Edmonson County Tourism Launches New Logo, Overhauls Website

New Director, Vanessa Ulm Staying Busy Promoting County

Edmonson County Tourism's new logo, created by Darren Doyle.

Edmonson Voice Update:
Vanessa Ulm, new executive director for the Edmonson County Tourism Commission, has been hard at work since she was hired in May of this year. With a background in marketing, one of her top priorities was getting a fresh, clean look for local tourism. This would be key in creating a social media presence, which she helped develop, along with the coordination of a new county tourism logo and website overhaul.

"One of the first opportunities I noticed when I stepped into the role of Executive Director of the Edmonson County Tourism Commission was the lack of social media presence and engagement with our community and sister organizations," Ulm said. "Since this position was vacant for over a year, the website had not been updated to reflect current county information that is vital for potential visitors when planning their visit. Our goal is to increase our social media presence on Facebook and Instagram to promote our county’s businesses that ultimately help bring in revenue."

With the first-ever Facebook and Instagram accounts for Tourism, Ulm is constantly working on engaging posts to keep visitors (and locals) interested and updated in the beauty the county has to offer.

She then began updating other promotional tools that are vital in today's marketing, which was first a new logo, which was designed by Edmonson Voice founder Darren Doyle, and owner of Studio DD Media, a multi-media company that specializes in creative production of music, video, photo, and graphic design.

"In order to help promote our county as a tourism destination, we needed a way to communicate effectively and efficiently to potential visitors," she said. "So this is how the new county logo emerged, which is now an impactful, easily recognizable logo that celebrates our county. Since logos are a point of identification and ideally an instant connection to a brand upon sight, we decided to introduce a logo that showcased our county’s pride and joy – our landscape."

Doyle rebuilt the website in 2018 with an all-new look; however, the overall look and feel hadn't been updated since and that's when Ulm contacted Studio DD again with her facelift ideas for the site. After a few weeks, Ulm's vision for the site began to shape up as the studio worked with her to provide the new look.

"With the creation of the new logo, this led to a complete overhaul of our tourism web site, because after sitting stagnant for over a year, it was overdue for updates in both information and aesthetics," she said.

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Ulm said she is currently working to continue promotion of MCNP and Nolin Lake, and now looks to highlight the county's Trail Town status which would include signage to help visitors navigate to the Green and Nolin Rivers Blueway, which was recently designated a National Water Trail by the National Park Service.

She is also coordinating an updated look in the Veteran’s Hall of Honor in the courthouse, "which will include sprucing up the hallway colors for a more heritage mood and allowing additional opportunity for the DAV and Auxiliary to decorate, celebrate and commemorate," she said. "When events like the recent annual Veterans Memorial Wall "Cruisin' For The Wall" car show take place, people can visit this hallway as if it were our county museum and see the pride we have for our veterans."

She also wants to identify short-term vacation rentals that are spread along county; several are VRBO and AIRBNB rentals that she said consistently pay the quarterly transient room tax to the Tourism Commission and she wants to be sure they are promoted on the relaunched website and social media channels.

"Marketing materials for our county are also on the horizon, as our Edmonson County brochure hasn’t been updated in many years," she added. "Most any traveler curious about what to do while visiting seek a brochure to help plan their trip. This will be another opportunity to showcase our new county logo."

You can visit the newly updated site at cavesandlakes.com, call their office located in the courthouse at 270-597-2222, and visit their Facebook and Instagram pages. You can also send an email to [email protected]

"I encourage everyone to follow our Facebook  and Instagram pages, tag us in your posts and please share our posts," she said. "More shares and support from local businesses and residents allows our county to get noticed by friends and family outside of our region and it just keeps going from there."