglewood beach staff and team.

Go team. Go Aqua Team. Yes. Yeah.

Thank you for that. Yeah. Well, thank you. This was fun.

Yeah, it was fun. It was a blast. Yeah. Thank you for joining and Please go to aquatacs.

com to learn more about our client or more about the podcast. Again, I'm Maddie, this is Larry. See you next time. Thank you.

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