As you may have noticed, I’m not one for rigid editorial calendars. I prefer quality over quantity, and I dislike the idea of publishing a shallow piece just to meet a deadline. This article took days of reflection because it touches a raw nerve for so many of you—public administrators and destination managers I meet every day. The question, whispered with a mix of hope and frustration, is always the same: “Dario, how can we possibly compete with the big cities, given the budgets we have?”
The answer I usually give is surprising because it’s not about grants, funds, or million-euro advertising campaigns. It’s about something far more powerful. It’s about people.
Table of Contents
The Problem
Dear Mayor, dear Councillor, dear manager, let’s be honest with each other. How many times have you looked at your town’s annual budget, trying to make the numbers work for tourism promotion? It’s an unfair fight, I know. But the question that haunts you, the one I hear in every meeting and read between the lines of every email, is always the same: how to promote a town with no budget?
This is the challenge that unites small and medium-sized towns across Europe. A question that speaks of frustration, of untapped potential. The squares of our wonderful, historic towns fall silent at sunset. Events, organized with immense passion and effort, struggle to create a buzz beyond the regional borders. And in the end, when it comes to justifying expenses, you face the harsh reality of numbers, ROI, and political consensus.
Many believe that the answer to “how to promote a town with no budget” is impossible to find, that it’s a sentence to remain in the shadow of major destinations. But they are wrong. The solution isn’t to try to compete on their terms, but to change the rules of the game entirely. There is a strategy, a methodology I call Zero-Cost Marketing, that turns your biggest weakness—the limited budget—into your greatest strength. And to understand it, we must start with an incredible success story.
The Case Study
Let me take you to a place that, until a few years ago, was known mainly to nature lovers and a few locals. We’re talking about the area between Annone di Brianza and Bosisio Parini in Italy. A beautiful spot, certainly, but not exactly at the top of tourist destinations. Today, that place is on the lips of hundreds of thousands of young people and more, thanks to an event that rewrote the rules of territorial marketing: the Nameless Festival.
The story of Nameless is a masterclass for any public administrator. In 2013, its first edition drew about 9,000 people. A good result, but nothing that hinted at what was to come. Year after year, the event grew exponentially, almost virally. The numbers speak for themselves: by 2025, the festival surpassed 100,000 attendees over four days, with an annual growth rate that hit 50%. We are talking about a full-scale peaceful invasion, a pilgrimage that has turned a quiet area into an epicentre of energy and visibility.
What was the situation before? An area with latent tourism potential, tied to a traditional local economy. And after? An internationally renowned event that generates a multi-million euro economic impact, creates jobs (we’re talking about over 100 new direct and indirect jobs linked to the event), and captures national media attention. But the crucial question is: how did they do it? Did they spend tens of millions on advertising? Did they plaster cities with posters? Nothing of the sort.
The secret to Nameless’s success lies not in its marketing budget, but in the obsessive quality of the experience it offers. The organizers understood a fundamental principle: in a hyper-connected world, the experience is the medium. The attendees, utterly stunned by the quality of the music, the flawless organization, and, above all, the spectacular stage designs and installations, became the event’s first and most effective promoters. Every smartphone pointed at the stage, every video posted to Instagram, every TikTok story was just another piece of a colossal, and free, advertising campaign. This phenomenon is what I call the “wow” effect that shares itself.
From Case Study to Strategic Principle
Here we arrive at the heart of the matter, the lesson that every administrator can and must learn from the Nameless case. Success didn’t come from marginally improving the existing model, but from completely changing the rules of the game. The universal strategic lesson is this: the best marketing isn’t what you pay for, but what you earn through the uncontrollable enthusiasm of your audience.
This is the first, real answer to the question “how to promote a town with no budget.” Stop thinking in terms of “bought advertising space” and start thinking in terms of “created memorable moments.” The strategic goal for a town with limited resources is not to buy attention, but to deserve it. And to deserve it, you must offer something that goes beyond expectations, something that generates an emotional reaction so strong it turns into a spontaneous story. In the book “Immersive Events,” we define this approach as designing experiences that are “instagrammable by design”. This isn’t about adding a cute photo corner as an afterthought. It’s about designing the entire experience—whether it’s an event, a museum path, or the redevelopment of a square—to be intrinsically spectacular, shareable, and worthy of being talked about.
This approach shifts the investment: from the marketing budget to the production budget. Instead of giving €50,000 to a media agency to plan a traditional advertising campaign (whose effect, let’s admit, is often uncertain and short-lived), you invest that same €50,000 to create a unique experience on your territory. An experience that, if well-designed, will generate a spontaneous media value through digital word-of-mouth that far exceeds the initial investment.
This is a complete paradigm shift. The new strategic question is no longer “How can we tell the world about our town?”, but becomes: “What can we create in our town that is so incredible, the world won’t be able to stop talking about it?“. The answer to this question is the key to competing and winning. And the good news is that today, accessible technologies exist that make this strategy a concrete reality for any municipality.
Technology as an Enabler
At this point, a natural question arises: “Alright Dario, the principle is fascinating. But how, in practical terms, do you create this ‘wow’ effect? How do you manufacture wonder?”. This is where technology ceases to be a cold tool and becomes the most powerful ally for anyone wondering how to promote a town with no budget. I’m not talking about technology for technology’s sake, but about solutions that serve a specific purpose: to amplify emotions and make an experience so unforgettable that it promotes itself.
This kind of transformation is made possible by a specific category of tools: immersive technologies. These are technologies that don’t just show something to the viewer; they envelop them, immerse them, and make them an integral part of the narrative. And they are natural magnets for creating what is technically known as User-Generated Content (UGC). Today, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from other users more than any traditional advertising. Turning visitors into content creators is a strategic imperative.
Let’s look at the key technologies:
- Architectural Video Mapping: Imagine your town hall’s façade, the one citizens see every day. Now, imagine it coming to life, telling the town’s history, transforming into a spectacle of light and colour. This is video mapping. Its power is twofold. First, it’s completely non-invasive: not a single stone is touched, it’s made of pure light. Second, it transforms the familiar into magic. A building people took for granted suddenly becomes the star of an incredible show. The instinctive reaction? To pull out their smartphone and share. The Alberobello Light Festival has shown a direct link between this technology and a massive increase in tourist arrivals. It is, by definition, instagrammable.
- Immersive Projections in Geodesic Domes (Fulldome): If video mapping transforms the outside, immersive geodesic domes, like our THOLUS DOME, create a world within. The viewer is enveloped by a 360-degree projection. They are no longer in front of a screen; they are inside the screen. These structures are incredibly versatile “containers” for experiences. Today they can host an astronomy lesson, tomorrow a digital art installation, and the day after an immersive concert. For a municipality, it means having a strategic asset that continuously generates new visitor flows and, consequently, new digital word-of-mouth.
- Interactive Installations: The final piece is direct engagement. Artworks that react to people’s presence: floors that light up, walls that change colour at your touch. Here, the visitor becomes a co-creator of the work. The experience becomes unique, personal, and unrepeatable, as demonstrated by the work of world-renowned art collectives like teamLab. And what do we do when we experience something unique? We share it. This type of technology creates a powerful bond between the person and the place, generating memories and spontaneous content.
Investing in these technologies is not an expense, but a strategic investment in a perpetual marketing machine. The data confirms it: 77% of managers who have invested in immersive experiences have seen a positive ROI. Our internal analysis at the usual neXt is even clearer: compared to a meager 23% of traditional events that can demonstrate a clear return on investment, the figure skyrockets to an incredible 95% for the immersive events we design. Why? Because public enthusiasm is not a “nice to have”. It is a measurable economic asset.
Practical Takeaways: The First Steps to Promote a Town with No Budget
This is all very well, Dario. But what do I say in the council meeting on Monday morning? Here are 3 concrete actions to start putting this methodology into practice immediately.
- Rethink the Budget as an Investment in “Wonder.” Instead of spreading the budget across a thousand small, low-return initiatives (flyers, trade fairs, online ads), make a bold decision. Concentrate a significant portion of those resources on creating one single, spectacular, unforgettable “wow” experience in a symbolic location in your town. It’s not an expense; it’s an investment in a self-fueling marketing asset.
- Identify Your “Blank Canvases.” Look at your town with new eyes. That anonymous façade of a historic building? It’s a perfect canvas for video mapping. The square that empties out in the evening? It’s the ideal place for a temporary immersive dome. Conduct a “wonder audit”: map the underutilized places with the highest scenic potential and turn a problem into an opportunity.
- Measure the Echo, Not Just Admissions. Stop measuring success by ticket sales alone. The true ROI of Zero-Cost Marketing is measured differently. Your new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be: the number of content pieces (photos/videos) published on social media with the event’s hashtag or the town’s tag; the Interaction Rate (likes, comments, shares); and the Organic Reach, which is how many people were reached not by your advertising, but by the posts of your visitors’ friends.
The Vision
For decades, a story was told. A story where you need vast capital to compete, and the small are destined to lose. It was a convenient narrative for those selling ad space. Today, that narrative is dead. The 21st century doesn’t belong to those who shout the loudest, but to those who can create the most authentic emotions.
The question we started with was “how to promote a town with no budget?”. I hope it’s clear that the answer isn’t “you can’t”. The answer is: by changing the rules, by investing in experiences instead of advertising, by turning every single visitor into the most powerful and passionate ambassador for your future.
The real magic isn’t in the light projected on a wall. It’s in the illuminated eyes of a visitor who sees something they never expected, in their irresistible impulse to share that amazement with the world. And today, you have the power to light up those eyes.
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