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Jun 7, 2012Yes Virginia, the System Can Work
Tuesday evening the Wilmington City Council approved a change in the City’s parking marketing. The 7-0 vote was a critical action completing a process begun in a City advisory committee 15 months earlier. It means a more effective use of City monies. And it highlighted cooperation by two groups that had not always seen eye to eye. In short, it was an example of the way things are supposed to work.
DPAC, the Downtown Parking Advisory Committee, identified a problem. People were not buying its product (parking). City numbers actually projected an 18% decline in hours of metered parking consumed from FY 2009 to FY 2012. That meant the City’s business (parking) was failing. It also meant the necessary funds for improved security and sanitation would not be available.
Business had a problem too. There’s a strong link between the success of a business and the number of customers that can get to its door. Falling parking numbers forebode a difficult future for area businesses. As ‘difficult future for business’ is a polite way of saying fewer people working and fewer landlords who could pay their property tax, this problem had implications for the city at large. It also had implications for the area’s travel and tourism business. The CVB now markets the “Historic River District and Island Beaches.” It would be somewhat futile to do that if the Historic River District was ailing.
The City had attempted to address the revenue problems with price hikes. Price hikes have an unfortunate side effect. They tend to reduce the number of consumers of a product and continuation of that strategy would not be useful for the City’s larger interests of a strong economy.
DPAC determined that the only viable solution was to use its parking marketing money more effectively and “grow the business.” It also determined that it did not have marketing skills and decided to turn to outside groups for that skill. DPAC also recognized that a unified marketing effort by all the interested parties would be the most effective outcome.
The advisory group adopted a resolution May 3, 2011 calling on the Downtown Business Alliance (the merchants group) and Wilmington Downtown, Inc. (the economic development group) to work together and develop a marketing plan for all the downtown interests including parking.
Jim Bitto of DBA and Dave Spetrino of WDI each asked three members to serve on a task force. In Dave’s words, they were to ‘meet a few times.’
Joan Loch, one of the appointees and owner of Crescent Moon Gallery, called the first meeting in November. She, Bobby Hamelberg, Nancy Bullock, Vinnie Arcieri, Gina Allison, Lara Landgraf, and Paul Lawler met November 10, for what would be the first of many more than “a few meetings.” Over time Richard Moore and Celeste Glass substituted for Lawler and Arcieri.
Over the next few months the representatives of the two groups hashed out a marketing plan. Their cooperation was notable as the two groups had not always cooperated fully.
The plan provides:
- A means for all of the related marketing efforts to unite and reinforce each other’s efforts
- A slogan that all downtown organizations can incorporate into their marketing efforts. Businesses, nonprofits, the City, and others are all urged to participate.
- A logo, in both a traditional version and in a more modern version, to accompany the slogan.
- A schedule of use by existing business. This demonstrates ‘buy-in’ by business as well as provides examples of how business can use the plan. Finkelstein’s, the Cotton Exchange, and Front Street Brewery have all already incorporated the slogan into their promotional efforts.
- A schedule of uses by the City’s parking marketing money.
- Benchmarks for success. The benchmarks provide a means of evaluating the program generally and for determining if additional funds can go to the effort.
This new cooperative marketing effort is expected to lead to a healthier downtown economy. That would be good news for struggling businesses, the area’s tourism business, City coffers, and our economy.
The marketing effort also highlights a City advisory committee doing its work, related and somewhat competitive organizations working together in a productive manner, and an elected body responding positively to initiatives by citizen groups. Sometimes, things do work as they are supposed to.
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