Minimalist marketing, a new tip jar and more participants

In 2024, I started small with Future Tides’ very first walking tours. Call it a “pilot” or “experiment,” but it launched something new for me and the regional maritime publication I’m building. 

In 2025, I had to figure out the next step. Since tours are not the only operation I’m managing, I decided to focus on increasing the impact and engagement over a similar number of tours.

Future Tides’ tours take place seasonally, due in part to the weather (yes, it does rain in Seattle) but also due to shorter days from approximately October to March. Getting people to come out for a 90-minute walk on an evening in August when the sun sets after 8 p.m. is much easier.

This year’s tour planning and execution coincided with a program called Tiny Vitals Metrics Lab, which encouraged me to track and measure this tour season, not only to compare it to the pilot, but also towards Future Tides’ goals for audience development and revenue.

Three key goals for the 2025 tours were to:

• Double attendance (28 people and two dogs participated in 2024)
• Pilot at least one revenue stream tied to tours (donations, membership or sponsorship)
• Get people from Future Tides’ target audience to attend and subscribe to the newsletter

Spoiler: I accomplished all three goals! And learned so much. Whew. 

Here’s how it went down

Planned six tours (two per month July – Sept) and five took place.

• I started tours a little later due to a big sailing trip around Vancouver Island. Gotta live!
• The schedule included different days of the week (in case you always play pickleball on Wednesdays) and offered a new “family-friendly” version of the tour.
• For the second year in a row, I canceled the tour the week after the 4th of July due to low sign ups. While not during a holiday week, it’s hard to promote due to the holiday.

Expanded marketing from Future Tides’ email list.

• Direct outreach to local businesses near the tour route. This led to some cross-promotion and kicked off some partnership discussions.
• Submitted the tours to online community calendars including parent-focused ones.
• Paid to boost an Instagram Reel and Post about the tours*

*This was most successful in terms of sign ups. These weren’t built as ads, instead I used the option to “boost” the posts I was already doing for Future Tides’ followers.

Refined content and opportunities for attendee engagement.

• The 2024 content largely held up, but construction had progressed or started at a few of our stops so I updated those sections and incorporated recent news. I also rearranged the order of a few things, and added answers to questions from previous attendees.
• In July, I took a tour at Crater Lake National Park and the guide passed around printouts of some related visuals. I’d tried using my iPad this way with mixed results. On my next tour, I had my own set of printed visuals to share and it worked great. A simple yet effective addition.
• As the tour groups grew bigger, the dynamic changed. It became harder to do individual introductions, and I noticed fewer people asking questions. To adjust, I tried to talk to a different attendee each time we walked between stops, and I asked more poll-like questions where people could raise their hands.
• All of this is still a work in progress but I’m definitely a more confident guide, my knowledge continues to grow as I dig into more details, and I’m even starting to make some jokes!

Piloted “give what you want” donation ask at end of tours: 

• While I plan to add paid tours in the future, a free tour can offer a lower barrier to entry and be more accessible. I focused on how to bring in some revenue while keeping the tours free.

• Do attendees feel like the tour provides something of value? The only way to know is to ask. In August, I added an ask for support and debuted a QR code to make contributions.
  • I received 13 contributions over four tours totaling $330.
  • This came in via one-time donations, a “tip jar,” and cash.
  • Excluding one larger donation, the average contribution was $14.

• In addition to offsetting marketing expenses, these contributions signaled attendees found value in the tour. They chose to spend time and money with Future Tides.

More than doubled attendance and grew email subscribers:

• 69 people and eight dogs attended (2.5x the 2024 attendance!)
• Approximately 126 people signed up (a less than 50% attrition rate, OK for a free event)
• Tours engaged current audience members and helped people discover Future Tides.
  • 36% of people who signed up became Future Tides subscribers.
  • 20% of people who signed up were already subscribers.

Consistently followed up with a post-tour survey to see what people think:

• Attendees who completed the post-tour survey expressed high levels of satisfaction with 75% giving the tour a “5 out of 5” and no low scores.

• 70% of respondents are “very likely” to recommend the tour and 30% said they are “likely” to.

• Attendees said key takeaways were the local history, the narrative about the changing area, learning new ways to interact with the community, and they enjoyed the variety of information including commerce and recreation.

Ok, what next? There is a long list of things I’d like to do around these tours and big ideas that excite me. However, with limited resources I need to stay focused and keep iterating to build a strong foundation and a service people find valuable.

Accountability helps me out, so here are the goals for 2026:

• Execute a third season of free walking tours with 2x the attendance of 2025 (140+ people and 16 dogs). 
• Debut a paid or members-only tour.

These probably feel similar to this year’s goals but, more importantly, they feel ambitious yet attainable. 

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And if you know anyone that fits into one of these buckets, please let me know:

1. Other publications or journalists who are already giving walking tours.
2. Local publications/newsrooms/outlets who might be interested in testing out tours.
3. Examples of “tours for locals” that aren’t about history.

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Cite this article

Kuhlman, Cara (2025, Nov. 5). Takeaways from the second year of Future Tides’ free walking tours. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/takeaways-from-the-second-year-of-future-tides-free-walking-tours/