Prepared on 12/18/17 exclusively for City Heights Economic Development Coalition s

Transcription

1 Prepared on exclusively for City Heights Economic Development Coalition s Fair@44

2 Developing an effective, replicable, consistent promotion plan for City Heights Economic Development Collaborative s Fair@44. Target Market Brand Positioning Local Residents: Residents living in City Heights and surrounding neighborhoods. What they need to hear: A consistent and compelling mix of well-defined special events, repeatedly extended invitations to gather, along with space education and ongoing vendor offerings. Visitors: Individuals from around San Diego and beyond who travel to City Heights for business and services, along with people from all over who enjoy unique cultural gatherings in open spaces. What they need to hear: Specialty, on-trend offerings. Introductions to unique people, experiences, and products. Also important: ease of accessibility (street parking, freeway access). Located on El Cajon Boulevard, between Fairmount Ave at 44th St, Fair@44 is positioned as a flexible space available to springboard economic development via micro-businesses, as well as a flexible, adaptable outdoor space to host community events. Goals Create increased awareness and foot traffic, along with underscoring the Fair@44 space as a place-making effort. 001

3 Calendar General Calendar - Creating a general calendar that all relevant stakeholders can access/upload to. Each event should have a title, location of time range, and cost. Example: Featured Events - Any special events/programming that merit a PR component should be determined as a Featured Event and be promoted as such (meaning: extra time/efforts should be allocated to this event). For instance, a specific individual should be tasked with writing event description, sourcing a social media post and editorial photo, and creating a press release for distribution to local groups. Ongoing, Category Events - To cut down on workload, these events can be repeatable with stock descriptions. Event Promotion 5 Steps for Effective Event Promotion of Your Events: 1) Create - event package including details, imagery 2) Upload - to calendar and community calendars 3) Send out press releases with specific interview contact 4) Follow up with outlets - i.e. if they can t place in print, ask for them to paste 5) Send pre-weekend reminders - the Monday before, send reminder and follow-up, literally give them what you want them to post/use Additional Ways to Communicate: Quarterly Events Updates - Built to send out to your local partners and media. Monthly Events Updates - Built to send out to your local partners and media - to heads of Facebook pages Promotional Timelines: Featured Events - 10 weeks of promotion time Ongoing, Category Events - 6 weeks of promotion time Establish Editorial Calendar - Ask local press outlets for print & deadlines Mid City Newspaper Group, SD Reader, Speak City Heights, CityBeat, Jazz 88.3, KPBS, Azalea Park newsletter, etc.) when their deadlines are and put into your editorial calendar. 002

4 Additional Make use of countdowns - Rather than just using your efforts to build awareness of an event, use event countdown strategy: promoting days until event/event benefit/time/date/cost. These types of repeated content reinforces an event without causing the viewer to block it out from over-exposure. Paid Social Media Audience Building - After creating your event information, set a budget of at least $800/mo to spend on promoting your events for at least 12 weeks. During this time you ll focus on building audiences, retargeting, and finding out who converts. A strong partner will also have creative strategies to check your success (via event check-ins, etc.) Recommendation: laraeastburn.com Utilize - By cleaning up and developing specific lists (internal, external, press, local schools) as well as inventorying local partners with responsive s lists ( Video for Promotion - Instead of retrospective video, consider utilizing shorter (30 sec) videos to promote upcoming events. Vendor Recruitment Campaigns - Instead of retrospective video, consider utilizing shorter (30 sec) videos to promote upcoming events. 003

5 Overall Messaging Determine Messaging Focus After you have traction and a system down, there is the excellent potential of moving into stronger messaging. Positively defining the Fair@44 with a bold, consistent title/tagline that you can include and underscore in all types of branding. One of the challenges that the City Heights neighborhood has is the lack of a narrative of what the neighborhood offers and what it stands for. Fair@44 has an opportunity to use messaging to test this space and opportunity. Something like San Diego s Outdoor World Market, when dovetailed with a complementary, larger City Heights narrative may be one avenue to explore. There is a great deal of messaging potential with Fair@44 - which is a fantastic challenge to have! It means there s a lot to talk about. In order to meet your goals, it s recommended you determine key messaging goals that reflect the project s goals, alongside what your target markets want to hear. Key Messaging Suggestions These are by no means comprehensive or final, but a selection of words that can serve to facilitate your goals. We ve scouted the kitchens of our finest local chefs, and are bringing them to you! Focusing on the selection of the vendors adds an exciting appeal - that Fair@44 is discovering hidden talent - and from the local neighborhood. Dine the world, hear the sounds, experience global new beginnings. Using this message for features on events, music, and placemaking. This can also be used for event photos, sunsets, and cultural firsts (outlined below). A story at every booth. Using this messaging to cover the food, stories, and also the successes behind the economic-development initiative aspect of the project. 004

6 Campaigns / continued Vendor Recruitment - Running quarterly Vendor Recruitment campaigns to showcase the success stories of vendors and opportunities for home cooks to create their thriving businesses at Fair@44. Guest Chef - Offering the opportunity to have a local celebrity chef partner with a vendor as sous chef for the day. Each chef would be there to apprentice alongside the vendor, sharing their learnings. Put together a 4 week communication plan for both the Chef and your channels. This strategy can also be used with Journalists, Broadcasters, Sports Figures, Politicians, Musicians. The key here is to go with BIG names with big social media followings. Cultural Firsts - under the theme of experience global new beginnings, the space being used for milestone cultural, non-religious ceremonial events like quinceaneras, weddings, and underscoring the relationships between the vendors, local business, and the event. These events should strive to be 100% City Heights Sourced. (Imagine an accompanying stamp/seal.) Public Service Cook-Off - Inviting local SDPD and SDFD divisions to apprentice at a booth, with hype about why their booth should win - sharing heartfelt stories about the vendor, fun stories about the food, and compelling stories about their team, allowing the community to get to know their public service officer. There can be a charity donation to the winner s charity/organization of choice, and a secondary prize as well. Business Bake-Off - Including the local businesses nearby/in the vicinity to come and have a friendly head-to-head with local vendor in a specific category. Legends of City Heights - Including the local long time residents, advocates, former council members. Finding out who is the longest-living CIty Heights resident, telling their stories and having their presence at the event. 005

7