Marketing is a key and important aspect of town and city governmental process. It’s the step municipalities must take to promote their mission, improve the local economy, and encourage continued efforts toward bettering the community and its residents. Marketing a municipality requires creativity, innovation, and most importantly, a deep understanding of the community’s heart and soul. Without understanding the people whom the agency serves, marketing becomes ineffective.
We encourage our state and local agency clients to think about the importance of crafting messaging that resonates deeply with local residents and businesses — a campaign that is all about enhancing lives and the positive impact government can have on the community. Unfortunately, most community members don’t love the idea of promoting or even interacting with local government — they’ll avoid it at all costs. That’s where marketing becomes even more important — it is a key tool needed for state and local agencies to build trust and loyalty with their residents.
Let’s dig in…
First and foremost — building trust. A successful marketing campaign will promote an environment of transparency between residents and the municipality which will, in turn, encourage engagement, respect, and a feeling of belonging and understanding.
Marketing for municipalities helps….
Among many other things.
Many often don’t think of marketing when it comes to municipalities. Yet, just like any other business, they need to self-promote and engage with their community. Any campaign attached to a state or local government agency should be a good mix of engaging storytelling, genuine community connection, and strategic communication. The key is to find a way to create a narrative that resonates with residents and highlights the value of the municipality.
If you’re starting fresh on a new campaign for your municipality, no matter what the topic or type may be (we’ll get into that later) it’s crucial to have a strategy. What are your goals? Who is your audience? What tools do you have at your disposal to get the word out there? Know your audience, know your identity, identify your goals, understand your position, and how you impact the community.
Municipalities face an ongoing challenge to bring in new businesses and host a mix of entrepreneurs and residents to diversify and uplift their communities. How are you different? Why is your community better than the county next door? Understand how you are different and the parts of your municipality that make you valuable to the audience you are trying to reach.
Especially in Colorado, not everyone who interacts with your community will end up living or working there, sometimes it’s about a visit. It’s important to market a city or town as a great place to visit and stay, this increases awareness and of course, drives revenue. This is a place where you’ll want to highlight all the fun activities, restaurants, hotels, and festivals your municipality may offer tourists as they come through.
Digital presence is non-negotiable. Everyone is online now — social media, websites, ads, etc. There are so many ways to reach your community on the internet, don’t forget to use it to your advantage. You can see what people are saying, interact with residents, and get information out there quickly, efficiently, and sustainability.
Consider everyone and every group your community impacts. Who are the people that will help you see your mission through? Who are you impacting? Take into consideration how your region can benefit everyone involved.
We love to say this here at AOR because it is crucial and true. Always put people first, whether that be stakeholders or tourists, residents or business owners, consider who is living, working, and playing in your area and what you can do to put them at the forefront of your strategy and marketing.
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We won’t go over them all, but the possibilities are endless when it comes to the different ways a state or local government agency can interact with their audiences through campaigns. Of course, it all depends on the goal. Are you trying to bring in more tourists? Is the goal to encourage more sustainable thinking? Is the hope to find more employees to contribute to the local economy? Let’s break down a few types of campaigns we recommend and have worked on with our municipal clients:
We work closely with The City and County of Denver and are excited each year to tackle the next round of campaign goals they have. This past year, we focused on talent acquisition and HR. Talent acquisition campaigns are a great way to connect with the community and encourage them to work for the municipality.
We worked with The City to develop the ‘See Yourself’ campaign to attract new talent and set jobs in the public sector apart from those in the private sector. Check it out here.
Sometimes municipalities need campaigns to help them talk about a not-so-fun topic in an interesting way. These types of campaigns are crucial when it comes to trust. We worked with Adams County Government to develop an election campaign talking about how the community tax dollars are at work in the community.
The goal of the campaign was to help residents understand why, even though paying taxes is no one’s favorite thing, the money ultimately goes back into helping them and making a better life for them in the county. Check it out here:
As part of a state or local government’s dedication to their people, enlisting a marketing team to put out public service announcements or other types of campaigns that let residents in on something they should or shouldn’t be doing, is important to the well-being of the community. Sometimes it might look like a simple campaign to bolster mental health and spread optimism, like we did with The City of Denver on the ‘Joy’ campaign here. Or maybe it’s about helping the community learn more about their impact on the environment. We’ve worked with The Office of Climate Action at The City and County of Denver several times on various climate-related campaigns, encouraging residents to reuse and reduce their waste.
Sometimes a municipality may want to invest in campaigns for specific programming under their umbrella. For example, The City and County of Denver runs a media-centered organization called Denver Community Media, offering equipment rentals, educational certifications, and mentorships around film/podcast production. They came to us wanting to develop an awareness campaign to make Denver residents aware of the services they offer and how The City invests in creativity.
Check it out here.
Sometimes a campaign is merely used as a way to uplift the community and encourage togetherness. In the wake of COVID-19, we worked with The City and County of Denver to develop a campaign encouraging Denver residents to maintain their responsibility in protecting their fellow Denverites from COVID.
The public health & safety campaign’s sole purpose was to get people vaccinated and to encourage people to think about each other. Check it out here.
Not only does the alliteration sound nice, marketing will do a whole lot to uplift your mission and the work state and government agencies are doing for your communities.
So, what’s the next step?
Get in touch with us — we’ll take you through a more complete list of the different campaigns you might want to utilize to reach your goals. Otherwise, take a good look at yourselves. What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you speaking to? Where are the gaps in your efforts to reach the community?
Noodle, and get back to us! We’d love to get started on something for you.