7.3. HRSR 01-07-2019
Request for Action
To Item Number
Housing and Redevelopment Authority 7.3
Agenda Section Meeting Date Prepared by
General Business January 7, 2019 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:
Facilitated two informational meetings with CMHP in 2018 at city hall and attracted two new
applications. In the first quarter, a direct mailing was sent to homeowners in the targeted area. The
mailing was an invitation to attend the April informational meeting.
EDA/HRA Website:
Working with Golden Shovel Agency on news feed content. They increased social media posts and news
articles on housing and the rehabilitation loan program through the end of December.
Advertising:
A full-color, quarter-page ad ran in the Elk River Star News to promote the informational meetings. A full
color Rehabilitation Loan Program ad ran in November and December.
The HRA will once again be highlighted in the 2019 Elk River Area Chamber Community Guide. The
guide is expected to be distributed in December of 2018.
Video:
We’re working with the cable coordinator and sr. communications coordinator to update the HRA Loan
Program video which will be aired on the HRA website, the city’s YouTube page, and on social media.
Projected for 2019:
We’ll promote the rehab loan program through informational meetings and full color Elk River Star News
ads.
Financial Impact
Funding for marketing and advertising are included in the 2018/19 budgets.
Attachments
rd
3 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
Q3 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?
Golden Shovel Agency’s third quarter was busy,exciting
and with plenty of great events!Our team has been
working hard to stay on top of the most current economic
development strategies and trends.As usual,every
quarter we strive to bring you cutting edge updates and
new tools for your website.We have again focused on
different areas this quarter and all of these developments
and upgrades are available to you at no extra charge.
Some of the new pieces are:
Here is a list of the new pieces and they were all developed to make your website more stronger, efficient and
responsive, providing your visitors with a better user experience:
●'Faces' Staff Template: A new template for the staff module was created. It features a photo grid layout
on the landing page and fellow department/category members highlighted on the detail page.
●View All Pages Admin Option: Functionality allowing admins to view all pages owned by a site and see
key attributes in a one-page view was built.
●OG Improvements: A site-wide og:image field was implemented (with accompanying mass update
functionality) to make it easier to keep up with standards changes by social media platforms.
●Menu Updates: The menu was updated to show restricted pages to logged-in users.
●Business Directory Categories Export: The Business Directory Categories template has had a
front-end Export added allowing the user to download the contact info of all businesses. This feature is
only available in this template, and will only be added upon request.
●Miscellaneous items:
○Support for the Vimeo, NextDoor and SlideShare social media platforms was added to the Custom
Links section.
○Country and Region address fields were reconfigured to allow them to be hidden upon request.
○The Site's 'Update All Banners' functionality has been modified to include a warning message and
require confirmation before the change is applied.
○The Page cache has been updated to auto-purge when changes are saved to page content, thus
bypassing delays in viewing content updates on the front-end.
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The above listed developments are all for sites under the 2.0 platform. Feel free to get in touch with your
Gatekeeper representative to go over the specific improvements available for your website. Rest assured that
our team will continue working on more improvements for your website and of course, we have many exciting
developments planned that we look forward to bringing to our clients...we’ll keep you posted!
Where have we been lately?
Third quarter was undoubtedly full of exciting events. We
love traveling across the country, attending conferences
and other events where we can learn and stay on top of
the new trends and best practices in the economic
development field, while at the same time, is a great
opportunity for us to reconnect with customers and
friends. Our ultimate goal is to provide you with the most
relevant and valuable information, helping you to present
your organization in its best light. The following are some
of the events we attended last quarter:
●2018 SEDC Annual Conference Mobile, AL.
●Arkansas Economic Developers & Chamber Executives (AEDCE) Annual Conference - Fayetteville, AR.
●MEDA Fall Unconference - Missoula, MT.
●IEDC 2018 Annual Conference - Atlanta, GA.
We are planning on attending several conferences in this 4th quarter. We just got back from the IEDC Annual
Conference in Atlanta and will be attending the NREDA Annual Conference in November and the
Mid-America EDC Competitiveness Conference in December. If you are attending any of these events as
well, be sure to let us know. We would love to connect with you!
Don’t get behind!
Everyday there is something new out there and because
technology evolves at lightspeed and strategies change,
you need to adapt. Our expert webinar series is a valuable
resource for you to learn about the most recent trends in
the industry, and our webinars are available to you at no
cost. Last quarter we hosted the following sessions:
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●Somewhere Between Site Selection and Storytelling: 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 the changing
trends is even more important. In this Webinar team members from Golden Shovel discussed the changes
in site selection and how an EDO can stay on top of the curve with storytelling. Did you miss the live
session? Watch the recording here!
●Catching the Lead: Tools and Best Practices: 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!
You can watch the recording here!
●Building a Strategy Framework in Five Minutes: In this webinar, Golden Shovel’s Marketing Director,
Kirstie McPherson walked through how to create a simple strategy framework in five steps: this process is
critical to building a successful plan. Your organization's strategy should start with five basic components:
purpose and goals, advantage, target, marketing, and lastly, niche. These components, if built correctly,
can provide a solid framework for use in grant writing, business attraction and workforce campaigns as
well as internal stakeholder communication. Watch the recording here!
●Site Selection - Mitigating Risks Through Documentation: In the world of corporate site selection, three
decisive factors come into play: Location, Real Estate and People. Site certification is all about proof that a
plan is in place mitigating a variety of risks associated with a specific site. In this webinar, Dean Barber,
Principal of Barber Business Advisors (BBA) , offered an overview of the different stages for site
certification and how to achieve the process of building the necessary documentation. Click here for the
recording!
Save your seat for our upcoming Free Expert Webinars!
Trends in Workforce Attraction - How One Toolkit Can Change Your Perspective
Workforce attraction is crucial in economic development - without the workforce and enough
potential employees - your business attraction can suffer. What does workforce attraction
actually mean? What are companies actually looking for here when deciding where to locate?
And more importantly, how do you even find this potential workforce? It all starts with
understanding the trends in the current workforce system -- how many people use just their
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phones to apply for jobs? What is the actual unemployment number and what does that mean?
In this cutting edge webinar we will discuss these trends and show you have to use and build your own toolkit
for workforce attraction. The webinar will be October 18th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT and registration is free,
but space is limited. Save your seat here!
How To Follow Up With a Lead
They visited your website ten times -- what do you do next? In this webinar we will discuss
how to initially open up the dialogue with a potential business looking at moving to your
area. Items such as communication tactics, follow-up, and turning the lead into a deal will be
discussed with experts in sales and economic development showing you just how to
capture the lead. The webinar will be November 8th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST and
registration is free, but space is limited. Save your seat here!
How to build a successful website strategy?
A successful community awareness campaign begins with a
robust content management strategy with strategic SEO
processes, and to become relevant in your industry, you
need to provide others with value and remarkable content.
Content is king, and quality content can significantly help
you improve your overall results and get the best out of your
marketing efforts.
Don't make your content about you, make it about your
audience: While it is true that metrics can play an important role for an organization and help to better
understand how things work, creating and sharing great content is an essential piece for building trust with your
audience. Golden Shovel Agency clients that see consistent growth in their website traffic, regularly share
success stories and relevant content to build a following. Our conclusion? Remarkable content and community
awareness is the key for a successful website strategy.
Lastly, don’t forget that social media is a great outlet for amplifying your online presence. if you have a success
story from your website or social media, we would love to hear about it! Let us celebrate your successes with
you! Here is to a thriving 4th Quarter of 2018!
Stay connected,
The Golden Shovel Team.
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Metrics
The following data and metrics will provide you with an overview of your website’s
performance through Q3 2018, so you can make any necessary adjustments and get the
most out of your website strategy.
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Most Visited Pages
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Visitors Acquisition Channels
Visits by State and City (Top 10)
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Total Visitors : 673
New: 634
Returning: 39
Rank by Keywords
●Elk river economic
development: #1 of
6,400,000 pages
●Elk river economic
growth: # 1 of
4,340,000 pages
851 Followers
(vs. 850 in Q2 )
850 Likes
(vs. 843 in Q2)
251 Followers
(vs. 248 in Q2)
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