Most people simply sit down, take in the view, and move on.
I saw a marketing strategy.
A Small Town Marketing Strategy Hiding in Plain Sight
On a recent trip to Spain, walking the Benissa Ecological Coastal Path along the Costa Blanca, my travel companion and I stopped at a lookout point overlooking the Mediterranean. It was the kind of view that makes you stop mid-sentence. We sat down on a wooden bench, and that’s when I noticed it — a hashtag, carefully routered into the top rail of the bench.
Moreover, it wasn’t painted or slapped on a sticker. Permanently carved into the wood, as intentional and considered as the path itself.
To most people it was just a bench. To me it was one of the smartest pieces of community marketing I had ever seen.
Here’s exactly why.
That hashtag does three things simultaneously that most small town marketing efforts never manage to do even one of.
It captures the present. Every person who sits on that bench and pulls out their phone — and they will, because the view demands it — now has a prompt. A hashtag already written for them. One less decision between the moment and the post. The photo gets tagged, the location gets visibility, and the destination earns organic reach it never had to pay for.
It builds a future archive. Every tagged photo becomes part of a growing, searchable collection of that exact viewpoint across seasons, years, and decades. Summer light. Winter storms. Sunrise. Sunset. Tourists from around the world contributing to a visual library that no marketing budget could replicate.
But here’s the part that stopped me completely: it captures the past. Those photos already exist. People have been sitting at that lookout long before the hashtag was carved. But going forward, every person who discovers that older photo and searches the hashtag finds their way into the current community. The hashtag bridges time.
What This Means for Your Small Town Business
Now think about your town.
For example, think about the bench at your waterfront, the view from your hiking trail, the corner of Main Street that looks magical in October. Think about the tourists who pass through every summer, phones in hand, looking for somewhere worth photographing.
Is there a hashtag waiting to be carved?
Fortunately, you don’t need a bench in Spain to apply this thinking. You need a viewpoint worth sharing and the presence of mind to make it easy for people to tag it. A hashtag on a sign, a sticker on a trail marker, a prompt on a community bulletin board.
A small town marketing strategy doesn’t require a big budget. It requires paying attention.
That’s what I do. I travel, I notice things, and I bring them back home to the Lakes Region.
More observations coming soon.
— Sarah, The SG & Co
Curious how these strategies apply to your Lakes Region business? Let’s connect.
Sarah@thesg.co