Developing Pilot Place Marketing Plans (PPMPs) in North and South Europe: a Methodological Approach

Place marketing represents a widely used approach in defining objectives and setting policies for promoting local development, starting with the strategic analysis of the place together with the work of the vision and the mission statements. Place marketing supporters identify local economic development and place competitiveness as goals, attributing the concept of "product" or "commodity" or "good" to the place itself or to an island, especially when we talk about tourism destinations or tourism products or destination products, knowing, at the same time, that place image promotion constitutes something more complicated and multi-dimensional compared to the promotion of a typical product.. Given the premise that Place Marketing is a strategic planning process, this article presents and discusses a methodological approach to the development of Pilot Place Marketing Plans PPMPs in European cities/places (Nea Ionia/ Magnesia/ Greece - lead partner, Chester/ UK, Kainuu/ Finland, Rostock-TLM/ Germany and Pafos/ Cyprus) in the context of CultMark (an INTERREG IIIC project). The article focuses on the presentation of PPMPs steps, considering the analysis of the urban environment by using primary research data, the identification of the vision, the creation of the "final provided good" for each city/ place, the selection of strategies and tactics, the implementation of the Critical Path Model (CPM), the proposed Marketing Model of the 8ps (by Morrison), and the development of mini advertising and public relations plans per place.