A strategic communications professional with more than two decades of experience, Jerry McCoy is the former chief of staff for the mayor of Surprise, Arizona, a suburb of the city of Phoenix. Prior to his position with Surprise, Mr. McCoy of Phoenix, Arizona, worked for the city of Glendale, where he directed the operations of public relations, media relations, creative services, special events and the Glendale Convention & Visitors Bureau. Before leaving the city as its executive communications director, Mr. McCoy's leadership resulted in the city receiving the Governor’s Tourism Award.
It was the first time in Glendale's history the city received the prestigious statewide award for tourism excellence.
Each year, the Governor’s Tourism Awards are presented to recognize the work of professionals who contribute to the growth of the Arizona travel industry, one of the top industries in the state.
Awards are given in five categories: outstanding rural/urban marketing campaign, outstanding rural/urban tourism partnership, outstanding cultural and historic preservation, tourism spirit of service, and tourism hall of fame.
The awards are presented annually at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism. This year, the event will be held in the city of Tucson at the JW Marriott Tucson Starr Pass Resort & Spa. The conference begins July 22 and continues through July 24.
The Governor’s Tourism Awards gala will be held July 23rd. Other activities will include tourism workshops and a reception to showcase the state’s best restaurants.
Jerry McCoy, who works as a community relations project manager at the Arizona Department of Transportation in Phoenix, Arizona, brings diverse experience in branding and marketing to the one of the state's largest organizations.
One key element of Mr. McCoy's work over the past two decades is tactical communications, which requires strategically identifying and then targeting specific audiences an organization wants to reach.
Before doing anything else with a prospective audience, public relations and communications professionals must start with audience exploration and research. Some of these exploration and research techniques include:
Researching analytics data -- whether it's looking at who already uses a product or service, or who is visiting an organization's website, this data can show where an organization or brand is surprisingly strong or starting to lose ground.
Using solid empathetic reasoning -- It is important to get "into the head" of a potential target audience member or customer. Even something as simple as trying to search for information on the program or service in question, or looking at how that service is positioned on websites the target audience uses, can help.
Finally, if an organization has tools to effectively segment out the performance of existing campaigns among different audiences, that data can help during audience exploration. Marketing communications professionals should look at whether an existing campaign over performs or under performs with a potential new audience, and assess reasons that might happen.
