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7.3. HRSR 08-06-2018Request for Action To Item Number Housing and Redevelopment Authority 7.3 Agenda Section Meeting Date Prepared by General Business August 6, 2018 Colleen Eddy, Economic Development Specialist Item Description Reviewed by Marketing Update Amanda Othoudt, EDD Reviewed by Cal Portner, City Administrator Action Requested Item presented for information. Background/Discussion Informational Marketing Meetings: We will hold another informational meeting with Central Minnesota Housing Partnership in late September featuring testimonials from current and past program participants. In the first quarter, one direct mailing was sent to homeowners in the targeted area. The mailing was an invitation to attend the April informational meeting. EDA/HRA Website: Staff continues to work with Golden Shovel Agency on content that populates the news feed. Golden Shovel has increased social media posts and news articles on housing and the rehabilitation loan program. Advertising: We will place full-color, quarter-page ads in the August and September Star News editions to promote the fall informational meeting and rehabilitation loan program. The HRA will once again be highlighted in the 2019 Elk River Area Chamber Community Guide. The guide is expected to be distributed in November of 2018. Video: We are working with Cable Coordinator Jake Pace and Senior Communications Coordinator Kaylin Clement to update the HRA Loan Program video, which will be aired on the HRA website, the city’s YouTube page, and social media outlets. Financial Impact Funding for marketing and advertising are included in the 2018 budget Attachments nd  2 Quarter Google Analytics Report The Elk River Vision A welcoming community with revolutionary and spirited resourcefulness, exceptional service, and community engagement that encourages and inspires prosperity Prepared for City of Elk River Economic Development Quarterly Analytics Report Q2 2018 Golden Shovel Agency 43 East Broadway Street Little Falls, MN 56345 Phone: (320) 639-0110 Toll Free: (888) 266-4778 www.GoldenShovelAgency.com Confidential: This report is intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential information. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this document is strictly prohibited. Website: City of Elk River Economic Development | http://econdev.elkrivermn.gov ______________________________________________________________________________ What’s new for your Economic Gateway Website? Second quarter of the year is now over and Golden Shovel has again been diligently working on making your website better and easier for you to use and at the same time, provide you with the most efficient technology so your community always looks outstanding. We have been listening to our clients requests and needs and we’re working on providing you with more responsive tools and opportunities, this way helping your organization meet market demands. As usual, all of these developments and upgrades are available to you at no extra charge. Here is a list of improvements and enhancements developed this quarter, though some of them are not highly visible from the front end perspective, they were all developed to make your website stronger and even more responsive than before: ●All modules in the 1.0 system with a video field have been upgraded to allow Vimeo video links (in addition to the existing permitted mp4 files and YouTube video links). ●The Business Directory Categories template layout in 2.0 was modified to give more scope to the landing customization and better expose all content on the detail pages. The map indexing has been modified to render pagination optional (with the default being to show all listings on the same page). ●The Resource Manager template has migrated to the 2.0 system and is now available as an alternative to the grid/stripe template. ●The Resource Library's Photo Gallery template in 2.0 has had a categories view added (set-up available upon request) for those who wish to organize their photos into different sections. ●2.0 sites now include automatic generation of a search-engine-friendly site map XML file which will be dynamically maintained. ●The admin category field in all 2.0 modules has modified to provide suggestions of existing categories to the populator as they begin typing. In addition, categories in the admin feature a more legible tag-like interface and categories can be removed with a single click. ●A good number of admin and infrastructure updates/upgrades have been made to the 2.0 system to improve performance and make the system more user-friendly and versatile. Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 1 Some of the above listed developments may have been implemented on your website already, depending if it is under the 1.0 or 2.0 platform and you can get in touch with your Gatekeeper representative to go over the specific improvements available for your website. We also have more developments planned for the second half of the year and we will share them with you through our newsletters and other communication channels. Where have we been lately? We have been active and traveling across the country, attending several summits and conferences with the main goal of staying on top of the new trends and best practices in the industry. These activities allows our team to provide you with the most current information that will help to present your organization in its best light. The following are some of the events we attended this quarter: ●USDA Rural Development Conference Murfreesboro, TN. ●Mid America EDC 2018 Best Practices Conference - Des Moines, IA. ●Kentucky Association for Economic Development - Collaboration Conference - Lexington, KY. ●International Council of Shopping Centers mic Development (ICSC) - RECon The Global Retail Real Estate Convention - Las Vegas, NV. ●Select USA - Investment Summit - Washington, DC. ●Economic Development Association of MInnesota 2018 Summer Conference - NIsswa, MN. Don’t get behind! There is always something new out there! Technology evolves everyday and strategies change and you need to adapt. Our expert webinar series is always a valuable resource, and available to you at no cost. Our sessions are planned and prepared to keep you informed of economic development trends and cutting-edge technologies. This quarter we hosted some really good sessions including the following: ●“What Kind of Economic Developer Do You Want To Be?” - We recognize how busy economic Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 2 developers can be and we know the job is demanding. We wanted to offer the opportunity for you to just listen and learn and take a little time for yourself to hear from your peers. In this webinar, Golden Shovel Agency introduced a panel of economic developers who have experienced success and are leading their communities through growth and transformation. This was a great opportunity for some personal growth without having to travel to a conference or take time away and each economic developer had the chance to tell its own story. Did you miss the live session? Watch the recording here! ●“Advance SEO for Economic Developers: A Look Behind the Curtain” - Advanced SEO involves a complex process that begins with a content strategy. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is for a website to pull up at the top of an organic search. With so many websites available, Google spiders have to crawl websites to determine what they are about and then to determine if a site is authoritative/valuable or not. This allows them to make an instant determination as to which site is going to be provide someone with the information they are search for. So, what matters when it comes to SEO? Golden Shovel Agency took the lead to demystify advance SEO and also shared content strategies on this free webinar. Watch the recording here! ●“Attracting a Millennial Workforce” - Communities around the nation are continually asking themselves the same question: how do we attract, engage, and keep a millennial workforce? In this expert webinar, Kirstie McPherson, Director of Marketing of Golden Shovel, presented about how to actively engage millennials in your community while working to attract new ones. This webinar covered a wide variety of generational tools that you can use to better engage, attract, and retain, millennials in your workforce. Watch the recording here! ●“Immersive Video for Economic Development” - How do you reach a CEO sitting in a boardroom, a thousand miles away or across the world? How do you capture the imagination and attention of a site developer sitting at their mahogany desk, sifting through a mile-high stack of proposals? Elite communities have discovered the answer – virtual reality. In this webinar, you can learn how 360 VR technology is being used by economic developers as a business and workforce attraction tool. Watch the recording here! Save your seat for our upcoming Free Expert Webinars! “Somewhere Between Site Selection and Storytelling” July 12th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT Economic development organizations face hard choices. To encourage investment and job growth, they must make certain decisions. They cannot be all things to all people. To a large degree, an EDO must bet on certain aspects of a community to be effective. Site selection is a changing landscape, staying on top of the current trends and features is important for your local economic development. Knowing how to tell the story to match Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 3 the changing trends is even more important. In this Webinar team members from Golden Shovel will discuss the changes in site selection and how an EDO can stay on top of the curve with storytelling. Registration is free, but space is limited. Save your seat today! Registration is free, but space is limited. Register here and save your seat today! “Catching the Lead: Tools and Best Practices” July 26th, 11:00 AM - 12 :00 PM CDT Where do leads come from? Where do they go? In this webinar we will lead you through a discussion about how to best attract leads, and how to track them, as well as what to do once you have them. Focusing on best practices and tools, this webinar is for any EDO! Register here and save your seat today! So, now we are well into Summer and communities across the country are looking their best. Good time to get out and shoot some great photos that will keep your web presence warm over the winter. Have a successful third quarter and an eventful summer! Stay connected, The Golden Shovel Team. Community Awareness is the best Website Strategy Building a successful community awareness campaign begins with a robust content management strategy with strategic SEO processes. Even when metrics can play an important role for an organization and for many cases, help to better understand how things work, Golden Shovel Agency clients that see the most growth in their website traffic, regularly send out success stories and relevant content to build a following. Our conclusion? We believe community awareness is the key for a successful website strategy. Metrics The goal of the following metrics is to provide you with an overview of your website’s performance through Q2 2018, so you can make any necessary adjustments and get the most out of your website strategy. Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 4 Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 5 Most Visited Pages Visitors Acquisition Channels Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 6 Visits by State and City (Top 10) Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 7 Total Visitors : 680 New: 633 Returning: 47 Rank by Keywords ●Elk river economic development: #1 of 325,000 pages ●Elk river economic growth: # 1 of 189,000 pages 850 Followers (vs. 832 in Q4 ) 843 Likes (vs. 831 in Q1) 248 Followers (vs. 244 in Q4) Golden Shovel Agency Groundbreaking Economic Development Communications Page 8