Audiences

Data-Driven Decision Making in Marketing & Event Planning  

Who are we trying to reach, and who do we actually reach? How do we use that information to plan and promote events for a diverse audience. Speakers will explore examples of how research, data collection and marketing tactics were used for an arts and culture series in downtown Philadelphia. Discover how data helped the marketing team collect pedestrian counts, attendance figures and attendee geography, and how it assisted in advertising and other outreach efforts. 

Get Your District Back Online with Digital Advertising

There’s never been a greater need to quickly bring our districts back on track. Digital advertising is the most efficient channel for increasing foot traffic, event attendance and sales, but only when it’s done right. Learn how Downtown Norfolk used digital ads during the pandemic to become the country’s top travel destination, shattered Restaurant Week records and emerged with extraordinary momentum.

Advancing Places: Get Your District Back Online With Digital Advertising

There’s never been more need to quickly bring our districts back on track. Digital advertising is the most efficient channel for increasing foot traffic, event attendance, and sales… but only when it’s done right. Learn how Downtown Norfolk used digital ads during the pandemic to become the country’s top travel destination, shattered Restaurant Week records, and emerged with extraordinary momentum.

Advancing Places: Marketing Your Downtown as Open for Business

Every downtown and district is struggling with how to support the businesses under their purview to provide much-needed foot traffic, sales and revenues, but the fact remains that we’re all “open for business”. From ongoing campaigns targeting locals, tourists and visitors to larger 40,000-foot view strategic planning, in this session you’ll learn from two very different place management practitioners and the strategic consultancy working with both of them to deploy data and technology.

Advancing Places: Influencer Marketing

Social media influencers are a powerful link between your district and your target audiences. Successful influencer partnerships that are authentic and adaptive can become an integral part of any marketing and communication strategy. Discover how three organizations with varied budget levels researched, implemented and monitored influencer programs in their district. Hear from panelists on how they utilized emerging social media tactics to build meaningful engagement.

Advancing Places: Creating Customer Loyalty

Now more than ever, downtown and neighborhood district organizations are looking for ways to support local businesses and encourage consumers to shop locally. Communities across the country are implementing “shop local” campaigns. Join this webinar and learn from two practitioners, one who has experience maintaining an existing program gift card program for over ten years and another who is in the process of launching a new district gift card program. Come prepared to learn from their experiences and bring your questions to further the discussion.

Advancing Places: Branding Strategies

There are many reasons for an organization to initiate a branding project, such as creating a new district, merging with another organization or overhauling dated brand material. This webinar will discuss how to approach and implement an organization-wide brand identity effort, from initial research on target audience to finalizing external marketing collateral. Hear from two downtown practitioners who have led branding projects in large and small organizations to gain valuable insights into how positioning and messaging can amplify a newly formed brand strategy.

“Getting the Word Out:” Strategically Sound District Communications

In a world of packed calendars, dizzying social feeds and overflowing email inboxes—on top a global pandemic, no less—how can districts successfully deliver messaging, reach their target audiences and negotiate the needs of stakeholders who want district support in “getting the word out?” Speakers from communities large and small, share hands-on, proven tactics of how to strategically marry audience, channel and results.

Authentic Influence: Evolving Social Media Tactics

Social media influencers can be a powerful link between your district and your target audiences. Successful influencer partnerships must be authentic, relational and adaptive. Three case studies –Tampa, Milwaukee and Tempe – will demonstrate distinct models of district-specific influencing. Tactics at varied budget levels will be explored. Return to your district able to identify or expand upon influencer opportunities.

Digital Marketing During and After COVID with Geocentric

From closings and re-openings, to streeteries and social distancing guidelines, there’s never been so much information that needs to be communicated. Join Geocentric for a brief discussion of what’s working now, and how to plan for bringing people back to downtown.

Downtown Tempe’s Micro-Influencer Program

People assume that to be influential on social media you must have thousands and thousands of followers. However, marketers have discovered that the true effectiveness of influencer marketing comes from engagement. In 2017, the Downtown Tempe Authority alongside Bright Brothers Strategy Group, launched a micro-influencer pilot program in an effort to increase authentic engagement and ramp up BID marketing efforts across the board.

Downtown Houston Market Research Summary: Attracting Residents

This sample research report was conducted to help The Houston Downtown Management District develop a “lifestyle profile” for downtown Houston. Through surveys of downtown workers and residents in downtown adjacent neighborhoods HDMD aimed to determine: 1. what was missing from downtown 2. which unique features of downtown are currently most important and 3. what would be most attractive to target audiences.

College Town Summit 2019 Master Talk Slides

Slides from the master talks sessions featuring Downtown Durham Inc.’s Nichole Thompson, David Dixon from Stantec, and Justine Hollingshead, Chief of Staff and Assistant Vice Chancellor / Packapalooza Planning Team Co-Chair, NC State University Division of Academic and Student Affairs.

Craft Data-Informed Persona in Places of All Sizes

Downtown associations know their attraction and retention results are due in part to their marketing efforts. But how do you produce content that helps your downtown stand out from the rest? In this panel, downtown regions like Bozeman, MT; Los Angeles, CA; and Memphis, TN will discuss how marketing their narrative started with understanding the unique pieces of their story – namely, their data.

Making the Case: Market Analysis Scenario Workshop

Today, downtown and urban district professionals need clear and concise data to strategically inform management and investment decisions. This workshop begins with a baseline understanding of the data that can be useful for understanding the local market, including how to retrieve the data and how to supplement the data with local knowledge. Structured as a practicum, participants will then work in small groups to apply the methodologies and analyses to build a comprehensive district profile.

Ease Into Midtown

Midtown Association sought the creation, and execution of a parking and transportation communications plan that would invite a target demographic, females 25-45 years of age, into Midtown by presenting an ‘easy’ outlook of various transportation options available. The campaign highlighted transportation methods and parking in Midtown and showed the ease of using technologies associated with on-street and off-street parking and alternative transportation including bicycling, transit and walking.

She Tempe

In an effort to revitalize and refresh the district’s street-level appearance, the Downtown Tempe Authority (DTA) decided to wrap the fourteen news racks throughout the downtown district in works of art. Eleven local female artists were asked to submit works that portrayed females. This project celebrates local creative talent, enhances a sense of place and helps create an engaging and vibrant pedestrian experience in Downtown Tempe.

Downtown London’s Free Comic Book Day

In 2015, Downtown London began to hear concerns about the amount of people lined up on the sidewalk and the limited space for people to safely participate in Free Comic Book Day. Many of the attendees are children, and most people dress up as characters from their favorite movie, book, or video game. For three successful years now, Downtown London closes Dundas Street and programs it each year with a street festival of comic artists, clubs and performers.

Engage and Grow Your Audience with Digital Marketing

The customer journey has transitioned to a mobile first, content driven, digital ecosystem. In this new digital landscape, it can be daunting to plan, execute, maintain and evaluate a digital marketing plan. This session brings together best practices to identify and engage your audience, amplify your reach, bring visibility to your businesses and drive foot traffic to your district. Learn simple tactics that can be implemented right away, even if you’re digitally challenged.

The Orange Gnome Project

Although the urban forest is thriving in many ways, in the Wicker Park Bucktown Special Service Area #33, the region lost 7% of its trees in just 4 years to disease, pests and human carelessness. During the week of Arbor Day 2016, WPB SSA hung large tags with facts about the benefits provided by urban trees. The organization also wanted to do something that would give a nod to the quirky and artistic reputation of the neighborhoods.

Welcome to Rosslyn Video Strategy

Rosslyn has transformed from a 9-to-5 employment hub to a vibrant, mixed-use urban center. By June 2017, Rosslyn reached a critical point in its evolution, where the momentum of recent growth combined with the activation work of the Rosslyn BID created a fresh, energized vibe in the community. To create a way for stakeholders to feel what it is like to be in Rosslyn, the BID launched a comprehensive video strategy to take their brand story to the next level.

Reimagining Girls’ Night Out

Oh man, Girls’ Night Out? Hasn’t that been done (to death)? Hold on a second, though. Downtown Somerville’s Girls’ Night Out is worth a look exactly because the concept is…well, maybe a little moth-eaten. If you can give an event enough of a makeover to change minds about what Girls’ Night Out is supposed to be, sell out the event a week in advance, and give skeptical businesses one of their most profitable nights of the year (at least 65 conversions on average), that’s worth talking about.

Music in the Park 2017 Marketing Campaign

With a newly created Marketing, Communications and Events Director on staff, San Jose Downtown Association took its four-concert Music in the Park series marketing to a whole new level, focusing on on-site digital photo kiosks, email marketing automation and strategic social media. Not only did Music in the Park achieve record attendance and revenues, marketing for the 2018 season and beyond has gathered momentum and general Downtown San Jose marketing capabilities have improved dramatically.

Internet VS IRL, and the Power of FOMO

Events can be a significant and reliable strategy for attracting people to downtown. The panelists share their strategies and marketing tactics to put on successful events.

The Neighborhood Your Brand Built

Managing a brand is just as complex, challenging, and occasionally joyful as managing a place is. In the age of social media and global competition, districts rely on brand to communicate their character and deliver impressions. Though varied in scale, geography, and governance, these districts share a common understanding of the vital role place brands play in expressing the essence of a location.

Engaging Millennials and Shoppers in the Digital Age

Millennials have built a reputation as the digital generation and although convenience and price are critical to keeping these customers, their spending patterns and lifestyle preferences suggest they also place value on personalized experiences and brand authenticity, both, in-store and online. This session brings together experts in the field of downtown marketing, website development, and Facebook marketing science to share best practice on successful downtown and small business marketing.

12 Steps to Sponsorship Success

This presentation teaches the proper sales method for garnering the most sponsorships in any economy and how to position your sponsorship so that people want to buy it. You will be given the 12 steps needed to ensure sponsorship success from initial concept, to taking inventory, to establishing media partners, to determining your best partners, the sales process, making the sale, and post event follow up to ensure renewal.