Marketing Tips from America's Heartland

The biggest surprise on an early October road trip to America’s heartland wasn’t snow in Wyoming and Montana. That was expected. The biggest surprise was picking up four sound marketing and business tips from visionaries and everyday folks in South Dakota and Wyoming.

Here’s the story of smart promoters living in remote communities. They’ve successfully embraced the concepts of uniqueness, market diversity, meeting customer wants and needs, and practicing great customer service.

Dare to be Unique

The year was 1923. South Dakota’s economy was dependent on agriculture and mining. Few options seemed to exist for boosting the state’s economy. But Doane Robinson, superintendent of the State Historical Society, had a vision: Create a stone carving so massive and unusual travelers throughout America would come to see it and bring their tourist dollars with them.

Robinson wanted to immortalize Chief Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and others in a series of giant stone carving chipped in the granite outcroppings in the Black Hills. His idea gained traction with the support of a popular and influential U.S Senator Peter Norbeck and with famed sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who was commissioned to work on the project.

However, Borglum had no interest in wasting his artistic talents on regional heroes. To be a national attraction, the work had to have national implications. During the next 14 years, Borglum and more than 400 laborers transformed the southeast facing granite of Mt. Rushmore into the four monumental faces depicting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.