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Marketing Your Main Street

By December 9, 2025April 27th, 2026Main Street RI

Marketing Your Main Street

December 4, 2025
12-1PM
Kristen Adamo, President and CEO, Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau

From the basics to tips and tricks, gain valuable marketing insights and advice from one of Rhode Island’s leading place-branding experts, Kristen Adamo, President and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau!

In this practical and engaging session, Kristen shares how destination marketing strategies can be applied at the local level to strengthen your area’s identity and attract more visitors and shoppers to your Main Street. Learn about tools your community can use to highlight local businesses, promote events, and tell a compelling story about your district. Whether you’re part of a downtown association, a local nonprofit, or simply passionate about your neighborhood, you’ll walk away with actionable ideas for boosting visibility and building pride of place.

RESOURCES

MARKETING 101 FOR MAIN STREETS

Kristen Adamo, President and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau, is a wizard when it comes to all things marketing. Lucky for us, she gave us a crash course in marketing our Main Streets. What are the most cost effective marketing channels that actually yield results? Kristen explains that it is a mix between a strong social media presence, public relations and building community partnerships. Let’s break it down:

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media takes a lot of time and can be confusing, but it’s a cheap and effective way at reaching your audience. First start by considering WHO your audience is, before determining where to focus your efforts. The graphic at right outlines what platforms you’ll find your audience frequenting.

Simple Ways to Save Time and Boost Traffic on Social Media 

  • Pick the channels that are the best fit for your business or organization (Home decor? Think Pinterest!)
  • Schedule posts ahead of time and monitor sentiment with Brandwatch
  • Collaborating on your Instagram posts is an easy way to greatly expand their reach
  • Invite well-known or especially funny community members to do a “takeover” — putting someone else in charge of your social media for the day
  • Be aware of and capitalize on what’s going on in the greater cultural conversation
  • Have a personality
  • Don’t ignore LinkedIn! t’s an often overlooked though key way to reach. professionals. And if your audience skews young, TikTok is should be added to your list of platforms to experiment with.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

At it’s core, PR is all about building relationships and shaping, through communication, how your organization is understood by the core people who matter to it. PR is all about strategically earning trust and credibility with your audience. There’s a number of tools you have to make use of such as:

Marketing Your Main Street

  • Magazines tend to work 3+ months in advance, and newspapers vary with longer lead time for bigger stories
  • Check online for editorial calendars so you can time more effective and timely pitches (Here's PBN's).
  • Always supply photographs (link to larger files)
  • Research your publication and reporter to ensure you're reaching out to the right person, and they didn't just cover the topic your proposing.
  • For an event, send a Media Advisory to the Assignment Editor a day or two in advance
  • You can call to check in, but don't do that often
  • Avoid busy news days
  • Don't schedule your press events in the early morning because they're still assigning stories. Instead, aim for sometime between 11-4.
  • If they don't come and you have some footage (doesn't have to be professional), you can share it with a press release afterwards.
  • Lifestyle shows such as Rhodeshow and Studio 10 can sometimes be "pay to play". If interested though, reach out to the producer, not the talent.
Media advisories and press releases are easily confused but serve different purposes. Simply put, a media advisory is an invitation, to get journalists to show up or pat attention at a specific time, while a press release is a story.
  • Media Advisories
    • asking for live coverage of a specific event
    • provide date, time, place, contact and just two to three sentences of what you're trying to do.
    • The shorter the better!
  • Press Releases
    • Try to keep it to a page and don't send it as a PDF (reporters like to cut and paste right from the document)
    • Send photos if you can, but not as large attachments (linking to pics is fine)
    • Have a compelling subject line
    • Making your pitch
    • Research the reporters to ensure you're reaching out to the right person and don't pitch to multiple outlets at the same time.
    • Tie your story to a national trend if you can, and ensure it's NEWSWORTHY!

COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Building community partnerships as a means of grassroots marketing is one of the most affordable and effective ways to get your content online and amplify your message. Consider who are your most natural partners — such as your local chamber of commerce, destination marketing organization, Commerce RI, your local council person or neighborhood leaders, or mission-aligned groups. Build these relationships, and when you have a message to share, make it easy on them by writing copy and sending pictures to plug into their communications.

Want to hear more from Kristen? Here she is talking Main Streets and buses with the Grow Smart RI team.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Main Street America offers a wealth of helpful tips, tools and other resources around marketing. Check it all out here!

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