Cape May County’s Marketing Shows How Businesses Can Grow Revenue

It’s a great example of how marketing can diversify income streams.

For most of the United States, Labor Day’s the unofficial end of summer. In the Philadelphia area, it’s also the unofficial end of shore season.

That sucks for shore communities that rely on visitor spending. But it’s not a unique problem.

Many businesses have one very successful product but have trouble selling their other offerings. For shore locales, summer sells great, but fall, winter and spring are disappointing.

In that sense, Cape May County offers an interesting case study in diversifying revenue.

It’s basically the Florida of New Jersey. It’s always been dependent on tourism, and it founded a public affairs department in 1940. Its first ad campaign, promoting the health benefits of salt water, was in the long-gone Philadelphia Bulletin.

In 1970, the county opened a tourism office in Quebec, becoming the first U.S. county to open a tourism office in a foreign country. (French Canadians love the area’s campgrounds and warmer waters.)

Combined with the success of their “sub-brands,” e.g. Ocean City, Sea Isle, Wildwood, etc., Cape May County’s created a great core product. The population of the peninsula swells from 95,000 in the winter to 824,000 in the summer, and 90 percent of visitors are recurring customers.

But the county’s only become more dependent on visitors as the year-round population has declined recently.

The answer has been expanding interest in underutilized products by levering existing strengths.

Promoting ecotourism, like birding and fishing, agritourism, like wine tours and farm-to-table dining, and events, such as fall festivals and spring sales, have boosted their “shoulder seasons.”

“This has all contributed to redefining our brand and growing the season,” reads a 2017 report from the county tourism department.