Chamber’s Aggressive Marketing Campaign Paying Off, Says Paysen

Toccoa-Stephens County continues to attract the attention of tourists and businesses from across the country and the world.

That’s the conclusion of Julie Paysen, Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce President.

In her annual report to the Toccoa City Commission Monday, Paysen said a well-developed marketing campaign is paying off.  She pointed out that recently Toccoa was featured in a one-page ad in Explore Georgia.

“This is the State of Georgia’s number one way to push tourism in the State,” she said. “There are 700,000 in distribution, more than any other state. This is their tour guide. If you open the back cover you will see our ad. I had people from the State of Georgia call me, blown away that we got this inside cover, which is a huge blessing to us,” Paysen said.

Paysen said that aggressive marketing campaign is also focused on a strong Internet presence and on social media.

“We’re currently in the process of joining our Chamber Web site with our Visit Toccoa Web site, so while they’re there checking out what businesses we have, they will also be able to see what resources we have as well,” she said. “In social media, our Visit Toccoa Facebook page has over 4,800 followers. So, we put a lot of our events on that site to help get the word out about when events we have going on.”

Paysen said Toccoa-Stephens County now also has a table display at the Georgia Welcome Center on I-85.

She told the Board that all of that marketing has attracted the interest of a major retailer.

“I reached out to a retail store, that if I said the name of the retailer you would all say that would be awesome for us to have them here,” Paysen explained. “And the next morning the vice president called and they’re trying to enter this Northeast Georgia region and there’ s no obvious city that jumps out, and he was trying to get his arms around, ‘Where do we go? We’re trying to have a presence here, but Gainesville is too big.'”

Paysen said working with a group called Next Site, Toccoa sent the retailer information and they are currently working to schedule a visit here.

The Chamber is also continuing its work to bring more movie production companies to Toccoa-Stephens County.

With the hiring of an film student intern, Paysen said they are currently sending out lists to film companies of possible locations along with a vendor list.