Category Archives: Downtown Trends

2023 Email Trends for Placemaking

June 21, 2023

A TRENDS REPORT FOR UPMO PRACTITIONERS

A client recently asked us for industry benchmarks around email as a communications channel. While many email platforms, providers and digital marketing websites track email statistics by industry, the urban place management organization (UPMO) industry is specifically unique. And to date, there was no known research or benchmarking available, according to the International Downtown Association.

This presented an opportunity to study the state of our industry — to define standards, identify benchmarks, and help the place management industry gauge performance on the whole. The information and insights are both useful and valuable for understanding how your specific organization tracks against your peers, as well as identifying industry standards that can be useful in goals setting, planning and strategic growth.

While some may decrie email as an outmoded medium, the fact remains that from a performance marketing perspective, email remains the number one channel for marketing and communications, constituent engagement and supporting your organization’s activations, events and initiatives. It should not be overlooked.

Ready to see how you stack up? Read on and let us know if you have any questions!

With sincere regards,
Your Bright Brothers Team

 

Download this report as a pdf.

 

UPMO Email Stats OVERVIEW

The research behind this Trends Report was conducted via online survey, targeted specifically to the UMPO industry. The survey included mandatory and optional questions, to offer additional insights. Response data was aggregated and anonymized, and all survey participants are:

  • Place management practitioners
  • Members of the International Downtown Association
  • Working specifically within the MarCom team for their respective organizations

The survey collected responses from 8 May 2023 through 29 May 2023. Please note that percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding and/or the acceptance of multiple responses.

The two main questions we set out to answer were about average Open Rates (OR) and Click Thru Rates (CTR), and we asked for more insights. Participants were happy to share!

So read on to learn so much more about your peers’ performance utilizing email as a marketing channel.

 

OPEN RATES

According to Wikipedia, “The email open rate is a measure primarily used by marketers as an indication of how many people “view” or “open” the commercial electronic mail they send out. It is most commonly expressed as a percentage and calculated by dividing the number of email messages opened by the total number of email messages sent (excluding those that bounced.)”

We posed the question, “When looking at email performance over the past year, what is your average open rate?”

Some districts separate their lists between general consumer lists (the public) and stakeholder e-blasts (ratepayers, members, board members…etc.), so for those who reported two separate figures, we blended their responses to obtain a fully blended average (which was not statistically different from standard responses overall). The total average open rate (OR) is 37%.

 

INSIGHTS

Responses varied by district — although the size of the local population and district resources did not seem to have an impact on email open rate performance.

What we found interesting is that roughly 12% of organizations had an open rate at, or just above 50% (well, done!) and 12% had ORs lower than 30%. So if we remove the highest and lowest anomalistic outliers, the average open rate is 31%.
So if your organization’s email blasts are being opened anywhere from 31% to 37% you are statistically well-performing overall.

 

When looking at email performance over the past year, what is your average open rate?

Total average open rate (OR) is 37%

Total average click thru rate (CTR) is 7.22%

 

CLICK THRU RATES

According to top-rated industry platform MailChimp, “The click-through rate represents the percentage of people who not only opened the email but also clicked on the link or ad in the email.” Please note, that we prefer the simplified spelling of “click thru rate” or CTR and use this nomenclature in this Trends Report.

We asked respondents, “When looking at email performance over the past year, what is your average Click Thru Rate?”
For districts that send different emails to public and stakeholder lists, the trend intuitively showed that stakeholders had a higher CTR than the general public. Or at least, one would hope your stakeholders, members and ratepayers click through more than the general public. This was statistically substantiated for the roughly 12% of responding orgs that reported back separate rates.

To ascertain an overall average CTR, we blended all rates responded, and the total average click thru rate is 7.22%.

Click thru rates again varied wildly across organizations, (with no correlation between district size, staffing or number of residents) although to a much lesser degree than the delta on open rates. To gain a truer sense of CTR, we removed the top and bottom anomalous outliers in responses, and honed in on the median CTRs. After removing super high and very low responses, we get a truer number of 4.50% average click thru rate.

Of note, the lowest CTR we saw (for a public list) was >2%, and the highest came in at a whopping 37%! So if your organization’s email content is being clicked on anywhere from 4.5% to 7.22% you are statistically very well performing overall.

 

LIST SEGMENTATION

Districts have different audiences types and most districts separate their stakeholder lists (think ratepayers, members, board) from their general consumer or public-facing lists. It makes sense to segment in this fashion. While the general public want to hear from you about activities, events and “things to do” within your district. they probably don’t give a hoot about municipal A-frame requirements, changes in tax levies or façade improvement grant application deadlines, right?

So we asked the question, “Does your organization maintain separate lists for consumers (locals, event attendees, general public) and stakeholders (ratepayers, district merchants, businesses)?”

A majority 88% of districts segment their lists between general public and stakeholders. That’s not surprising.

We wanted to take deeper look at performance of the districts that do NOT separate or segment their email communications, and what we found was interesting. Of the roughly 12% of district respondents that do not separate lists:

● Half serve a local population of under 100K residents, and half fell into the 500K – 1MM category. In this case, size doesn’t matter.
● 100% of these districts had smaller staff sizes with only one or two dedicated MarCom employees leading the communications charge. Lean, mean MarCom machines!
● 100% were statistical outliers at the top of the scale when looking at both Open Rates and Click Thru Rates. Their dedicated teams are killin’ it!
● Half sent emails weekly, and half every other week. Frequency, and staying top of mind may lead to better performance.

 

FREQUENCY

If you’re a fan of the band REM, you may recall them asking the seminal question, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” — but here we’re looking at how often UPMOs send out e-blasts to their subscribers.

“In general, how frequently does your organization send out informational e-blasts?” 

● The top answer was “Weekly” with 57% of districts doing it every week
● The next largest sample of respondents noted that they blast “Every Other Week”, clocking in at 31%
● And finally, the smallest number of respondents answered “Monthly” with just 12% of orgs doin’ it with the moon.

Of the districts that only blast monthly, they consistently had VERY high Open Rates (of about 47%) and average CTRs, and were among the smallest MarCom staffs — with roughly one person managing all of their Marketing and Communications for the district. This begs the question, does scarcity incite demand? Possibly.

 

3RD PARTY PLATFORMS

We all know that email compliance to regulations like the federal CAN-SPAM Act, and other rigorous legislation domestically can seriously impact your ability to do business. It’s best to err on the side of caution, and use a vetted 3rd party platform for sending e-blasts to subscribers.

Additionally, easy-to-use WYSIWYG templates and email builders empower your communications with eye-catching design, the ability to deliver responsive blasts that look great on any device, and include tools, dashboards and metrics for easy management. So we weren’t surprised to learn that all respondents confirmed they use a 3rd party platform.

“Does your organization use a 3rd party email platform like Constant Contact, Citylight, MailChimp…etc.?”

100% of respondents concurred that they do.

The U.S. Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003, and compliance is overall fairly logical and easy, especially when using a vetted 3rd party platform. The penalties for non-compliance are severe, including fines and penalties totaling up to $43,280 for each email sent if found to be in violation.

Additionally, some states have specific data privacy requirements that pertain to email marketing, like California’s CCPA, which require companies that market services or products to consumers in California to comply with email marketing guidelines to protect data privacy. While CCPA doesn’t directly regulate email marketing, its rules are relevant to eblasts, as the personal information the law refers to, can include email addresses and other data collected through email marketing. Violations can be costly with a maximum fine of $2,500 per unintentional violation and up to $7,500 per intentional violation! Best to play it safe!

 

ADVERTORIAL

Conceptually somewhat similar to influencers, certain publishers allow you to sponsor content in their e-blasts to reach their subscribers. This is a proven form of media buy, if the publisher maintains a good list. For example, let’s say your district is hosting a “wine & dine” event. You may wish to sponsor the local culture rag’s e-blast and send a targeted email to fans of their food and drink list to promote ticket sales or event attendance.

Has your organization ever purchased in-email advertising, advertorial, sponsored content or paid an outside publisher or platform to get your message to their targeted list?

  • 50% said “No, we haven’t”
  • 18.75% said “We have in certain special circumstances as part of an integrated marketing strategy or media buy, but it’s not something we typically do”
  • 18.75% said “Yes, we have”
  • 6.25% said “We’d like to but not sure where to begin”

Depending on the size of the list, the quality of the list and the publisher, sponsored e-blasts can be excellent tools for growing awareness, promoting consideration and/or driving sales or attendance with a solid call-to-action.
*Note that not all respondents answered this question.

 

TEMPLATE DIFFERENTIATION

Different people have different needs, as the Depeche Mode song “People Are People” reminds us. And that’s why districts might use a different template to communicate with a different audience. Since 100% of responding place managers use a 3rd party platform to send out their eblasts, swapping the templates should be pretty straightforward and easy to do. We wanted to know how many districts differentiate their template based on the audience they intend to reach, and their message. So we asked:

Does your organization utilize different email templates for different needs/audiences? Example, general public template, stakeholder template, event-specific template (farmers market, wine walk, art festival).

In a fairly resounding response, 85% of districts use different templates for different messaging needs/audiences.

INSIGHTS

Looking for a correlation, we dug deeper into the responses, and of the districts that did NOT use different templates, their Open Rates were average to well above average, and their CTRs were average to the top of the scale in terms of
percentages. So no correlation there. Perhaps the lack of different templates is anomalous, or statistically insignificant, since only 15% of districts use the same template for all messaging needs.

 

MULTIVARIATE TESTING

“Vive la différence, as the French are known to say! Embracing differences can lead to quantifiable outcomes. In this scenario we’re talking about A/B split testing and multivariate testing. And when it comes to emails, there are all sorts
of things marketers can test; from the design of an eblast template, landing page design, testing different versions of copy, imagery and more. It requires thoughtful planning, consideration of your target audiences, as well as your goals as an
organization. The question we posed to survey respondents had multiple possible answers, and we’ve distilled the responses, based on the way they answered. We asked:

Does your organization utilize multivariate or A/B split testing for emails, templates, imagery, content or landing pages? Please select all that apply:

  • Template
  • Imagery
  • Copy
  • Landing Pages

INSIGHTS

85% of respondents do NOT do multivariate or even A/B testing. Of the 15% of districts that do multivariate tests (in all 4 categories) — they had an average Open Rate of 39% and a 4.4% CTR — so they’re statistically middle of the road against both metrics.

 

GRAPHIC DESIGN

In looking at how graphic design is handled by your peers, we asked:

Does your organization have dedicated, in-house graphic design resources that assist in developing email content? Examples: email headers, event graphics, buttons…etc.

  • 50% answered “Yes, we have paid staff who handle this”
  • 31.25% said “No, we outsource our graphic design needs”
  • 18.75% answered “We have a hybrid model with some things designed in-house and some developed by an outside entity/agency/freelancer”

INSIGHTS

Districts that outsource graphic design tended to be “middle of the road” from a staffing perspective (makes sense), with an average of 2.1 MarCom staff and a total staff size averaging at nearly 12 headcount. They were neither large enough to employ in-house graphic design staff, nor too small, where one or two folks manage all district operations.

 

CHANNEL VALUE

Admittedly, the MarCom team in any organization is one of the most heavily relied-upon, and often ends up as a catch-all for endeavors, initiatives and projects of all kinds — if there’s even a remote aspect of “creative” involved. The marketing landscape is ever-evolving and with technology leading the way, MarCom managers must stay abreast of the latest changes, trends and platforms to remain competitive and meet your target audiences where they’re at. So from social media to content strategy to events and activations to annual reports and more — email marketing is but one piece of the media mix puzzle. As the number one performance marketing channel, we asked survey respondents to rank email’s importance for their org:

On a scale of 1 to 5, with one being the lowest, and five being the highest, how important is email communication to your overall marketing mix?

The average answer was 4.5 / 5 overall, and the responses broke down as follows:

  • 56.25% answered 5 or most important
  • 37.5% answered 4 or somewhat important
  • 6.25% answered 3 or neutral

INSIGHTS

The level of importance UPMO marketers place on email is justified. According to leading 3rd party provider Constant Contact — More than 90 percent of businesses say email marketing is important to their company’s overall success. 41 percent say it’s very vital—up nearly 30 percent since before the pandemic in 2019. Hence, email is considered one of the most effective channels for marketing, with 79 percent of marketers placing it in their top 3 (and customers ranking it as
#1!)

 

CH, CH, CHANGES

Always challenged to stay ahead of the competition, and at the top of their game, we wanted to know how districts may alter change their approach in the coming year. So we asked:

Over the coming year, does your organization plan to alter its approach to email communications, by adding or removing resources, allocating more or less budget to email communication programs or switching to a more sophisticated platform?

  • 75% answered “We plan to stay about the same”
  • 12.5% indicated “We plan to allocate more time, budget or resources to our external email communications”
  • 6.25% indicated “We plan on making better use of tracking tools and A/B testing”

INSIGHTS

The marketing smarties over at HubSpot reported that — QA, A/B, and spam testing your emails leads to higher ROI. Enjoy up to a 28% higher return when you put testing to work for your email program.

GOAL SETTING

As the old saying goes, “that which gets measured, gets done” and this is especially true in marketing, where we can apply metrics, meaning and plan growth for just about anything we do. We wanted to better understand how organizations in the place management industry approached goal setting with regard to email performance, so we asked:

Does your organization have quantifiable goals for email list growth, increased frequency, performance or improved quality of communications?

  • 50% responded that, “Yes, we’re constantly trying to improve our email efforts”
  • 25% responded that, “No. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
  • 6.25% responded that, “Improvements are always on our radar and will likely be prioritized as a future goal for our team in 2024”
  • 6.25% responded that, “Working to establish them”
  • 6.25% responded that, “We are aware but not really going [sic] anything new as long as it says
    steady”
  • 6.25% responded that, “No, too understaffed to put together goals”

INSIGHTS

In looking at the division in responses, overall the majority of districts have a kaizen approach, meaning they’re working toward “continual improvement” — and that’s good to hear! And of those who responded in other ways, we truly feel for the district that is too understaffed to put together goals. It’s kind of like driving around aimlessly in a jalopy with no seat belts or functioning dashboard and just hoping you don’t go off a cliff. Maybe they’re adrenaline junkies. Maybe they
like it that way. We can’t say for sure, but we can guarantee you that if you need help with KPIs, measurement or goal setting, we’re here to help.

Diving a bit deeper in the goals category, we further asked our survey respondents to tell us more about goals setting and measurement overall. And the results were interesting! If you’re struggling to measure the impacts of marketing overall, you’re not alone.

Does your organization struggle with accurately measuring the impact of your MarCom programs, KPIs, metrics and outcomes?

  • 37.5% responded, “No, we don’t need help”
  • 18.75 % responded, “We think we’re doing a great job but could use a sounding board”
  • 18.75 % responded, “Unsure”
  • 12.5% responded, “Yes, we struggle to put together goals”
  • 6.25% responded, “We struggle with resources being able to have the time to measure KPIs”

INSIGHTS

Basically, we have three categories of responses here. Those that are good with how they’re measuring MarCom impacts and success, those who think they’re on the right path, but perhaps need external validation, and the final group is either struggling putting together their goals and/or finding the time to measure their efforts.

For those doing well, we say keep it up! For the groups struggling or unsure (especially the “sounding board” folks — this is very common). In fact, many of our clients are doing a fantastic job, but crave external perspective to say they’re on the right path, or they should pivot here, test this, or try that. Just let us know if ya need a helping hand.

ANECDOTALLY SPEAKING

While the survey provided a lot of quantifiable data, we wanted to hear about some qualitative wins and successes from different districts. We asked the question:

What’s the best email campaign or single e-blast your organization has ever sent? Tell us about it,
and why it was successful or memorable? The feedback is fun and exciting to read!

  • “Generally blasts sent 1-3 days before a big event, with content focused on that singular event, have the best results for us. However, we save these for major events due to staff capacity and not wanting to send TOO many emails. We always include many events in our weekly blasts.”
  • “Not necessarily by the numbers our “best”, but from a content perspective it felt really good. It was during the pandemic (first lockdown) and shared messages of hope and how our local businesses are serving the community during this difficult time. A rare moment in time where everyone is dealing with this giant “thing” (the pandemic) that affected everyone.”
  • “Our best performing e-blast in the past year was the announcement of our new CEO. Successful most likely because of the anticipation of the choice, as well as their connections.”
  • “An email blast about a city-sponsored Open Streets effort (closing 1.1 miles of a major road to cars) got a 64% open rate; people are really interested in what’s going on in the neighborhood and eager to participate.”

Yep, this all tracks! And kudos to those of you who mark these wins. Hopefully there were cocktails involved in celebrating these accomplishments and your communities!

One list hygiene trend we examined in a previous Trend Report is called an “OptOut Strategy”. Subscriber lists experience fatigue. That’s normal. Priorities change.  People move away. Things happen. That’s just life. Clinging onto disengaged subscribers hardly helps your stats. Regular list hygiene and maintenance is part and parcel to managing a healthy base of subscribers.

One district that responded to our survey shared a proactive win with us. They scrubbed their list using logic, as opposed to asking to part ways with bedraggled subscribers. They shared with us:

“We use MailChimp and scrubbed the list of those who had the lowest open rates (approximately 0%–10%) —
it ended up being a little over 1/5 of our total list in all. Since the open rate was around 27% previously,
naturally this pushed the number up to 38% after we scrubbed the subscriber list.”

Way to go for being proactive, and getting those performance numbers up!

PEER INSIGHTS

Wanna hear about your peers? In this section we did a breakdown of the data that survey respondents shared with us. about the organization, staffing and communities. Again, we’d like to underscore that any and all published feedback is anonymous, but the data may help you get a sense of where your district sits when compared to UPMO peers who responded to our survey. We asked:

What’s the size of your local population?

  • 43.75% of respondents support a population of 100,001 to 500,000 residents
  • 37.5% of respondents support a population of under 100,000 residents
  • 12.5% of respondents support a population of 500,001 – 1,000,000 residents
  • 6.25% of respondents support a population of over one million residents

 

What’s the size of your total staff?

The average total staff headcount is about 14 people. But, if we take out the top orgs (18.75%) that had staff over 30, the average headcount falls to 7 staff members, which is more aligned with what we see as the norm, And then looking at MarCom staff only:

  • The average number of MarCom staff is 2 people
  • The largest MarCom staff reported was 4 people
  • The smallest MarCom staff was ZERO! So that’s one person wearing MANY hats!

Note that 75% of respondents plan on attending IDA Chicago this fall, so get ready to meet your peeps in October!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

While this Trends Report initially set out to ascertain two industry baselines for Open Rates and CTR, it ended up being so much more. And we love that! One of the things we respect most about the urban place management industry is that, on the whole, you love to share with your peers! While in many industries your neighboring districts might be perceived solely as your “competition” — we’ve met the most amazing colleagues and clients though IDA. And you’re always ready to share what worked, what didn’t and what could be done better. That helps float all the boats.

Overall, we say “well done, you!” and would like to thank all the practitioners who took time from their busy schedules to help make our industry better. Thanks for taking the survey!

For those of you struggling with goal-setting, metrics, KPIs or even just need an unbiased 3rd party to provide a professional opinion, we’re here to help. We’ve developed specialized strategies and custom solutions for dozens of your peers, provide educational and capacity building sessions for stakeholders, help guide your strategic planning and offer professional design solutions.

How can we help you? Give us a shout!
With sincere regards,
Your Bright Brothers Team

 

Image Attribution
We’d like to thank the following creatives for their gorgeous, royalty-free photography, grace à the Unsplash community!
@glenn-carstens-peters
@@ryoji__iwata
@bthjnr
@simonmharmer
@campaign_creators
@rinckad
@sharonmccutcheon
@giorgiotrovato
@enginakyurt
@danedeaner
@halacious
@linkedinsalesnavigator
@sara_kurig
@georgiadelotz
@youssefnaddam
@aalochak
@villxsmil
@wocintechchat
@martenbjork
@smile_97

Placemaking Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

The terms placemaking and place branding have been bandied about so much across so many industries they are now crossing over into the gen pop vernacular. But we, as place management practitioners, hold placemaking near and dear to our hearts. It’s a crucial element or overarching approach to nearly everything we do for our districts. And whether you’re responsible for operations, clean and safe, marketing, events and activations, programming, special projects, community engagement — or even social and MarCom — placemaking pervades nearly everything we do.

 

Before the pandemic, our co-founder Josh Yeager participated in the IDA Top Issues Council on Placemaking. Together with a whip-smart coalition of IDA members, practitioners, and some downright innovative folks, they collectively developed this publication on Place Branding (FREE for IDA Members) and produced and hosted IDA’s first-ever Placemaking and Place Branding Summit in Huntsville, AL. The pandemic put the brakes on subsequent summits, but the information, insights, and inspiration from the report are all still applicable, albeit perhaps with a few post-pandemic tweaks.

 

And that’s mainly what we’re exploring in this section. No need to say it again, but the pandemic up-ended so many aspects of our lives that, culturally, we’re a different bunch now. Downtowns and districts globally have different concerns, pressures, merchant support needs, dayparting, and foot traffic patterns. So within this section, we’ll delve into today’s world of placemaking and guide you through some examples of outstanding placemaking globally.

Also, never forget to check our website’s RESOURCES section for additional Trends Reports (like this on Illuminated Placemaking) and an archive of our bi-monthly e-blasts for place management practitioners and destination marketing organizations, the Bright Brothers Bulletin. 

 

EXPERIENTIAL

We talk all the time about “leaning into experiential” locally, but what does that mean? A great answer comes from Senior Business Director of Experiential, Victoria Sobel from lauded creative agency Giant Spoon. Known for groundbreaking and impressive, immersive experiences, Giant Spoon caught the world’s attention last year by turning upside down the Empire State Building (and 14 other iconic landmarks globally) to tease the launch of Stranger Things, season 4. If you haven’t seen the activation, click here to enter The Upside Down.

 

Sobel stated in a recent interview with Marketing Brew, “Consumers now look to brands to do more than just demo and sample—they want to participate, learn, celebrate, and ultimately, be part of a community through these shared moments. Marketers should lean into this opportunity to build brand love and loyalty through the creation of great, memorable experiences,” and that Empire State stunt definitely checks all the boxes!²⁰

 

Now, most urban place managers don’t have the kinds of big budgets that Netflix has to promote their districts. So what is possible? Plenty! Think about things you and your stakeholders can do, like:

  • Philly’s famed Pizzeria Beddia has a private omakase hoagie room. Based on the Japanese tradition of omakase, guests participate in the preparation of the food 
  • Host an in-shop experience à la Lush cosmetics, the famed British beauty brand
  • Sleepovers are an increasingly popular trend at museums, zoos, and cultural attractions
  • The Tinder Pride Slide was not only a trip, but it was also a feel-good fundraiser
  • This innovative lighting manufacturer, RBW, hosts lunch-and-learns with architects and designers (their target audiences) and interactive public events where participants assemble a lighting fixture and take it home
  • And then, of course, you have your vetted experiential business models like Build-A-Bear, Wine & Design (aka “tipsy painting”), and chefs classes…
  • Plus, experiential exhibits like The Van Gogh Immersive Experience, Luminarias in the Garden, the Museum of Ice Cream, and many more.
  • If you have an influx of new residents to your district, consider programming “locals only” fam tours, dine-arounds, or bike and burrito rallies!

Taking a deeper dive into experiential and illuminated placemaking, consider the Downtown San Francisco Partnership’s ‘Let’s Glow SF” event.* With two seasons under their belts, the downtown district tirelessly works to counter the media narrative that the central business district is dead. The media in SF itself loves to jump on this narrative to garner alarmist clicks. Admittedly San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has been particularly hard hit with pandemic pitfalls, like major tech companies moving to WFH as standard, Twitter getting hit for past due rent, and more.²¹

 

In an effort to keep office workers downtown after hours, (and spending money on local stakeholders), as well as draw locals, regionals, and visitors to SF’s extremely clean and safe downtown, the district launched Let’s Glow SF during holiday 2021 to much fanfare, plus a special honor from Mayor London Breed. The 10-day event massively increased foot traffic and drove an estimated $2.2M economic impact for the districts’ ratepayers. In 2022, Let’s Glow returned as the nation’s “largest holiday projection mapping festival,” featuring spectacular light shows at five iconic locations within the district, and 2022 knocked it even farther outta the park with a 42% increase in attendance and a 61% increase in visitor spending, creating a $3M economic impact for Downtown SF businesses.  

 

The district worked with a local visual arts company A3 Visual, and tapped local and international talent to design the interactive displays and light shows. In 2022, they offered a digital brochure and added a companion print guide to the festival that was distributed to local tourism and hospitality partners. It all adds up to quantifiable returns for the community, and even in San Francisco, $3M in economic impact is nothing to sniff at!

 

Get the full scoop on Let’s Glow SF on the Downtown San Francisco Partnership’s new website!

 

Now not every district has the budget, foot traffic, or wherewithal to produce this type of event, but a key component here was also dayparting.

 

DAYPARTING

Because of the pandemic, we now have disrupted foot traffic patterns, WFH and more flexible work schedules, different child care situations, and hybrid work scenarios creating fractured dayparts. In some cities, we’re seeing rebounds in daily commutes returning to some 80-90% of pre-pandemic levels, and in other places (like San Francisco), we may never return to a formerly-known norm. So what does this mean for districts?  Nearly every one of our clients has expressed challenges pertaining to this disruption.  It’s difficult for restaurants to staff for lunch without the office workers. Some cities have seen a “brain drain” of talent that can work virtually anywhere and have moved off-grid. And in some places, businesses are mandating a return to the office with varying degrees of success. So what to do?

 

Lean into dayparting.  And what that means is understanding when and where people are coming downtown, and programming and activating for those segments. It may not be the traditional “after-work happy hours” and coffee meetings anymore.  We highly recommend you track and analyze foot traffic patterns (with any of the myriad services like Springboard, Placer.ai, and others), to better understand when and how people are using your downtown amenities. Once you have a grasp on when, you can get the most bang for your buck, program for these visitors, and make sure it ties into your merchant support efforts. Some examples come to mind, like:

  • Downtown Tempe’s “Park After Dark” series takes palace after sunset during their blistering summer months
  • Recurring concert series during alternate dayparts like lunch, happy hour, and weekend evenings, like Downtown Pittsburgh Partnership’s “Downtown Sound” series
  • Consider round-ups of content/programming around mid-afternoon sweet treats and pick-me-ups like Visit Chandler cataloged
  • …or even consider go-at-your-own-pace programming like Downtown Austin’s “Mural Map,” Downtown Huntsville’s “Craft Beer Trail,” Downtown Excelsior Springs Chocolate Tour, wine tours, cocktail trails, and more.

 

CHANGE

Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s never going back. We’re now three years into COVID-19 first hit, and the word “pivot” has been beaten like a dead horse (pardon the analogy). But let’s explore how some places lean into change. 

 

“Car-free” frees up space for people. Even before the pandemic, we saw the beginnings of car-free movements in cities around the globe. With Europe taking a decided lead over the U.S.’s love affair with the automobile, cities like Barcelona, Milan, Paris, and Stockholm are ahead of the curve in implementing Open Streets programs — bringing a more human scale to safe and exclusive streets for pedestrians.²² And stateside, we’ve seen massive inroads made in cities like Atlanta, Boulder, Columbus, Fort Collins, Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philly, Portland, and more.

 

Additionally, streeteries lending a slim lifeline to struggling restaurants during the pandemic, are now becoming permanent in cities like New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and many more, albeit not without contention. Some cities (and citizens) favor parking over pizza, and making streeteries permanent comes with a hefty price tag for safety, stability, insurance, and inspections. 

But in one of the most telling stories, the city of Toronto, CA recently announced some quantifiable evidence in favor of permanent street eats.  In late 2022 Toronto published their analysis on revenue generation from the same footprint of space, year-over-year. They found that had the traditional parking been in place, it would have generated a mere $3.7M, compared to the $181M produced by curbside patios during the same 13-week study period. That’s 49X more revenue generated for the city, and its citizens are seemingly stuffed and satisfied with the results as well!

 

Use of the public realm became even more imperative during the pandemic, often with surprising outcomes. One street in Jackson Heights, a dense, bustling neighborhood in Queens, NY closed 34th Avenue to traffic during the pandemic, and residents and businesses liked the expanded, outdoor space so much, the Department of Transportation agreed to make the change to an Open Street permanent. Managed by the 34th Ave Open Streets Coalition, this success story is but one example of thousands implemented worldwide due to COVID-19’s social distancing protocols and efforts to make places more liveable. 

 

Jackson Heights, NY resident and Department Chair at William Paterson University, Lauren Razzore-Cedeño endured most of the pandemic in this neighborhood. She shared personal insights with Bright Brothers Strategy Group, noting that, “What transpired and transformed 34th Avenue was honestly a lifesaver for us,” stated Razzore-Cedeño, a mother of two young children. 

 

She furthered that, “New York was the epicenter of the pandemic at the time. We had nowhere to walk because it wasn’t safe on the sidewalks packed with so many people… we couldn’t socially distance. So I would take the girls down there for fresh air. It started just as a place to get some space during COVID, but they developed programming on 34th, and the whole scene became a really amazing community space. Some neighbors weren’t happy with the changes, but it really provided a lifeline for me and my family.”

So whether for walking, playing games, yoga, dining, dancing, bike rallies or myriad other purposes, the trend toward creating safe, human-scale, car-free spaces within our districts and cities is a trend we’re likely continue to see develop in 2023 and beyond.

Video Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

If a picture says a thousand words, then a video tells the whole story, right? And video is everywhere these days, thanks to the fact that nearly all of us have a handheld recording device in the palm of our hands at all times. 

 As video technology and publishing technology have rapidly increased, conversely, our attention spans have shrunk exponentially. Sadly, it is now estimated that the average human attention span is eclipsed by that of a goldfish!  Purportedly, goldfish have a leg up (ahem, fin, perhaps?) on us humans, with an additional second of focus, so that’s Humans 8, Goldfish 9. The stats and research have been disputed, but there’s no discounting the fact that we have very short attention spans. Modern media is not helping the trend. 

 As evidenced by the popularity of ephemeral media like Snap, TikTok, Reels and more, we live in an era of hyper-paced media consumption, so video is a great way to get your message across in seconds. But there are a few things to note:

  • 73% of consumers prefer short form video¹⁴
  • Short form video has the highest ROI¹⁴
  • 30% of all short form videos are watched 81% pf the way through¹⁴
  • Users spend an average of 45 minutes at a time watching TikTok videos¹⁴
  • HubSpot considers short form video to be under 60 seconds, with the optimal length between 31-60 seconds¹⁵
  • 85% of marketers say short form videos are the most effective format on social media¹⁵

 So why do we still see so many long form videos being produced by organizations and marketers alike?  Ego, mainly is our gut take. But perhaps they’re trying to reach Baby Boomers. According to HubSpot, “56% of Gen Z, 54% of Millennials, 48% of Gen X, and 26% of Boomers say they discover new products most often on YouTube,”¹⁶

 

The kind of content and length of video you make really depends on your audience. HubSpot notes, “While each generation might watch fairly similar content, it’s important to remember that the goal is different. For Gen X, it might be to reminisce, while for Boomers, it’s to save time, and for Millennials and Gen Z, it could be to learn something new,” so the old adage, “read the room” definitely applies here as well.¹⁶

 But for many marketers and smaller organizations, professionally produced video is a luxury or out of reach for some budgets. Again, that handy-dandy device in your pants pocket can come in handy. A few things to note:

 

  • Not all video needs to be perfectly polished. In fact, 90% of consumers said that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support¹⁷
  • 92% of marketers believe that most or all of the content they create resonates as authentic with consumers¹⁷
  • 51% of consumers say that less than half of brands create content that resonates as authentic¹⁷

So when you’re out and about in your district, keep your smartphone within reach, and don’t shy away from shooting some impromptu, casual and non-professional video on the fly. And telling your district’s story with short form video on social media can be as simple and as a quick intro video and hello with your favorite barista while grabbing your morning coffee, lunch out with coworkers, an afternoon break meeting people in the park, happy hour, or more. For many, video can provide a virtual snapshot of what it’s like in your district. Having video on hand also comes in handy when you need to tell your story as part of a campaign.

 

UPCYCLE

We like to say that “A little B-roll goes a long way”, and that’s especially true for short form video. A few things to love about B-roll:

  • Oftentimes, a media company (say the local paper, culture rag or TV station), will shoot and produce video for you as part of a larger package. It’s often a “value add” as part of larger campaign. Invest once, then repurpose, reuse, recycle and upcycle
  • If you’re doing a professional shoot, ask the videographer to get (and give you), plenty of B-roll that you can re-purpose later
  • Cut down 15-second snippets to use for TikTok, Reels, Twitter and more. Produce once, then repost or share across multiple channels
  • 15-second spots are also the perfect length for many streaming TV buys, YouTube and Google advertising and more (clearly your social channels)

 

But where else does B-roll come in handy?  PR. Most definitely PR. If you’ve ever tried to get the local media out to cover one of your events, it can be challenging — especially if you’re not buying an advertising package from them. Recently one of our colleagues shared with us an enlightening anecdote from a Top 20 U.S. metro.  On the very same day that she was holding a big press conference/media junket for the unveiling of a placemaking project that took nearly a year to develop, there was a massive auto accident about an hour outside the city. All the local TV stations were covering the accident live, and pulled the TV crews she was anticipating for her event. Not one to be discouraged, she and her assistant moved forward with the event, shot B-roll with their iPhones and sent it to local newsrooms instead.  And guess who got featured on that night’s news? Yep! 

With tapped newsrooms, reduced editorial staffs and slim-lined news crews, plus consumers’ short attention spans and their preference for authenticity – B-roll shot on your iPhone can be a lifesaver in your annual content calendar.

 

AUTHENTICITY

While we’re on the topic of authenticity and consumers’ preferences for the real deal, we wanted to call out some of our favorite campaigns from downtowns, districts, and DMOs showcasing the faces behind the community. A few come to mind, and while not video (these were photography-based), the essence is the same — keepin’ it real!

 Downtown Fort Collins (CO) did a very popular “People Behind the Plates” campaign to support their annual “Great Plates of Downtown” promotion. Great Plates of Downtown is a nearly two-decade long promotion, similar to the restaurant weeks many downtowns produce. There’s a prix-fixe menu at participating locations, with a portion of the proceeds donated locally. Downtown Fort Collins interviewed 25 employees from participating locations to genuinely showcase the veritable faces behind the plates. The result is approachable, credible, and personable and tells the story of a tight-knit downtown that supports its community. We absolutely loved this one!

 Another example comes from Downtown Tempe (AZ) in late 2020. During the full brunt of the pandemic, the BID ran a social campaign entitled “I Mask Up Because…” and featured interviews and quotes from local business owners wearing their masks, and describing what it meant to them and the community. With varying viewpoints, perspectives, and positive impacts, the campaign put a human face (albeit a masked one) in front of the district’s fans and followers and drove additional support to their struggling businesses during some of the darkest days of the pandemic. Kudos on a personalized campaign bringing awareness and driving support to their stakeholders!

So whether you’re shooting photos or videos for your district, keep authenticity, varying viewpoints, and stakeholder support top of mind. The more real you are helps tell your story, and pays off in dividends regardless of media type.

Branding Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

When it comes to branding, oh boy, do we have a lot to say. Certain adages come to mind: “A rose by any other name…”. Or one of our co-founder’s personal faves, “Your brand is not what you say it is — it’s what others say about you when you’re not in the room,” and these are loaded statements. Let’s unpack these a little. 

 

 It’s important to remember that your brand isn’t just logos and fonts and color palettes. It’s the sum total of your reputation, how well your website functions, the types of programming, placemaking, clean and safe, and support you provide your community, and so much more. And all ego aside, your brand is what the community thinks about you, not just the narrative you try to sell. So if the community thinks parking sucks downtown, then guess what?  Parking sucks downtown. And it’s now your job to dispel the myth or drive the narrative in a different direction.

 

 To start, let’s consider community engagement. We’ve seen tons of organizations go through the process of gathering the entire team, huddling, and brainstorming. While that might work in some scenarios, a top-down approach is rarely the best. And we’ve seen examples of community backlash when they weren’t invited to the table. So what’s the best approach to starting your branding process? Community engagement, of course.

 

If the agency you select to guide you through the branding process does not include community intercept surveys, polls, face-to-face intake, or other forms of community involvement and crowdsourcing, you’re doomed to fail. Make sure there’s an entire section in their proposal before you sign the contract! And any agency worth its salt will have a clearly outlined process for this and can explain how the results inform the branding process.

 

You only know what you know, so starting with a ground-up, grass-roots intake session should affirm and validate that your mission is aligned with the community’s needs — or help you identify areas of opportunity for improvement that can be addressed in your new brand.

 

Ask the community questions like:

  • How are we doing?
  • What do you like best?
  • What should our priorities be?
  • What would make you spend more time downtown?
  • What keeps you from doing X downtown?
  • What do want to see more of?
  • I like downtown because it’s XYZ…

 

Ask lots of qualitative questions. Offer a mix of formatting styles of questions. Lists of common adjectives describing downtown, also provide invaluable insights. 

 

This type of community engagement will inform your organization and provide answers to just what people say your brand is. You may or may not like everything you learn, but the feedback should be honest and help you understand controllable aspects of your brand. It also leads to a better understanding of your constituents’ needs, wants, and barriers to entry. 

 

Bright Brothers Strategy Group uses community engagement surveys as part and parcel of our Persona Development Process. The Personas are a perfect amalgamation of qualitative and quantitative data, and can then be used for:

  • Brand development
  • Marketing and Communications strategies
  • Program development
  • Placemaking
  • Website, social, and advertising copy
  • SEO
  • Economic Development
  • Events and Activations
  • … and a whole host of related district initiatives

 

When you start your processes by asking, listening, and engaging with the community, you better understand their needs and can develop a responsive organization that is in tune with the community and meets their needs.

 

But this is just the first step in developing your brand. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a host of organizations attempt to rebrand their districts — with varying degrees of success. Your brand should be flexible, dynamic, multi-faceted, and able to connect with various communities locally and afar, and above all, be authentic. 

 

ELEMENTS

 

So you’ve done your due diligence. You’ve listened to the community, synthesized their feedback, and developed your new branding. That’s only part of the picture. What comes to mind when you think of your brand (logo, accents, font families, and color palette) is really your visual identity.  Your brand is still the total of your district and organization overall, your merchants and their associated brands, your streetscape and public realm, your level of cleanliness and attractiveness, your events, activations, and more. And overall, your website, the ratings and reviews of your district and merchants, and most importantly, the user-generated media coming out of your district are of paramount importance as well. 

 

Every photo, every video, every review and rating tagged with your district is part of your brand.  And remember that nearly 40% of Gen Z prefer TikTok and Instagram for search over Google! So that percentage gains exponential weight when you consider Millennial behaviors, Gen X actions, and more.

 

This is how people plan trips and travel now. This is how people determine where they want to live, work, shop, or relocate to. This is a significant part of your brand. And while you cannot control every aspect of every Yelp review, Facebook rating, Google My Business comment…etc. surrounding your district — you should be driving the narrative around what is controllable. Much of this starts with claiming/owning your Google My Business account for the district and actively managing it. 

 

But again, your brand is so much more than your visual identity and online text, images, and video. It goes beyond that, and one trend we kept major tabs on in the past year is sonic branding. 

 

ALL THINGS AUDIO

 

Aside from podcasts (and yes, you can easily buy media on podcasts), other audio opportunities exist as well. If you manage ads on Google, you can purchase 15-second spots (there’s that magic number again!) directly through your Google Ad Account that play as interstitials on YouTube and more.

 

Furthermore, to big brands and audio, the past few years saw some amazing innovations that will impact 2023 and beyond:

  • Gabe Alonso, who heads up digital platforms and community for PepsiCo, proposes that your brand needs to have a signature sound. From TikTok to podcasts and live audio to earworms, Gabe says that the audible element of your brand is just as important as how you look and feel. 
  • MasterCard launched a 10-layer sonic branding plan that includes numerous audio assets, and even an album of original songs.
  • Chip brand Tostitos (owned by PepsiCo) worked with a sonic branding agency to drill down to discover the brand’s signature sound, what the agency calls its “inevitable sound,” and incorporated the sounds of a salsa jar lid popping open, plus the rustling of a chip bag as parts of their sonic logo.
  • Fast-casual chain Panera developed not one, but four different versions of its new sonic logos in one-, three-, and six-second, as well as a long-form version, that all assist with brand recall and sales lift.
  • Social media management software Hootsuite launched a wild sonic logo along with a Mortal Kombat Easter Egg for fans.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation (yes, those brainy folks behind Wikipedia and more), held a competition to define The Sound of All Human Knowledge last year, in building their sonic logo. This is also a great example of community engagement with the contest.
  • Headspace and Orangetheory appointed new CMOs (Chief Music Officers) to their C-suites to invest in their sonic identities.

Email Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

Email marketing is the natural extension and progression of direct mail, a vetted marketing practice going way back into the 20th century. And as other, newer technologies emerged (e.g.  social media, digital advertising, influencers, etc.), many marketers preferred to chase the bright, new and shiny, in favor of what can and should be your number one performance marketing channel. 

 

We’re not going to posit that email marketing is “making a comeback”, because frankly it never went away. And during the pandemic, the value of custom communications to your most loyal and supportive user bases offered a socially-distanced lifeline for your organization or business. And while successful email campaigns are both part art and part science, the numbers don’t lie. A well-crafted email campaign can and should be part of your media mix for any events, activations, merchant news, and more. 

 

We love email for several reasons:

  • As mentioned above, email should be your number one performance marketing channel, and the proof is in the pudding
  • Email Lists are technically “owned media”, meaning that your lists should contain your most hardcore supporters 
  • Email is literally a digital call-to-action, and should be brief, to-the-point, and oftentimes merely a “single subject” (yes, we’re wagging our fingers at those of you who send “30-scroll websites” full of content to your lists) — especially for district event promotion

 

According to market and consumer data resource Statista, “In 2020, the global e-mail marketing market was valued at 7.5 billion U.S. dollars and the source projected that the figure would increase to 17.9 billion by 2027,” and that’s nothing to sneeze at.⁷ To make your email campaigns successful and legally compliant (and that’s a big one in 2023!), here are some things you should consider:

  • Data privacy should be a top concern for your organization. We’ve been talking about GDPR or the EU’s “General Data Protection Regulation” for years now. It went into effect in 2018 and has far-reaching implications — even in the US.⁸
  • The State of California also enacted its own stringent regulations in 2018, with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) with several amendments and expansions in provisions as recently as 2020.⁹ Enforcement began in earnest in 2022 with beauty brand Sephora paying out a whopping $1.2 million USD settlement to the state, with promises (or threats) of many more big brands coming under fire.¹⁰
  • Develop an automated drip campaign for new subscribers that consider their customer journey:
    • When and where they first sign-up (most likely that’s your website)
    • Sending a verification/opt-in email
    • Thank the subscriber by sending an authentic “thank you” email, perhaps with a gift like a $5 “Downtown Dollars” incentive
    • Set expectations for how frequently you’ll send emails to them
    • Provide contact information for your organization
    • Sending from a staff member’s name is a great way to break through to stakeholders

 

Some trends which have been around for a while now, but are expected to sizzle in 2023 include:

  • Engaging and intriguing headlines still matter
  • Inclusion of emojis in subject lines increase open rates and engagement
  • Personalization and authenticity matter. Most modern email services like MailChimp, Emma and Constant Contact offer personalization functionality
  • Marketing leader HubSpot put together a nice primer on email personalization with 23 case story examples you may want to consider.¹¹
  • User Generated Content (UGC) can help fill the gaps if you’re deficit on content (although we don’t advocate simply blasting for the sake of blasting if you have no news or a compelling CTA)
  • Artificial Intelligence seems to be popping up everywhere these days, so from managing your customer service threads, to most commonly answered questions to even developing content, the use of AI is on the rise and only expected to become more pervasive
  • Animated or interactive content within e-blasts continues to grow in popularity
  • Authenticity is still key. Don’t feel compelled to write in an overly formal manner, even if you are promoting the district. E-blasts, website copy and social media should all have an approachable, authentic, humorous or even vulnerable tone of voice, depending on the content. Write like you’re speaking to a friend, not the mayor

 

To opt in or opt out — that is the question. While we marketers typically aim to grow our numbers, followers, subscribers and metrics, a case can be made for giving subscribers the boot.

 

In general we recommend numerous points of entry for new email subscribers on your website; from static footers, to dynamic pop-ups sprinkled throughout the web experience, as best practice. 

 

Partner promotions and/or cascade promotions work extremely well. Perhaps you team up with your local CVB, chamber and a popular venue, park or business in town to collectively grow your lists with prizes or incentives. We developed one such sweepstakes promo in Tempe, AZ years ago and the list attrition was near zero years after the fact. 

 

Don’t overlook “owned sources” for list acquisition. For example, if you’re selling tickets to an event, grab the emails from EventBrite (or whichever platform you used), of those who purchased/participated and segment them as an event-specific list (you know there’s intent and affinity for future events, corollary content…etc.), and offer them an opt-in to your main list (segmented, of course).

 

Consistent list hygiene is imperative though. Most email providers tell you who’s unsubscribed or bounced, so be sure to remove those from your distro. Dead email addresses may even be costing you money, depending on your service plan.

But one of the bigger trends we’ve seen in the past year is an “opt out strategy”. Yes, you’re literally asking folks if they’d like to unsubscribe, proactively. As many as 68% of emails get deleted automatically, and for whatever the reason — maybe they’re just not that into you anymore.¹² NBD. Show them to the door. If someone no longer opens or engages with your e-blasts, they’re technically dead weight that’s just pulling down your numbers. So be kind and offer them a way out that’s not uncomfortable, and aids you in the long run. Not sure how to do that?  Check out this overview from Ann Gynn for the Content Marketing Institute on developing your unsubscribe strategy.¹³

Social Media Downtown Marketing Trends 2023

January 23, 2023

It’s a new year, and as we welcome 2023, we hope you found solace, solemnitude and joy over the holidays. Now it’s “back to the grind” for most of us, and with the new year comes a time of research and planning for the months ahead. Ardent strategists, we’re always looking ahead and keeping tabs on the trends, research and data that impact districts like yours. Within this document, we’ve rounded up themes, trends and topics we see bubbling to the top from the worlds of urban place management, destination marketing, placemaking, urban planning and economic development.

Read on for tips and tools to make your job easier, validate your direction, spark your passion and pique your curiosity — all in the name of supporting your constituents, members and ratepayers. We’re keeping this pretty high-level, so if you want to learn more, dig deeper or would like a personal consultation to discuss what this might mean for your district, please give us a shout!

 

Social Media

The “tok” is the talk of the town. Well, the whole internet, really. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Despite efforts at the federal and some local levels that ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok app from municipal phones, for place-based marketers and your constituents, it’s a place you need to be.

 

The salad days of wild growth and engagement on Facebook and Instagram are gone, and they are now what they’ve always intended to be; highly targeted advertising platforms that deliver dollars to investors and shareholders. Period. Other than Instagram Reels, you’ll need to pay to play, but explosive growth, discovery, engagement and shopping (yes, shopping — we’ll get to that in a minute), are squarely on TikTok these days.

 

And when looking across all of our clients, plus industry trends, analyst insights and anecdotal feedback from merchant marketing sessions we’ve done with districts for their ratepayers — the upside cannot be ignored. Unlike more traditional social media channels, TikTok is all about discovery, and their algorithm works to bring you unprecedented growth and visibility for your district’s stories, events and placemaking, if you play your cards right. And that doesn’t mean you need slick, polished professional video. But you do need a crafty strategy, authenticity and a willingness to dedicate time, energy and resources to this white-hot platform.  

Some things to consider with TikTok:

 

  • 53% of TikTok users are over 30¹
  • 13.6% of US TikTok users have an HHI of $75K – $100K, and a whopping 40.2% have an HHI of $100K+!¹
  • Users skew 57% female to 43% male on their gender binary¹
  • On average, TikTok users spend 95 minutes per day on the platform and open it 8 times per day¹
  • TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to immediately purchase something they discovered on the platform compared to other social media platform users¹
  • TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to convince a friend or family member to buy a product they’ve seen on the app¹
  • TikTok users are 2.4x more likely to create a post and tag a brand after buying a product¹
  • 67% of users says that TikTok inspires them to shop — even when they weren’t planning to do so²
  • 40% of Gen Z users prefer using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google³
  • And anecdotally, we’ve gotten feedback from small businesses who attended our merchant marketing sessions who told us:
    • “I gained 12K+ followers in the past 24 hours!”
    • See next page for a case story!

 

STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT

Bright Brothers hosted a merchant marketing session for one of our downtown client’s stakeholders that focused on connecting with Gen Z, as well as best practices for TikTok. Soon after, we received the following, lovely email full of thanks and praise from one of the district’s small businesses:

 

“I started my account a day or two after your workshop. I didn’t link any accounts or use my contacts to find friends, so I started completely from scratch. About a month in, I started making bag sales online almost every day. Previously, I almost never had online bag sales. This past weekend one of my videos kind of took off, and I sold 30 bags in about 48hrs.

The video got over 100k views over the weekend and it seemed like everytime I refreshed my email, there was another order notification.

The craziest part is that I’ve spent 11 years making photos and videos for Facebook, IG, and YouTube and never have come close to getting any kind of traction like I’ve gotten with TikTok–literally in less than 3 months from opening my account.

Anyways, I just wanted to take a minute to tell you that I am singing your praises to people a couple times a day, and I have no idea how I’m going to fulfill all the orders.”

That’s a GOOD problem to have! 

*Courtesy of Werther Leather Goods, Norfolk, VA

 

TWITTER KILLER?

Despite all the brouhaha about the future of Twitter, the staple social networking service is limping along after business magnate Elon Musk finally acquired it in late October 2022. Since that time, it’s been a rocky road for the 280-character-long platform. Musk’s volatile takeover has included a back-to-office order that didn’t sit well with many employees, a mass exodus of staff and brain trust at nearly every level internally, a diaspora of advertisers resulting in millions in lost revenue, and thousands of users fleeing (or looking to leave) the formerly-favored platform.

 

But what comes next? There’s no clear consensus. With myriad upstart start-ups looking to take a bite out of Twitter’s market share, many are racing to bring betas to market and grow their user bases, including open source and collaborative communities like Mastodon, Post and others. 

 

Additionally, formerly-abandoned industry-leading apps like Tumblr (which experienced massive fallout and fell out of favor after the enforcement of stricter content policies surrounding adult content in 2018), are now seeing an upswing in users fleeing Twitter. Case in point, as reported by Tech.co in November 2022, “Tumblr, a still widely-used but ultimately more historical social media platform, saw 301,000 post-acquisition downloads compared to 170,000 for the same period beforehand.”⁴

 

Some, like WIRED’s Morgan Meaker posit that LinkedIn is the way to go, and Marketing Brew’s Jack Appleby put out some quantifiably discerning stats regarding cross-posting from Twitter to LinkedIn — and looked at the exponentially positive numbers he saw on the professional networking platform.⁵,⁶  

 

At the end of the day, there’s still no clear “Twitter killer” (aside from Musk himself), and the drama will continue to unfold, so any singular replacement probably remains to be seen in 2023.

 

 

Downtown Recovery Trends Summer 2021

June 2, 2021

DISTRICTS ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS, BUT MANY BUSINESSES AND CUSTOMERS AREN’T PREPARED. Marketing and communication are only part of the solution: Strong districts need to keep their stakeholders on track and create sustained enthusiasm.

 

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

There’s enormous pressure on districts from governments, boards, and businesses to create “Open for Business” campaigns, and many of us are using that phrase internally. It can be counter-productive to give visitors the impression that the district ever closed, and it minimizes the work of every stakeholder who worked hard to survive this past year. Districts have used “we” language and messages about the community coming together- now is the time to celebrate that community! Share creative, inspiring, and even difficult stories from the past year to thank your community, keep the enthusiasm going, and demonstrate that this summer will be even more exciting.

The limits of the past year made us all think creatively. Many annual events were scaled down and districts experimented with smaller events and activations that were often even more successful. In districts of every size, we saw smaller events draw as much as – or more! – interest than the larger events of the past. Big events may have a big payoff, but we know they’re risky and this isn’t a good time to put all our eggs in one basket. Staying small and nimble makes it easier to tailor events to specific audiences, work with limited budgets and buy-in, and react quickly if there are difficulties ahead.

 

KEEP THE PARTY GOING

Even if we schedule fewer large events, it’s still critical to bring the same number of people to our districts and to create the sense of energy we want everyone to feel. Some states have loosened alcohol laws to allow all restaurants and bars to offer to-go drinks. Others have picked up the beer garden trend and will allow open carry in designated zones. It’s still a party- just more safely distanced.

 

BACK TO WORK

When the finish line is in sight, some people push themselves even harder, while others think “finally!” and begin to relax. Our business owners are exhausted, but we can’t let them return to business as usual or to feel discouraged by small setbacks. Communication is as important as ever, and we’re seeing many more districts investing in tools to report how business is booming; just because a business had a bad week, they need to know it was just a fluke and that the district is still busier than ever. This season, tourists and downtown employees are the numbers to watch.

Seasonal leisure tourism is within a few points of where it was in 2019, which bodes well for your attractions and can help keep the lights on at some hotels. If you can, ask your tourism organization to share their STR report with you. You can also use free tools like Google Analytics. Analytics doesn’t just show you how many visitors you have, but what city they’re coming from and whether they’re business travelers, family travelers, and more. If tourism is critical, Facebook Ads can target people who are planning to travel, so you can get your message in front of them before they even arrive.

Office workers can be a bit trickier to measure cheaply. Google Analytics can show you the time of day people visited the site; one useful metric is to track the number of people in the city who visit the site during lunch hours.

Audio Trends for Downtowns April 2021

April 13, 2021

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

As we reported in our COVID Cliffs Notes Edition 26, Week 53, “everything audio” is poppin’ off in a big way right now. Across multiple verticals and industries, we see audio play out in interesting ways, so we’re taking a deeper dive look at this trend that’s literally music to our ears.

Did You Know?

  • Our hearing is always on. When we sleep, our brain can filter out sounds and respond only when we perceive a threatening noise.
  • The University of Newcastle in Australia documented the most unpleasant sounds for humans (TW: just reading the descriptions can literally make your skin crawl), including some neck hair-raisers like an electric drill, a baby crying, chalk on a blackboard, rusty swing chains, a person retching, a knife scraping against a bottle, a fork scratching on a plate, a ruler on a bottle, nails on a blackboard, or our own personal hell; two pieces of Styrofoam rubbing together.
  • The vestibular system, responsible for maintaining equilibrium, is in the inner ear. In fact, most cases of vertigo lie within the auditory system.

FUNCTIONALITY OVER FORM

In a laudable, audible effort, those crafty deities of Swedish home décor over at IKEA have dispensed with their ever-popular paper, print catalog, and gone full-blown digital this year. Northern Europeans tend to drive the cutting edge of eco in many aspects of lifestyle, and IKEA should be commended on two fronts for this dramatic pivot:

First, the reduction in paper waste and killed trees is meritorious on multiple levels. We’re more than a fifth of the way through the twenty-first century, and digital means should trump wasteful paper and toxic ink footprints in any and every scenario imaginable. It’s estimated that IKEA will save about 450,000 tons of paper annually by offering a digital-only catalog, and that alone is impressive.

Secondly, the savvy Scandinavians should be applauded for keeping au courant not only with a visual “look book” style virtual catalog (which mirrors the handheld experience) but the global brand is on-trend with a contactless, convenient, hands-free audiobook; chockful of style inspo, auditory tidbits, and vibrant product descriptions. Some have even commented that the cool voiceovers are akin to ASMR sleepy time tactics to quell and calm the brain at bedtime. Give a listen on Spotify, Audiobooks.com, or YouTube.

LISTEN HERE

DROP-IN AUDIO

Bright Brothers Strategy Group sees an increase in audible initiatives everywhere, like the new audio-based social media platform Clubhouse. According to its website, “Clubhouse is a new type of social network based on voice—where people around the world come together to talk, listen and learn from each other in real-time.” 

The invite-only entity has risen to prominence due to its purposeful exclusivity (although that may change soon, and iPhone users may download the app and join a waiting list), and celebrity usage by the likes of Drake, Kevin Hart, Ashton Kutcher, Oprah, Chris Rock – and even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. While its seemingly elite member base seems unattainable to us commoners, the New York Times reported that the toney talkers already boasted 600,000 registered users in December 2020 and have been courting influencers.

Vogue magazine gave us a sneak peek, calling the experience “a dizzying bringing together of live podcast-style conversations, panel discussions, networking opportunities (some savvy people are already swapping ‘influencer’ for ‘moderator’) and advantageous multiple-room use (locked and private options are available so you can talk to pals too), the social-media app mimics real-life interactions.”

The first rule of Clubhouse is that the audio itself never leaves the app. Conversations are not recorded or saved. More to follow as this platform matures.

AUDIO KILLED THE DIGITAL STAR

Marketers have been talking about podcasts for well over a decade now, but the lesser-used cousin of visual media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest is seemingly coming into its own, pushed to prominence by, you guessed it; the pandemic.

Since “shelter-in-place” and “safer-at-home” orders virtually decimated the traditional rush-hour commute in many places with mandatory lockdowns, entire populations found themselves with more and varied time on their hands to lend an ear to podcasts. 

Some interesting facts:

  • A MARU/Matchbox survey conducted in July 2020 showed that since coronavirus hit, 41% of weekly podcast listeners report they are spending more time listening to on-demand audio content. That equates to 4X more than the seven percent who said they are listening less.
  • Of those who listen to six or more hours per week — 46% said they are spending more time with podcasts.
  • The fastest-growing segments of heavy podcast listeners are women, Millennials aged 18-34, and newer listeners.
  • The top reasons weekly podcast listeners tune in to podcasts are to be entertained and to learn.

52% of weekly podcast listeners learn about new podcasts via social media

Among weekly podcast listeners who use social media, 63% follow their favorite podcast hosts on Instagram:

We only know of one district that produced their own podcast (and it’s phenomenal)!  The “Hey Baltimore!” podcast was produced by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and includes a variety of local guests and astounding insider takes on the city’s vibrant district.

THE SWEET SOUND OF BRAND LIFT

YouTube is taking on Spotify head-to-head (or ear-to-ear, as it were), with 15-second audio ads. During the pandemic,  listenership has increased, with as many as 3 million people using YouTube as background playlists. The Google-owned video giant has launched 15-second audio ads that include a static image or simple animation, with a clickable area if the user is paying attention and wants to explore the advertisement to leverage those listeners.

Audio ads are still in beta and available on Google Ads and Display & Video 360 with the same audience-targeting as video campaigns. The audio-only ads include a static image or simple animation that’s clickable if the user wants to explore the advertisement.

YouTube ran tests and found a significant boost in brand awareness for those who participated. Shutterfly, for example, saw a 14% increase in ad recall lift after using YouTube audio ads, and YouTube boasts that 75% of audio ad campaigns saw a significant boost in brand lift.

Plus, the auction-based nature makes the ads a good fit for PMDs that already include Google SEM as part of their paid media tactics. Learn more at https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10227746

Downtown Recovery Trends March 2021

April 13, 2021

ONE YEAR AFTER THE FIRST SHUTDOWNS, THE FINISH LINE IS IN SIGHT for districts and small businesses. The vaccine and warmer weather are already encouraging more people outside, but there are still many long months to survive.

RESTAURANTS

The ghost kitchen trend – where restaurants share kitchen space and often exist only online – is going into overdrive as restaurants prepare for a post-pandemic rush. This can be a lifeline for restaurants that have had to cut back on staff, as well as empty kitchens. There’s an enormous amount of investment money out there ($1trillion in the next decade), so we’re seeing some restaurants forming cooperatives to share a ghost kitchen. These kitchens also serve as incubators for startup concepts that aren’t ready for brick-and-mortar. For downtowns with new vacancies, supporting ghost kitchens and incubators can be a worthy investment.

Family-style options are tapering off fast, after being a staple of takeout during the pandemic. Guests are again demanding the dishes and cuisines they enjoyed before, and more restaurants are mastering the ability to quickly customize dishes again.

Technology for takeout is now ubiquitous, even among the smallest restaurants. GPS is built into most ordering apps so that food can be delivered to the car at precisely the right time, with minimal trips back to the kitchen.

By far the biggest trend that restaurants are still wrestling with are delivery fees. Some cities have capped delivery fees, while other apps (like Square) advertise no delivery fees for restaurants. As more drivers return to work, we expect to see delivery services competing to lower fees even further.

VACCINE VERIFICATION

Some businesses have begun experimenting with allowing employees and customers with vaccine verification cards more leeway. While this is still generally illegal and unsafe, some people report it helps them feel safer. New digital cards are rolling out now that are harder to counterfeit, so we expect to see even more people trying to use them as proof that they don’t need to follow the rules. Districts are encouraged to work with their counsel to create and distribute guidelines for businesses.

GOING V-SHAPED

The economy is already starting to go V-shaped: a sharp rise after a sharp fall. With plenty of investment money to go around, small businesses that can fill your vacancies may have the capital… but they’re no more sophisticated than before. Districts that don’t yet have a small business specialist and step-by-step collateral are strongly encouraged to hire or train someone to get small businesses online as quickly as possible before the chains move in, and the district loses its uniqueness.

CITY INNOVATION

Now is the time to create a wish list of things you want from your city. Cities are in the mood to be more progressive and innovative now that recovery has begun. Ask all of your departments for their wish list items. Some examples that we’ve seen consistently funded across the country are free/reduced fees for police/parking/fees for street closures and events, public art, expanded housing and services for the homeless, and street beautification. Don’t be shy; investing in lobbying now can save you millions.

Downtown Recovery Trends January 2021

January 11, 2021

JANUARY IS OFTEN THE HARDEST TIME OF YEAR for small businesses, but difficult times have sparked a golden age of business creativity.

RESTAURANTS

Savvy restaurants are taking a cue from the weather and providing fridge and freezer-ready meals. When guests order takeout or delivery, they’re encouraged to stock up for lunches or days they don’t want to venture out. Many dishes from the regular menu are best served fresh, but restaurants can create simpler dishes “inspired” by popular menu items. Market this menu as an upsell and an extra way to show that the restaurant cares about their guests.

Personal stories about business owners and employees have performed exceptionally well during the pandemic. People who need help are happier when they help others. Beyond sharing stories on social media, we’re seeing more owners and chefs becoming more actively involved in the front of the house, bringing out to-go orders or even (occasionally) delivering food themselves! These moments of personal connection create lasting loyalty. Most guests will share the moment with friends or post a review if asked.

Speaking of personal asks, some restaurants are straight-forwardly asking people who order online to order a pricier dish or bottle of wine and explaining that it helps the restaurant stay open. Many guests are happy to treat themselves to a steak while feeling good about helping.

Bars that count on full houses during football and basketball games are taking a page from clubs and selling modestly-priced “VIP booth” experiences to groups. It keeps the energy high, helps keep tables filled and distanced, and can be easily scaled so as not to offend regulars.

TRAVELING TOGETHER

Leisure travel is still predicted to pick up in Q1, and most families are expected to vacation more in 2021. Most of these vacations will be to places where nature is the main attraction, but many trips will include visits to family members they haven’t seen for a year. Businesses that rely on tourism should take stock of what they can offer to families and speak to their needs. “Free for kids” offers will perform especially well.

Pods of families will also traveling together, often for multi-week trips, which can provide unique challenges for places with occupancy restrictions. Some hotels have begun experimenting with selling blocks to bleisure travelers; it can be reassuring for families to know they’ll have a whole wing or floor to themselves. Others have created additional business centers that cater to kids in school as well as their parents who work remotely.

CONFRONTATIONS

Not every customer is happy about COVID restrictions – or their stress level is just high that day – and they can take that out on employees or in reviews. Don’t respond to the reviewer directly. Instead remind the readers of the review that tensions may be higher than usual, but don’t apologize or equivocate on your team’s safety. Not only do the vast majority of people understand that restrictions aren’t your fault, but it can help reduce the number of unpleasant customers.

MEDIA PARTNERS

The media is increasingly taking a more proactive role in promoting local businesses rather than treating PR as competition to advertising. In Paris, news sites feature a large banner at the top encouraging readers to support specific businesses that need the help. Alberta has even gotten local weather forecasters to find creative, upbeat ways to talk about the freezing weather!