[OMS_MANAGERS] Downtown Street Fair - Engaging Businesses

Fri Jul 6 11:42:49 PDT 2018

Excellent info. Thanks for the input! 

The service businesses I have talked to said that if they wanted the exposure, they’d be better off having a booth during the event than keeping their doors open later. That might be true for those businesses off Main St (where the event takes place), but I think there’s value for them as well. 

Thanks again!

Darin

From: OMS_MANAGERS <oms_managers-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us> on behalf of Brad James <brad at downtownmcminnville.com>
Reply-To: Oregon Main Street program managers <oms_managers at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Date: Friday, July 6, 2018 at 8:47 AM
To: Oregon Main Street program managers <oms_managers at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Subject: Re: [OMS_MANAGERS] Downtown Street Fair - Engaging Businesses

Ditto to everything David said. 

I also find it helps to quantify everything. This is essentially free marketing to 4,000 people. For comparison - sending a mailer to the doorstep of 4,000 residents costs ($XX fill in for you local rates, usually around $1k). Instead you are bringing 4,000 people to their doorstep - for free!

Also - ask the businesses who did participate about their sales during the event, compared to during the day. I've done events where the majority of businesses did more sales during 3 "late" hours than all day during regular hours. 

Its hard to argue with numbers and money. 

Brad

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 1:24 PM, David Snider <dsnider at ci.sandy.or.us> wrote:

Hi Darin -- 

Actually, it can make sense for some of your service businesses to stay open late and draw people into their office.   I always used to relay to Sandy business owners that the purpose of our "First Friday" event was retail awareness, not to ring the cash registers.  There are many people out there who shop at whatever strip mall is closest to their home or online, and although they may have lived in K Falls for years, they really have no idea what is downtown.  My retailers here are constantly telling me stories about customers coming in to their store saying "I've lived in Sandy for X years and I never knew this store was here!"  

These events can be huge windfalls for service type businesses if they work it right -- something appealing like wine/beer tasting or live music to draw people into the store,  a good 90 second elevator speech about their business, giving away branded merchandise so the name of their company goes home with people, and heavy promotion on social media is what I would recommend.  You can also partner service businesses with other businesses that have good promotional skills like a bar or a brewery - we had pretty good success with this as well.

The stores that approached our Third Thursday-type event with future rather than current sales in mind saw a good return on their relatively small investment of time and money in our program. 

Things that bring people in: live music, wine tasting, beer tasting, free appetizers, Popsicles, seeing their friends and neighbors in a store, we had a vet clinic that did a pet photo contest that was super popular

Things that really worked as branded give-aways in Sandy:  glow sticks, slap bracelets, frisbees, we have an automotive shop that gave out Matchbox cars with their business card attached, GOOD coupons (2 for 1 meal at a restaurant = GOOD; 1/2 off an appetizer with the purchase of 2 meals = BAD)

Good luck!

 -- David C. Snider

Economic Development Manager

City of Sandy

39250 Pioneer Boulevard

Sandy, OR  97055

(503) 489-2159

dsnider at ci.sandy.or.us

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 12:16 PM W Darin Rutledge, Executive Director <darin at downtownklamathfalls.org> wrote:

Good afternoon all! I hope you had a terrific Independence Day! 

We are getting ready for our second “Third Thursday” event, and I was hoping to get your feedback on a particular challenge. One of the critiques we received about the June event was related to how few of the downtown businesses were actually open during the event. For context, Third Thursday is a “street fair” type event – we block off 8 blocks of Main St. for vendors, live music on two stages, food trucks, etc. We estimated around 4,000 attendees at the June event. Really hard to estimate, but I’d be willing to bet more than half of those don’t regularly spend time downtown.                

I am hoping to reach out to our downtown businesses in an appeal to them to keep their doors open late to take advantage of these crowds. A list of benefits will be pretty easy to put together, along with some suggestions for how the business can “participate” in Third Thursday. I plan to target the retail businesses. Restaurants, for the most part are already open, and it doesn’t really make sense for service-related businesses (insurance sales, attorneys, etc.) to remain open. 

So, I’m asking for any golden nuggets you have for encouraging businesses to remain open and at least connect with attendees, many of whom would like a coupon, a smile, a glass of lemonade … something that might bring them back downtown.  

Thanks!

W. Darin Rutledge

Executive Director

Klamath Falls Downtown Association

darin at downtownklamathfalls.org

541.539.6212

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