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HomeMy WebLinkAbout4.1 5-17-2022 CGCVB Minutes COTTAGE GROVE CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU MINUTES CITY HALL - COUNCIL CHAMBERS May 17, 2022 A meeting of the Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau was held on the 17th day of May, 2022, at 7:30 a.m. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 7:30 a.m. by Chair Steve Dennis. ROLL CALL Assistant Mann called the roll: Members Present: Steve Dennis, Chair - Here Justin Olsen, Vice Chair - Here Laurie Levine, Director - Here Members Absent: Christine Costello, Director Roshan Patel, Director Staff Present: Jennifer Levitt, City Administrator Taylor Bengtson, Administrative Specialist Jen Longaecker, Communications Manager Jaime Mann, Assistant to the City Administrator Brad Muckenhern, Recreation Supervisor Julie Prior-Miller, Marketing and Communication Specialist (Virtually during the workshop) Others Present: None. 3.1 ADOPTION OF AGENDA Vice Chair Olsen made a motion to approve Adoption of the Agenda. The motion was seconded by Director Levine. The motion passed unanimously (3-0). APPROVAL OF MINUTES 4.1 Approval of Meeting Minutes CGCVB 2-22-2022 Approval of the February 22, 2022, Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau Meeting Minutes. Director Levine made a motion to approve the meeting minutes from February 22, 2022. The motion was seconded by Vice Chair Olsen. The motion passed unanimously (3-0). BUSINESS ITEMS 5.1 Convention and Visitors Bureau Events Update Chamber Community Showcase: Assistant Mann stated on April 30 we were part of this event, which is hosted by the Chamber every year to highlight local businesses. This was the first year back after a two-year hiatus; we also held a blood drive and a job fair there. There were between 600-to-700 attendees, so it was a great turnout for our first year back. The City of Cottage Grove and Discover Cottage Grove shared a booth at the event. We brought the EDA background to the event and received a lot of favorable feedback on the lit background. The Discover Cottage Grove logo was displayed on a new tablecloth purchased for events this summer. We were able to talk about Discover Cottage Grove with people who stopped at the booth and highlighted some recreational and other amenities we have. As the Board had previously approved us to order trinkets as giveaways, we chose a Frisbee, a pen, and a luggage tag to hand out; you’ll also be seeing those at upcoming events. City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 2 of 10 Cottage Grove Community Night at the Saints Game: This is our next upcoming event, which was approved at our last meeting; it will be on June 11, 2022, and our booth will be in Section 116, which is the third-base side of the concourse near the Spire sun deck and the City of Baseball Museum. She displayed a photo of the Discover Cottage Grove tent that was ordered for use at events, with the logo on all sides. The Discover Cottage Grove black polo shirts were purchased for staff members and Board Members to wear at events, one of which Chair Dennis is wearing today. We’ll bring the giveaways, will also hand out our Visitors Guide, and she noted we’re in the Minnesota Bike/Hike Guide on Pages 26, 27. We’ll also be strongly promoting the Strawberry Fest at the Saints game, which will take place the following weekend. Assistant Mann displayed flyers for the Cottage Grove Night at the Saints Game that were sent to the Chamber of Commerce, the Senior Center, and the School District; she noted we’ve been running contests for ticket giveaways on social media in both April and May. This has been posted in the Cottage Grove Journal, it’s been included in Cottage Grove Reports, and the Chamber is also promoting this. People can buy tickets on Saintsgroups.com and use the code word Cottage Grove. When tickets are purchased that way, $2 of each ticket goes to the Cottage Grove Lions Club. Cottage Grove Strawberry Fest: Assistant Mann stated one goal in our 2021 Annual Report was to strengthen partnerships within the community in 2022. We decided to partner with the Strawberry Fest to promote Discover Cottage Grove to the community to obtain a broader audience. The Cottage Grove Strawberry Fest is Saturday, June 18, at Kingston Park; we will be in the marketplace on that day from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. promoting Discover Cottage Grove. The same promotional items used at the Saints game would be used at the Strawberry Fest. We put an ad in Minnesota Monthly magazine; on Page 34, Strawberry Fest is listed in their “Summer Bucket List” article. We’ve also been using social media, Cottage Grove Reports, and the Strawberry Fest committee is also doing their own advertising. This is our largest community event so we’re doing our best to help promote it so we can meet and speak with people in the marketplace. Assistant Mann stated she’d take any questions: Vice Chair Olsen asked if we got a confirmation on whether or not Discover Cottage Grove was able to sponsor any events at Strawberry Fest; Assistant Mann replied that Discover Cottage Grove is sponsoring the medallion hunt for the Strawberry Festival. Vice Chair Olsen stated that we received an email a few weeks ago about the distribution of the complimentary tickets that the City has received from the Saints. He knew we had one more five-pack that we’re giving away, and he thought the deadline to enter the giveaway on discovercottagegrove.com was May 31. He asked if we’d come to any decisions on the allocation of those tickets or if that’s something that we still need to discuss further. Chair Dennis stated the remaining tickets that we have were put into the pool as giveaway because it’s all about promotion at this point and giving people incentive to participate in our various medias. Vice Chair Olsen stated he’d mentioned it at our last Cottage Grove Lions meeting, and several members of that club had already purchased tickets for the game. There’s a Lions meeting tonight, so he just wanted to make sure that he was giving accurate information to the club that if they want to go, they need to purchase tickets; Chair Dennis confirmed for Vice Chair Olsen that that was an accurate statement. Chair Dennis stated regarding the Chamber Showcase, he commended Director Levine and the other members of the Board and everybody who worked hard to put on a really great event. It was nice to see all the people there, and we’re also looking forward to the Strawberry Fest returning; he hopes we also get a huge community turnout there. Vice Chair Olsen spoke to several of the people who attended the Showcase, including Senator Bigham and members of our Public Safety Department, and it sounded like the turnout was excellent, everything was very well planned and executed, and people were really happy to come back and do that. He expects we’ll see a big turnout at Strawberry Fest for the same reason; people have missed these events and they’re excited that they’re finally back on the calendar. Chair Dennis stated he and Mayor Bailey had the opportunity to work on the booth for Discover Cottage Grove; he commended the staff for their good work on helping set all of that up. Director Levine commented that she thought the biggest hit was Gunnar, the Cottage Grove Police canine. Director Levine asked who would be manning the booth at the Saints game; Assistant Mann replied the Board is more than welcome to help, but the Board has tickets to enjoy the game. She and Marketing and Communication Specialist Julie Prior-Miller would be manning the booth the entire time, but told Director Levine that Board Members should feel free to stop in and talk with people. OTHER BUSINESS 6.1 CGCVB Comments - None. 6.2 Response to Previous CGCVB Comments City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 3 of 10 Chair Dennis stated he thought the Discover Cottage Grove shirts turned out very nice; he was grateful for that. 7.1 Workshop - Open to Public - 2023 Work Plan and Budget Discussion City Administrator Jennifer Levitt stated there are a variety of topics on which we need direction from the Board. It is budget season for the City, so we have to have the budget inputted by June 17, 2022, for a preliminary budget review by the City Council. Staff needs direction as to what work plan elements you’d like to undertake next year. We’ve provided the Board with an outline of each of the different topics and gave some ideas and suggestions. Assistant Mann has also provided you with a year-to-date budget worksheet with the draft budget done previously, in case you want to adjust that. CVB Board: Chair Dennis stated we have two open positions on that; he’d like to see if we could get assistance through the City’s website and the Facebook page to advertise for that. The requirement is that the person needs to be connected with a business in the community, and we’d like to continue with that. We’ve been trying to fill these positions for a long time, and it’s difficult to find people. Director Levine asked if there was an industry that would be a good fit for us. Administrator Levitt stated she thought the hospitality industry is what we’d really like to target. Chair Dennis stated that he and Vice Chair Olsen had previously discussed someone from the CGAA to tie in with youth sports would be a good addition because CGAA touches over 70% of the households in our community. It would be nice to have someone from there, especially with all of the events and tournaments that they hold. Vice Chair Olsen stated he agreed that somebody from CGAA would be good; he spoke with the CGAA Board President Dan Harrison over the weekend to see if he had any interest. As much as he would like to, he just doesn’t have time, but he was going to mention it at their next Board Meeting just to let people know there’s an opportunity to be a part of this. He felt strongly that it would be a natural partnership that we should definitely leverage as heavily as we can. Vice Chair Olsen concurred that we need to be actively involved in attempting to convince a CGAA Board Member or even one of their more prominent coaches to join if possible. Visitors Guide: Chair Dennis stated the first question was if we want to continue to update the Visitors Guide every year; if we do, we’d have to seek advertisers and he’s guessing it would probably be a substantial remake. It’s one of our largest annual costs, so the Board needs to decide if there’s enough value in redoing it at that cost, or if we want to stay with the current Visitors Guide for one more year. We might want to use that revenue for other purposes. He asked for their input. Director Levine stated she loves the Guide, as it’s beautiful and so well done. We have it at the Chamber office, and people like it and pick it up. It’s really meant for businesses outside of Cottage Grove, but she’s going to look into something next year with the Chamber Connect magazine, printing more of those so that we can put them into the bags at the Community Showcase. She would guess the majority of the people who attend the Showcase are local, but maybe not, so printing extras to put in there might help. She stated this was the first year the Chamber did their guide; it was done as a fundraiser, so we actually made money off it. We hire ours out, but the advertising paid for it, and she thought the Chamber made just over $2,000 on it. That’s something we could certainly explore, having it bid out, if that’s something the Board wants to do. She stated we all did the hard work on it to get it launched, so that’s done, but there is a huge cost. So, maybe we should update it every other year. Vice Chair Olsen stated he believed our printing cost was somewhere in the neighborhood of $11,000. If we think about the purpose of the Guide, its purpose is to: 1) Help people recognize all of the various opportunities that exist within our community, recreational, wedding venues, events, etc., which is a big assist to the business community; 2) Allow our business community to gain additional traction through those people who choose to come and visit Cottage Grove. If that’s truly the mission, then one thing we have to ask is how do we measure the success? An easy way would be to track coupons or something like that. It really boils down to if the advertisers feel like this is a valuable tool for them. We’re here to support and drive that messaging on a continual basis. He thinks there are benefits to engaging advertisers and printing the Guide annually. Some of the heavy lifting is already done, but every year this community evolves; so that means different photos, events, and different people. If we can find room in the budget for an annual printing and if we can generate advertising revenue, which takes staff time, he thought it would definitely be a valuable thing to pursue. So, is that something we can deal with from the perspectives of staff time and advertising? If the answer is yes to both of those, he’d be in favor of printing the Guide annually. He felt the key was to get the Visitors Guide into as many hands as possible to make people fully aware of what’s going on. Chair Dennis and Mayor Bailey did an EDA Q & A on Facebook Live last week, and there’s a lot of stuff that residents don’t know about that’s going on in their community. Communications Manager Jen Longaecker is here because the Council and this Board feel similarly, that getting the message out is really important. Vice Chair Olsen stated he’d say yes to updating the Guide, if we can swing it financially; if we need to do it every other year because we’re not up to full speed yet, he wouldn’t have any heartburn about that. City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 4 of 10 Director Levine asked if we’ve had any feedback from any of the businesses that advertised in the Visitors Guide. Administrator Levitt stated that our big push with the Guide is the Saints event and the Strawberry Fest, and we’re holding back some of our publications to all Visitor Centers across the state until we know how big that distribution is. She stated we’re not going to be able to get a good gauge until probably late July or early August, which is when we can check with our businesses. At that time, we should have been hitting our full market potential of exposure. Director Levine asked if there is a reason that we wouldn’t outsource the Guide and take the big spend off of Discover Cottage Grove. Administrator Levitt stated at this time Specialist Prior-Miller is already paid through the CARES Act money; her time isn’t paid for by the City, it’s paid through the grant. So, we’re just paying the publication costs and some of the photos done in the photo shoot. That makes it fairly economical, as we’re just paying the printing costs. Last time some advertisers were looking for statistics about our exposure and distribution; now that we’ll have a track record, she felt we should be able to market it a little bit more to get more ads in it to help offset the printing cost. The other question at this time is if the Board wants to do a refresh with a new cover and some new photos; we won’t have to change the entire format, but just refresh it next year. The following year we could do a whole remake. We’re just trying to gauge that. Vice Chair Olsen asked by refresh if she meant also refreshing the advertisers; Administrator Levitt affirmed that. Vice Chair Olsen asked Manager Longaecker for her thoughts; she replied that’s how she would do it. Vice Chair Olsen asked if that made sense from a communications perspective and wouldn’t throw anybody a curve ball. She replied she thought that would make it a lot easier from a staff perspective, and it would go a lot quicker. Specialist Prior-Miller stated that the advertisers had signed up for just a year contract with us, so if we wanted to refresh them, she would think we’d give our current advertisers the first right of refusal on publishing with us again. Brad Muckenhirn, Recreation Supervisor, asked if that’s the plan moving forward, just one year with advertisers, or if we’d offer a three-year term to them and give them a better deal than signing up every year. That’s what they do with the dasher boards at the Ice Arena. Vice Chair Olsen stated the Ice Arena is a good example of how we go back to market annually for people who may not choose to renew. Administrator Levitt stated she thought if you’re using the same publication and they’re paying for the same ad, she thought the question would be if you’re going to give them the same ad space in each publication, as it might not have enough details for them to commit to a long-range, three-year plan. Vice Chair Olsen stated that’s true at this point, but as we move forward, it’s a potential idea. Chair Dennis asked if he was hearing that we’ll do a refresh and an annual printing. He thought that because of what this is and how it will be used, it’s the most far-reaching opportunity that we have; it’s a tangible thing people can get in their hands and keep. He stated we’d go with the refresh and reprinting, as long as the budget can handle it. Vice Chair Olsen stated he’s comfortable with that; if Manager Longaecker says it’s good, then he’s good. Specialist Prior-Miller asked Director Levine with the fundraising she’d done for the magazine if that paid for the printing. Director Levine replied yes, the Chamber did not pay one penny for anything, including printing costs. She had to give all of the information to the company, she got to proof it, and she had full reign over what the end product looked like. It was a lot of work because it was a new company that she was working with, but they sold the advertising with a lot of her guidance because she knew who would want to be in the magazine. They took care of all the billing, and she thought they got a lot more ads in there because they also created all of the ads at no cost for the businesses. Small businesses don’t have a graphics designer or anybody to do that for them. We printed about 19,500, and just shy of 19,000 got mailed out to every address in all of Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park, and Newport; that includes residences, businesses, P.O. Boxes, and apartments. All three of the cities have been willing to pay their portion of the mailing cost, which is a huge help. We got to a level where we received 16% of our advertising sales back, with the range being from 7-or-8% to as high as 23%. When you hear $11,000 for printing costs, that’s a lot. Specialist Prior-Miller stated we created free ads for businesses, too, and thanked Director Levine for the information. Marketing Recommendations: Chair Dennis stated we were given a list of six marketing recommendations: 1) Spend more advertising dollars in key publications based on target markets. Vice Chair Olsen stated the question is what are the key publications that are aimed at our target markets; Administrator Levitt asked Specialist Prior-Miller to speak about some publications and which ones we pay for. Specialist Prior-Miller stated the target markets were laid out a couple years ago by Assistant Wolf and Director Costello and included meetings and conventions, wedding venues, events, etc. We would need to research some of the key publications with which we’re not familiar, like meetings and conventions, and find where those people are looking to rent spaces. The Minnesota Monthly ad that we have for Strawberry Fest is a good example for our events target market, so we spent some advertising dollars for that specific audience. Administrator Levitt stated another question for the Board is if there’s another target market that you’d like us to explore or research and if there’s something we’re missing. Vice Chair Olsen stated when he thinks about target markets, we want to really emphasize the availability of field space and all of the different amenities that we have for youth athletics. Whenever those big athletic tournaments come City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 5 of 10 to town, those people are here for days at a time; those are target markets to tap into because most of those people are from out of town. Having a presence through print, social media, or in person with our big tent and our shirts is just a target-rich environment for us to advertise. We always get positive comments from people who attend the tournaments; they think Cottage Grove is a special place, and it’s our job to encourage/increase that feeling. The one-sheet game roster at hockey tournaments with the advertising might be something we should do. Advertising in the Park football program that they publish every year will target people coming to the stadium who don’t live here. Generally speaking, those things are less expensive than the $2,700 we pay to put something in other publications. If we’re going to spend advertising dollars, we have to keep in mind that our budget is pretty thin, and we probably want to think very hard about where those dollars are best spent. Manager Longaecker asked if Cottage Grove is at a place where we are booked year after year with hockey, softball, and soccer tournaments. She asked if there was a lot of room to still grow with that, or if we have a nice tight schedule each weekend with all of our tournaments, so once those people are here, if we need to advertise what else we have in our area. Supervisor Muckenhirn stated regarding arena operations and athletic associations, he can see what fields are rented and what tournaments are going on, but that might be a better question for CGAA. At the arena, we’re putting our last rink of ice in early this summer because our ice is so popular and we’re selling more of it. We had at least six or seven small tournaments with maybe six-or-eight teams throughout the summer, nothing huge like our turkey tournaments, but we’re growing at the Ice Arena and we’re busy. Manager Longaecker stated it sounds like the tournaments are covered, so it’s what to do with those people once they’re here. She stated when she had a business in River Falls, they did a one-sheet page where they sold little ads that had a map of where all of the restaurants and things were. Those went in every tournament packet, and it was really nice to just get that information. They sold the space on that sheet, and it was used for all of the tournaments; most advertisers were restaurants and similar places. Vice Chair Olsen stated we’d previously spoken about helping our businesses know when those tournaments are occurring so they could be prepared. He went to River Oaks on Friday and Saturday night, and both nights the place was packed with people. That’s a target-rich environment, but many people playing in those tournaments don’t know what Cottage Grove has to offer. We have the Hmong Family Festival coming up; that’s another place we should be, in some way, to let people know what’s available here. He loved the idea of a map with the restaurants. Manager Longaecker stated it was just a pad of paper, and all of the businesses had them, so when people came in you could just rip off the sheet and give it to them; it had the City’s name and contact information, the listing, and then they sold ads that paid for the product, and people knew to look for it. Chair Dennis stated the one sheet is a nice idea. Every month he gets an email report from Google on how many calls were made, how many people looked for his business, and what names were searched, etc. We’re working against that in a sense because people are naturally going to go to their device; so, one thing to maybe counteract that a little bit would maybe have a business card with a QR Code to scan that will tell them all the things there are to do here. Director Levine stated that she was at a large conference last week with a lot of different Chambers, and a City app would be helpful, as that would have everything listed. Chair Dennis stated the biggest thing with people coming to town is how do we keep them spending money here, instead of leaving and going to our neighbor to the north. Vice Chair Olsen replied people have to stay in hotels in Woodbury because ours get full. If our EDA and ICSC could get serious hotel investors, that would be really good. Supervisor Muckenhirn stated regarding the one-sheet slips, at least at the arena the trend is getting away from ticket sales at the door and handing out rosters. Everything is on mobile devices: You buy your tickets on it, your kid’s name and number, height and weight, is on it; at the Ice Arena it’s to the point where we might print 30 copies, but everything else is just online. So, if you’re trying to save, from a printing standpoint, maybe we can somehow get onto those online rosters that have a link or something like that. Vice Chair Olsen stated we have Let’s Play Hockey and The Guillotine, which is the website for wrestling, and the wrestling tournaments are packed. Those are all places where it can’t be very expensive to do a digital ad. Manager Longaecker is the expert, so he deferred to her expertise on that. He agrees with Supervisor Muckenhirn that those are things we should be targeting and be a part of. He didn’t know if that’s something that our friends at Sievers Creative can help us with or if we need to maybe look a little more locally for that type of help; all of those groups of people would be a good audience for us to look closely at and target. 2) Set aside dollars to use to partner or participate to increase visibility of large-scale events. Chair Dennis and Vice Chair Olsen both asked for the names of the large-scale events. Specialist Prior-Miller stated those would be things like the Hmong Family Tournaments, something on the fly, some type of promotional item, the one sheet that we’ve just talked about. Hmong Family comes Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend, so we’re learning more about these tournaments. Vice Chair Olsen also mentioned the soccer tournament, City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 6 of 10 so those events have a lot of people coming into our City. We need to have more visibility and brand recognition in front of them for those events. Administrator Levitt stated the other question is the St. Paul Saints type of event; we won’t be able to quite gauge the success of that yet, but is that something you’d like to pursue, like a Timberwolves game, to have exposure opportunities? Vice Chair Olsen stated pro sports at any level tend to be really expensive. His company regularly gets solicited for those things, at a cost of $20,000, so felt it made sense to continue on the scale that we’re using with the Saints. Many people attending Saints games are probably within a reasonable driving distance of our community. He’s not feeling the big ticket, pro sports stuff yet. Chair Dennis agreed and stated we need to see how the Saints game goes. Chair Dennis stated when we have groups at our fields, we should have a banner that we can have mounted; we’ve got beautiful artwork, we have the logo, and we could have something along the lines of the banners we put up on our streetlights. Again, the QR Code indicating “Scan here to learn what you can do in Cottage Grove,” or however you want to word that, is something that makes a light bulb go off for people, and it’s a silent salesperson. Manager Longaecker stated the QR Code could take them to the Discover Cottage Grove website that has everything listed on there. She thought that could solve an easy problem for us. Vice Chair Olsen stated he felt if we do something like that, it should be near the concession stands because that’s where all the foot traffic is. 3) Increase Visitor Guide printing cost to accommodate distribution at events and facilities throughout the area. Vice Chair Olsen stated that just means more copies, and if we’re going to target certain events, then that might be a wise thing to do; he asked how many copies our first print run gave us. Specialist Prior-Miller replied 2,500, and noted that the second print was 5,000, for a total of 7,500. Vice Chair Olsen asked if we need to think about 10,000; he asked if we knew what the additional cost would be. Specialist Prior-Miller stated it’s tough to say right now just because of the swing of paper prices, and we’ll see how this year goes with distribution. She thought that we are on a good track for not having any left over at the end of the year, so around 7,500 to 10,000 next year would make sense. Vice Chair Olsen asked who printed those for us; Specialist Prior-Miller stated those were printed by the same printer who prints the Cottage Grove Reports, Graphic Design Imaging. Vice Chair Olsen asked if they gave us a discount due to the other business that we give them. Specialist Prior-Miller stated there was competitive pricing, and theirs was the lowest bid for our quantities. Vice Chair Olsen stated there are a lot of printers out there so it’s probably worthwhile to look to see where we can get the best value. Manager Longaecker stated we should keep in mind that we have the online Visitors Guide that’s easy to read, it’s not just a PDF. Vice Chair Olsen stated he hasn’t been on the online Guide on his phone; he asked if it worked well on the phone and that was confirmed. 4) Set aside funds for creation and printing of folders for other types of materials that we can use at area meetings and conventions. Specialist Prior-Miller stated we were thinking of targeted pamphlets for people attending sporting events, or visiting a business or restaurant here, who might want to host an event here. If they would like to host a meeting or convention here, maybe a trifold pamphlet on what meeting spaces we have, what capacities they can handle, and what kind of events are hosted there. Those are targeted towards people who are looking to host meetings, such as Renewal by Andersen, 3M, NorthPoint, and even others in the area; we can target some folks in Woodbury also because we have some really nice venues here with very large capacities. We want them to come here and keep spending their money. Just a little trifold, a one sheeter. Vice Chair Olsen asked if we had anything available with respect to Discover Cottage Grove for people who visit the HERO Center; many agencies from outside the metro area, outside the state, and even from Canada come there. He felt maybe that should be a place where we want to give people the option to learn more about our community. Specialist Prior-Miller stated the HERO Center has a supply of Visitor Guides. Administrator Levitt stated there’s a main area there with a lot of tables so we could add some things with QR Codes for restaurants, etc. Vice Chair Olsen stated Chair Dennis mentioned the business card; if we have a business card with the QR Code, it’s something that can be put in a pocket, as opposed to carrying around the big Guide all the time. We probably should consider something like that. Supervisor Muckenhirn stated that all of the Visitor Guides that come to the arena are picked up, which is nice to see. Vice Chair Olsen stated they usually grab them because they’re going to eat so they’re looking for coupons for $1 off at whatever restaurant. From an advertising point of view, that would be a way to encourage our advertisers. When those tournaments are in town, you can’t find a place to have dinner; Applebee’s, Junction 70, and Carbone’s are packed. If we had additional lodging facilities, people wouldn’t be leaving town to go to their hotel and eating there instead of here. Especially as we grow, we’re going to need to be really on top of that; if we need to grab their attention with a little pamphlet or coupon on one sheet of paper, that’s the type of thing that’s going to keep people in town. Director Levine asked if we had the Guides in our hotels, and that was confirmed for her. 5) Set aside dollars for creation of printing pamphlets for various attractions for different target markets. Chair Dennis stated we have those as tools so we can use those, it would just be identifying the different target markets to hit. He asked Specialist Prior-Miller for her ideas on this. City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 7 of 10 Specialist Prior-Miller stated an example of things that present themselves throughout the year would be Discover Cottage Grove sponsoring the medallion hunt, things that find themselves aligned with our strategic objectives. Because staff at the CVB is still new, we’re still learning and finding these different things that really make sense to plug into for the CVB. For anything that comes up that aligns with our objectives, it makes sense to just be able to tap into opportunities as we see fit. Vice Chair Olsen stated when we say, “set aside dollars,” there’s really only one bucket of money. So, are we talking about creating a separate line item or account for these things? Is that why we’re saying, “set aside dollars”? Administrator Levitt stated the main thing is in our marketing category, if we list out everything that we have estimates for, do you want us to hold $2,000 in that budget category as unassigned? If the medallion or the Saints game comes up or something else presents itself, we have a little extra money for that. It’s more just putting an unassigned value in the marketing budget just to create more flexibility. Obviously, there’s flexibility in the whole fund, but do we want to be intentional about that to provide us flexibility. Vice Chair Olsen stated looking at total revenues for 2023, he’s assuming that this is an estimate based on current trends; Assistant Mann stated it is, as it follows 2022. With 2023, since we don’t have a full history to look back on with COVID affecting the lodging over the last couple of years, we used a 60% occupancy rate for 2022 and also used that for 2023; that’s open for discussion if you want to bump that up, but that $66,348 is based on the 60% occupancy rate. Vice Chair Olsen stated in the first four months of 2022, we have right around $25,000 in total revenue; this estimate looks a little bit light based on what we’ve taken in so far this year, if you were to just do a straight average. Assistant Mann stated we do have about $6,300 in ad sales from our Visitors Guide to add to the dollars you see on the 2022 budget worksheet. She stated looking at previous years’ first-quarter numbers, the first quarter tends to be our lowest for lodging. Vice Chair Olsen stated we’re looking at $6,000 or so every month, and here we’re projecting $5,529, so it’s not like we’re out of the ballpark, but we’re just being a little conservative. Chair Dennis asked if they wanted to have a line item set for this, or do we just want things to stay in the general fund. Vice Chair Olsen asked what Chair Dennis thought; Chair Dennis didn’t think that it was necessary. Director Levine agreed. Chair Dennis stated we’ll just let it be as is. Vice Chair Olsen asked if that was problematic for staff; Administrator Levitt replied not at all. Previous Marketing Activities Assistant Mann advised there’s a list of things we’ve done since 2020; she believed dasher boards were every three years, so these are just things to consider if we wanted to do something similar moving forward or just to give you some idea on other ways that we could spend money, aside from printing. Chair Dennis asked if the staff had recommendations on these that they felt strongly about. Specialist Prior-Miller stated that she felt the social media ad campaigns through Sievers added value to our exposure, our branding, and our recognition. Those types of ads not only expand our reach and our audience, but they’re also growing our numbers through social media, which means more people are seeing information and are being inundated with all of the great things that Cottage Grove has to offer. Some of the things are a little bit harder to exactly know the value or statistics or analytics behind them. HaveFunBiking.com has a lot of cities in there that have maps of their parks and trails; sometimes it’s just having it in there for a consistent amount of time to really see a return on investment. It’s really up to the Board about whether or not they feel some of those things are valuable. The Cottage Grove Reports insert was something the CVB had used when we were launching to let the City know about it; it was a really great idea, and she doesn’t know if we want to do it again or maybe once every three years to just remind folks. As Director Levine noted, our main audience is not Cottage Grove; so, that’s something that we could give or take if we’re trying to really target our main audience, which is visitors. In that list, her highest priority would be the social media ad campaigns through Sievers, as she can see a return on investment with them. Vice Chair Olsen asked when he looks online and sees a Facebook ad that is a sponsored ad for Discover Cottage Grove, is that us doing that or is that Sievers? Specialist Prior-Miller stated that’s in collaboration with Sievers. That’s definitely part of that social media ad campaign. Vice Chair Olsen asked other than that, what are they doing for us with respect to social media ad campaigns? Specialist Prior-Miller stated Sievers is paid to maintain and update our website as we see fit; we send in edits, etc. They set up the social media ad on their software to launch it to all the different places that it gets targeted to, and make sure the approval process is smooth regarding Facebook itself. Vice Chair Olsen asked if they do anything with SEO (Search Engine Optimization); Specialist Prior-Miller replied yes, we have access to analytics that they provide to us. They presented many of those analytics at our meeting in January, but we can always reach out to them at any time and get information on them. Vice Chair Olsen stated he asked because while their presentation was pretty decent, he just doesn’t know whether we’re seeing the value for the dollars or not, or if there was a different way to leverage those dollars to expand our reach in social media. Social media is a lot more than just Facebook, and when he Googles the words Cottage Grove, he doesn’t see Discover Cottage Grove as the first thing that pops up. City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 8 of 10 Director Levine told Vice Chair Olsen that he’s not the target market that Sievers is aiming for out there. Vice Chair Olsen stated he understood that, but he’s talking about SEO; if they’re doing SEO for us, Discover Cottage Grove should be the first thing on the list for anybody on Google. It’s a Google specific thing, not a 55016 specific thing. He was just curious if that’s something we need to revisit with them. Specialist Prior-Miller stated that’s something we can absolutely revisit with them; her only comment would be hopefully the City popped up first and then Discover Cottage Grove. Vice Chair Olsen said the City pops up first, but Discover Cottage Grove should be on Page 1, and it should be one of the top two or three, and it’s a little bit further down at this point. It might be something to think about. He asked Manager Longaecker if she had an opinion on that. Manager Longaecker agreed with Vice Chair Olsen, that it should definitely be on the first page, and thought that was something they could help us with. Director Levine asked Specialist Prior-Miller if they’re just focusing on Facebook for our social media advertising, or are they doing or can they do things like TikTok? Specialist Prior-Miller stated they can do pretty much whatever we ask them to; she stated she still calls it Facebook, but their new name is Meta. We’re advertising on all of Meta’s software platforms that they own, so Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We’ve also done display ads that show up on websites that they do the data behind to research our target audience and find what websites they go to; those display ads show up on websites that those folks that we want as visitors are frequenting, like maybe USA Today or BuzzFeed, or things like that. Vice Chair Olsen stated we do have a Discover Cottage Grove Twitter account that has 39 followers. Again, we may want to try to find a way to optimize visibility for that if we’re trying to push people towards Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Director Levine asked Supervisor Muckenhirn about the dasher board cost of $2,000, if that was for three years; he replied that would be a conversation for Jordan Hirman, Recreation Facilities Manager. He stated he would follow up with him and get back to her on that. Administrator Levitt stated the other thing that’s very popular is our giveaways because that’s how we’re building a lot of our social media. Specialist Prior-Miller stated the contest giveaways and the package day that Assistant Mann has on that are all very popular, both inside and outside of Cottage Grove. They have attracted a lot of people to grow our social media channels, specifically, Facebook and Instagram. We’re getting regular views every single day on those platforms. Chair Dennis stated he’s looking at our different posts. He asked Specialist Prior-Miller if anytime we put posts out if we should be doing some hash tagging at the bottom of the post to increase SEO. She replied she does her best to try and keep up with social media, how it changes, and the algorithms, etc.; however, she stated that she’s not an expert. She tries to follow the trends from the people going out there and teaching the latest updates from Meta. On Facebook we don’t typically see the hashtag, but on Instagram we do. She tries to use those hashtags frequently, but the latest updates from the teachers are sometimes the hashtags don’t even matter, you don’t need to put 30 on there. It’s all about the organic reach; so, if we’re able to get people that way, it’s tough for her to not do any hashtag because she thinks it’s a way for people to find us. It’s definitely something that’s always changing, and they’re trying to keep our eye on it and do better at. Manager Longaecker stated for Facebook you’ll see people use hashtags, but when you look at Facebook, hashtags aren’t meant for Facebook; so, if we start hash tagging on Facebook, that looks foreign to people. They’re like that doesn’t belong there. Chair Dennis stated the Google answer to ‘Do hashtags help with SEO?’ is yes, because they’re essentially key words. They help you to categorize your content and help social media users find it. Manager Longaecker agreed that it helps people find it, but the more interaction we have when people are liking or commenting is what puts it up higher in your algorithm, so you’re seeing it more often. Specialist Prior-Miller stated the engagement, liking, commenting, saving, and sharing of things is what makes you highest in the results for visibility. Vice Chair Olsen stated he just looked at our post from two days ago regarding the photo contest: Win a five-pack of tickets to the Saints game on June 11 by entering our photo contest. He asked Specialist Prior-Miller if that was the post that she did or if Sievers did that; Specialist Prior-Miller replied that she did that. At the bottom of that post, there are several hashtags: #DiscoverCottageGrove, #SaintsBaseball, #CGCommunityNight, #Giveaway. He just clicked on the Giveaway hashtag and the top response says Hashtag Giveaway, 2.6 million people are posting about this. Then the Discover Cottage Grove Photo Contest comes up, then I come up, because I forwarded it to my City Council page, and then the next thing I see that says Giveaway# is Dooley’s Pub in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and then I see Brook Howard, and so on. It appears clicking on that hashtag gives people exposure to other entities that have used that same hashtag, even on Facebook. He’d be interested to hear what Sievers thinks about that, if that’s something that we want to try to do more of or not. He agrees with Manager Longaecker that it looks funny on Facebook; it doesn’t look like a normal Facebook post, but if there’s value in it and it’s something we need to do in order to increase our SEO, he would think Sievers would know that. Maybe that’s something we want to ask. Chair Dennis asked if we’ve got increased measurements coming from people posting, would it make sense for us to maybe every third or fourth post to design something with an open-ended question. Vice Chair Olsen replied yes, like our golf course does. Chair Dennis thought we could do that and also encourage people to share different posts. Administrator Levitt stated our goal is to also provide you with a monthly communication update. We can follow up on this question about the hashtag and the other questions asked. We can also provide you with the monthly analytics to show you what’s getting traction out there. City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 9 of 10 Vice Chair Olsen asked if we decided on what we want to do with the Cottage Grove Reports insert, if we want to do it again this year. Administrator Levitt asked if we do it again, what should be our focus? Do you want to focus on our venues for hosting an event? Vice Chair Olsen stated our previous dialogue was not everybody is on social media, so we need to find a way to touch everybody who lives in the City to let them know Discover Cottage Grove exists, and the community newsletter goes to every household. He thought an annual periodic tickler to remind people that we exist is not a bad idea. Chair Dennis stated the cost is very reasonable to hit that many homes. Chair Dennis stated that we have an incredible resource in our community, a person who is a very strong advocate for our City, Sheletta Brundage. She’s on WCCO radio as a personality and owns her own media company; he felt perhaps we could talk about how at least part of the economy, the lodging, is coming back. We could see if we could parlay that into a little infomercial about how we started our lodging tax and how that benefits Cottage Grove. We could get some key thoughts in there about what the City has to offer. Vice Chair Olsen stated he thought anything we did with Sheletta was a win; her audience is pretty broad, and she’s a good spokesperson for the things that she supports. He thinks there’s certainly a possible partnership there with her. Chair Dennis stated she’s a strong advocate for our community, and Vice Chair Olsen agreed. Vice Chair Olsen stated regarding the three-on-three hockey tournament, etc., he’s assuming those would be included in the things that might present themselves throughout the year; Administrator Levitt confirmed that. He wanted to stress that we already get a lot of out-of-town visitors to our community through tournaments and the Hmong Family Day, etc., so he felt we needed to have a presence of some sort at those; it could be a booth, a banner, a number of different things, but that’s a good way to connect with people who otherwise might not know we’re here. Director Levine stated Specialist Prior-Miller was doing a monthly newsletter to the businesses, and that’s something that she always shares, as it’s really helpful. She sends that to all of the Chamber business addresses as well. Vice Chair Olsen asked if we’d done any research on what it would cost us to link up with Explore Minnesota and have an Explore Minnesota opportunity for people to find Discover Cottage Grove. Explore Minnesota tends to focus on Duluth, Rochester, the Twin Cities, etc. When you click on the Twin Cities, there’s a menu of things to do, places to go, etc., so maybe we could be part of that menu option; he didn’t know what that would cost but suspected that might be more bang for the buck than the Viking book, but he didn’t know about that. Specialist Prior-Miller replied we currently have an account with Explore Minnesota that we are revamping to being more robust, so the possibility is that we will show up in more search results in the future. Taylor Bengtson, Administrative Specialist, actually has been entering all of our event information through our Explore Minnesota calendar. They have found a few of our events that way and have publicized it in their own communications to their database; the most recent one was the Egg Hunt through Parks and Recreation at the Easter Brunch at River Oaks. With a lot of those events, sometimes they’ll highlight what’s happening in the City; she’s hopeful that when Strawberry Fest comes around, we’ll be highlighted, the same with the Holiday Train. Typically, when things are happening in our City, those get highlighted; we’re working on having it be a more robust method for us to capture that opportunity. Vice Chair Olsen stated when it comes down to what’s it going to cost us to have an ongoing presence, that would be worth having a conversation with the Board; that might be a way to narrow down how we want to distribute our dollars in the most effective way. Explore Minnesota is a big deal, and they advertise on TV, on the radio, and on the Internet with Google ads, especially in the summer months. Recreation Supervisor Muckenhirn stated something that he’s seen just following people on Instagram that he thinks is unique and gets to more people are individual social media influencers, so maybe we should consider reaching out to them. For example, he follows @expeditionkristen, a local Minnesotan, who goes hiking, kayaking, does yoga, and visits breweries. From what he can tell, she is probably being hired by other Visitor Bureaus to go to these communities and explore the local ice cream shop, to go to a little brewery for lunch, to go hiking at a waterfall, etc., and she posts 20- second updates on them. Another one is @girlof10000lakes, Jenny Anderson; people pay her to come to their area, she takes photos, she’ll write a blog post about it, and she has reached out to moms with kids and says this was great for me and my child, we went to Cottage Grove, played on their inclusive playground, went on their kayaks afterward, and we had a great picnic out on the island. If you’re trying to get more organic, let’s get the family to come explore Cottage Grove, that might be a fun, unique, different way to get out there. That could reach 40,000 people on just those two profiles. Specialist Prior-Miller stated we’re currently working with some folks right now, who have that reach for the Saints game and Strawberry Fest, local to Cottage Grove. We’re definitely on the same wavelength. Manager Longaecker cautioned that we need to be a little bit careful with that because we are a City, and our CVB has a unique setup. When the Super Bowl was in town a couple of years ago, the City of Minneapolis had paid influencers to City of Cottage Grove Convention and Visitors Bureau May 17, 2022 Page 10 of 10 promote the Super Bowl, and that went over like a lead balloon. So, we just need to be careful of what we’re doing to promote our Convention and Visitors Bureau. ADJOURNMENT Vice Chair Olsen made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:53 a.m. The motion was seconded by Director Levine. Motion passed unanimously (3-0). Chair Dennis noted that our next meeting will be on Tuesday, August 23, 2022, at 7:30 a.m. in the Council Chambers. Respectfully submitted, _______________________________________ Jaime Mann, Assistant to the City Administrator /jag