Raise the Bar, it’s the Season

I n this issue of the Times, we have included our twice-annual Touchet River Valley Visitor's Guide for spring and summer. Copies are also available at the Times office and the Chamber of Commerce in Dayton.

All businesses are en- couraged to get a stack and come back when they run out. Readers will have them here as an insert in the paper to remind them what we have to offer and share with visiting relatives.

We print 10,000 of the 32-page tab and distribute them in the Tri Cit- ies, Walla Walla, Lewiston Clarkston and, of course, here at home. For the first time this year, we are tak- ing them further afield, to Milton Freewater and Pendleton. And the guide is online as www.waitsburg- daytonguide.com.

Thanks go to advertis- ing manager Larry David- son, former assistant editor Morgan Smith, editor Ken Graham, community news coordinator Dena Wood and office manager Tawnya Richards, who all made their own unique contribu- tion to this product, now in its third year.

We're grateful to all the businesses and community groups that advertised in the tab to help support it and, of course, draw attention to themselves.

But perhaps the production of the guide was the easy part. Getting the word out in print and online is only the first step in woo- ing customers and trying to bring travelers to our doorsteps. Now, it's up to the businesses themselves to welcome travelers across the threshold and make the most of their interest in your goods or services.

From time to time, we're asked what impact our guide has on business traf- fic. Since few of you prob- ably survey your patrons to learn how they heard about your business, it's hard to know whether they just wondered in from the highway or saw a mention of your business in some other promotional tool like the guide, the chamber website, the cities' websites and so on.

I can guarantee that the guide is picked up, read and used more and more each year. Hotels and businesses along Highway 12 and I-84 eagerly await its arrival as an important piece of con- sumer information for their guests. I know because I handle a big chunk of the distribution.

The guide works at dif- ferent levels for different users. Some readers who are new to the area are stay- ing in one of our towns and wonder what we have to offer, may make an imme- diate decision to patronize one or more of the advertis- ers.

Others who are just passing through and tuck the guide away in their luggage might read it later and may well act on what they read down the road or return here with our valley as their travel destination.

That's one of the reasons why it's so important to be in front of this target audi- ence twice a year for six months: we're building a following for our business community. The guide is becoming more familiar to visitors. In marketing, they call this "branding."

As the guide gets better known, so do the busi- nesses listed and displayed inside it and on the guide's website. Before you know it, its readers will step into your store, museum, restaurant, guest house or office. That's the point where you take over.

Please be sure to maintain business hours that suit the traveler. Make sure your service is courteous and reliable. Take the opportunity to recommend other busi- nesses for them to patronize. In short, make sure they have a top-notch experience and they will come back to stop by next time.

We hope you enjoy the 2013 Spring/Summer Touchet River Valley Visi- tor's Guide.