The place marketing concept is one of the popular concepts to analyze and promote countries, regions, cities and towns. The intensification of competition for investment, tourism and human resources among European cities and towns has increased the importance of being unique. Most of studies on place marketing however focus on the unique selling points and brands of countries, the capitals and the big cities, while rural towns need more marketing attention due to overcoming the lack of material and non-material resources in the towns. This is based on the idea of promotion to target markets of unique selling point of the town.

This paper aims to discuss to what extent the place marketing concept as a necessary condition for an effective promotion of 75 rural towns in the seven northernmost regions in Sweden. The paper presents reasons for using the place marketing concept by rural towns in Northern Sweden. Also it contains features of the place marketing concept and its key elements for rural towns, describes the target audience for rural towns with their specific needs and wants.