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 Emporia Main Street Calendar of Events 

December 6

Quarter Mania

Granada Theatre

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the event starts at 6:30 p.m.

December 7th

Board Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office. 

December 8

Midnight Madness

8:00 p.m. until Midnight

Horse Drawn Carriage Rides

700 Block of Merchant

December 14

Promotions Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office

Design Committee Meeting

noon in the Emporia Main Street office

December 15-17

Kris Kringle's Kids Shoppe

December 15

Horse Drawn Carriage Rides

December 21

Board Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office.

December 22

Horse Drawn Carriage Rides

December 28

Business Enhancement Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office

Home Based Meeting

12:30 p.m. in the Emporia Main Street office.

January 7th

Granada Bridal and Prom Expo

noon in the Granada Theatre.

Benefactors 

The City of Emporia

Lyon County

Bobby D's BBQ

Caribbean Sun Tanning

CoreFirst Bank & Trust

The Emporia Gazette

ESB Financial

Emporia's Radio

StationsKVOE, 104.9, Country 101.7

Longbine Auto Plaza

Roberts Blue Barnett Funeral Home

T2 Verizon Wireless

AKA Marketing/The Sports Fan

Amanda's Bakery

Applebee's

Ash, LLC.

Atherton & Huth Attorney at Law

Barden & Thompson

Bath Expressions

Bennett Dental Group

Best Western Hospitality House

Black Heart Cherry

Brown's Shoe Fit Co.

C & J Woodworks

Cable One

Cable One Advertising

Capitol Federal

Cassell Insurance

Chester Press, Inc.

Clark Carpet & Tile

Coffelt Sign Co. 

Commercial Street Diner

Complete Works

Country Mart/Price Chopper

Dan's Hands

Dorsey & Wise Family Eye Care

Douglas Chiropractic Center

Dynamic Disks

Emporia Chamber of Commerce

Emporia State Federal Credit Union

ESU Memorial Union

E-Town Solutions

First Community Bank

Flint Hills Eye Care Associates

Flint Hills Lanes

Flint Hills Music

Flint Hills Tech College

Flint Hills Mall

Forget Me Not Productions

Four Seasons Apartments

Furniture Loft

Genesis Health Club

George Groh & Sons

Gerald Schumann Electric

Glendo

Granada Coffee Company

Granada Plaza & Lofts

Graves Drug Store

Hair Krafters

Helbert & Allemang Attorney's at Law

High Gear Cyclery

Hornet Residential

IM Design Group

Java Cat 5

Jimmy John's

Kansas Radio 96.1 The Wave

KISS 103.1

Krueger & Williams Law Office

L & L Pets

Little Acorns

Little Caesers Pizza

Lyon County State Bank

Lyon County Title

Marion National Bank

Mark II Lumber

Mathis Physical Therapy

McDonald's on 6th Ave.

McKinzie Pest Control

Menu Foods Midwest Corp.

Midas Touch Golden Tans

Modern Air Conditioning

Muckenthaler, Inc.

Nature's Paradise

Navrat's Office Products

Pizza Ranch

Plum Bazaar

Poehler Mercantile

Pool & Wright

Prairie Sage Apartments

Prairie Land Partners

Pro Cuts

Pyramid Pizza

Redi Upholstry

Redline Trucking

Ru Yi

Sauder Custom Fabrication

Scheller's Lawn & Landscape

Simmons Pet Food

SS Graham Insurance Agency

Stanley Jewelry

Studio 11

Subway

Sunflower Gymnastics

Symmonds & Symmonds Attorney at Law

The Help Desk

The Henrikson Team

The Medicine Shoppe

The Sweet Granada

The Villiger

The White Rose Inn

Thompson Auto Repair

Toso Appraisal Service

Total Technology, LLC

Town Crier Bookstore

Town Royal

Water's True Value

Westar Energy

Wheat State Pizza

Williams Automotive

 Big Brothers Big Sisters

Community Theatre of Emporia

Corner House

Emporia Arts Council

Emporia Farmer's Market

Emporia Granada Theatre Alliance

Emporia High School Future Business Leaders of America

Emporia Public Library

ESU Foundation

Small Business Development Center

First Presbyterian Church

Flint Hills Optimists Club

Jayhawk Area Council (Scouts)

Lyon County Historical Society

National Teachers Hall of Fame

Plumb Place

The United Way 

Boyzen Bunny Fiber Arts- Tracey Graham

Energy Innovators

Family Jewels-

Leticia Rust

Gold Canyon Candle- Stephanie Morgan

Green Door Recycling- Amy Becker

Independant Longaberger Consultant- Judith Dieker

Interdependent Web- Ben Stallings

Joe the Furniture Doctor- Joe Kurzen

Kynda Kreative- Amanda Mendoza

Mary Kay- Brenda Braynard

Pampered Chef- Chelsea Gerleman

Patti Cakes- Patti Lipson

Paula's Creations

Paula Roper

Premier Designs Jewelry- Nikki Simmons

RossTography

Mike Ross

Scentsy- Deann Rose

Stampin-Up

Darcy Johnson

Tastefully Simple- Vanessa Apodaca 

Anne Strobel

Brad Harzman

Dale and Carolyn Davis

Erin Woods

Julie Johnson

Kayla Oney

Mark & Amy McAnarney

Mary & Tim Helmer

Matt & Val Zimmerman

Pam & Fred Stephenson

Peggy Mast

Rob Gilligan

Sue Blechl

Victoria Partridge 

Emporia Main Street E- Newsletter

 The events listed above, holiday lighting and more are brought to you through the support of Red Ribbon Merchants.  Thank these Red Ribbon Merchants TODAY!

AKA Marketing, Bath Expressions, Brown's Shoe Fit, Complete Works, Dan's Hands, the Emporia Arts Council, Forget Me Not, Graves Drug Store, IM Design Group, Lyon County Title, L & L Pets, Plum Bazaar, Poehler Mercantile, Pro Cuts, Stanley Jewelry, Studio 11, Town Crier and Twisted Sisters. 

Midnignt Madness

December 8th from 8:00 p.m. until Midnight

 CLICK HERE FOR THE MIDNIGHT MADNESS MAP OF SPECIALS!

Quarter Mania

is TODAY, Tuesday, December 6th at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.) at the Granada Theatre. 

 Click HERE for the list of participating merchants and items listing.

Asking Questions, Getting Answers

 Using targeted Marketing Surveys and other tools to make better business decisions.

Businesses produce more proft when they achieve a better understanding of their consuming public.  When we comprehend a customers wants and needs, we can adjust our services and products accordingly.  When we understand HOW people shop, we can work cooperatively with our neighbors to create stronger districts (for more than just retail).  How do we achieve this level of understanding?  It all starts with asking the right questions.

Emporia Main Street is an economic development agency with a four point approach.  These four points can help businesses identify market opportunities and achieve long term success through targeted market research.  How?  Well, keep reading...

Design is more than pretty flowers and Christmas lights.  Uniform set backs, infill development that fixes the vacant lot problem and nodes/business clusters help businesses in an area succeed.  So, a targeted market study from a Design standpoint may watch consumers as they walk into a given store front and then graph movements between area store fronts.  This design based movement may help identify barriers AND help businesses select partners in cooperative marketing activities.  They can also provide empirical data on popular space types and the number of a particular type of space (25 foot store fronts, versus 50 foot store fronts) that are needed within a given area.  Design based targeted Marketing Surveys also highlight a distinct advantage that core development projects have: they are bike and pedestrian friendly (two traffic types that don't show up on traditional traffic counts).  A Design Based targeted Marketing Survey can help a businesses take advantage of existing resources and can represent one of the cheapest and easiest surveys that leads to improved cash flow.

Promotions generally include "capture" surveys, where individuals participating in the event are asked a few short questions that gauge awareness of the local market and brand awareness of local businesses.  In Main Street, we see two basic types of Promotions: "events" drive traffic to an area that make people aware of an area and it's businesses.  "Business Promotions" drive sales within an area.  Both are necessary for a healthy district.  For example, the Main Street Carriage Rides are an "event" that make people aware of several businesses and the district as people take a short ride in a horse drawn carriage through downtown.  Midnight Madness is a "Business Promotion" specifically designed to help registers ring.  From an individual business standpoint, you can capture information from people traveling close to your business to gauge brand/market awareness, or you can survey participants in an individual event to determine effectiveness.  Either survey can help you determine better ways to reach your target audience, they can help you gain a more realistic view of how the market perceives you AND they can help you invest your marketing dollars more effectively.

Organization seeks to improve investor confidence within an area so businesses development and investments are more likely to occur.  In essence, we use Organizational techniques to reach out to those that "get it", and support those groups through partnerships.  Not everyone will "get" what we do.  Similarly, not every business will "get" what you do.  The goal for a business seeking organizational targeted market research is to identify others with a complimentary mind set.  For example, attorneys, insurance agents, accountants and investment councilors may have clients that utilize complimentary services within a short time frame.  By surveying other businesses/organizations, you may find ways to offer cooperative marketing that benefits all of you.  The flip side of organizational targeted marketing research is that you identify business or organizations that don't "get it".  That's OK.  Not everyone will agree with any business, development or organizational type, and one would be fairly naive to think that you could get everyone on "the same page" with something as complex as business or development.

Business Enhancement is the committee most strongly tied to targeted market research.  Identifying consumer buying habits, areas of market leakage, and how many (and what size) of a business category can be supported are important ways to facilitate business profitability, business expansion and entrepreneurial development.  Consumers change, so doing businesses a certain way simply to avoid change will eventually hurt your entity.  What products do your consumers expect?  What services are anticipated?  When do consumers want to use your business?  How do your customers wish to pay for your products and services?  Identifying consumer needs, consumer buying behavior and market size can help your business or organization react to emerging trends and create customer loyalty. 

If you want to know where your business stacks up in comparison to national or industry standards, CLICK HERE!

If you are a downtown business, and you want access to area specific analytics that can help you succeed, CLICK HERE! 

If you want access to various trade associations that can give you good ideas about tapping into areas of your local market, CLICK HERE! 

If you want to view a book identifying shopping trends, click HERE for local purchasing options.  

For an example of an Emporia Main Street survey conducted with Emporia State University Students, CLICK HERE.

For an example of an Emporia Main Street survey conducted with Emporia High School Students, CLICK HERE. 

If you are anything like me, you are probably saying to yourself "that's great, but when the heck am I going to find time to do a survey..."  Well, the internal survey's are simply a matter of putting together questions and printing (we can help with the questions).  For capture surveys, we are blessed with two regents institutions that contain students looking for these types of projects.  This won't happen tomorrow, but if we plan with area students/volunteers, we could see some targeted surveys available this spring.  Contact Emporia Main Street if you have questions about your market, and we will do our best to provide you with questions and tools to help obtain answers. 

Information for this article was obtained through a Kansas Main Street Quarterly Training Webinar.  Quarterly Training Information is free to all Emporia Main Street members as a service of Kansas Main Street.  These trainings bring national experts in Business Enhancement, Promotion, Design and Organization to you for the price of a membership.  The next Kansas Main Street Quarterly Training is scheduled for January 19th and 20th in El Dorado, Kansas, and the training will cover a 4 Point Approach to Economic Development.  Click HERE for more information.

Last week we participated in a training session for the Four Point Approach in western Kansas, we aided in a community visioning

Support local shopping by purchasing Main Street gift certificates for people on your list!

session in a Main Street community, we began the recruiting process for three businesses and we spoke to three different development groups about projects they are contemplating in downtown Emporia.  We met with the Business Enhancement Committee, the Home Based Committee and a local banking representative.  We were interviewed for Channel 70, hosted the first of four carriage rides, met with ESU Marketing and helped host Breakfast with Santa at the Emporia Public Library.  AND volunteers helped judge area windows for the during the Chamber Christmas Parade (Congratulations Flint Hills Music for taking 1st).  It was another crazy week, with some good questions from all of you!...

1.  "How do I "like pages from my "Fan Page"?"  From a downtown business owner.  This is a common question from many that use social media.  With an personal "page" it is easy to "like" different business pages.  To "like" business or "fan pages" from your business or "fan page" you simply need to "use facebook as (insert your fan page name here).  Here's how you do it:

1. Open your facebook personal profile.

2. Click on the icon of your desired "fan page" to open that page.

3. Click "Use Facebook as (insert your fan name here) towards the upper right of your fan page (see the picture below).

4. Once you have selected to use Facebook under your business or "fan page" name, you should be able to "like" other fan pages, receive notifications and conduct activities in a format that more resembles a personal page, with the exception of also utilizing page analytics or "insights". 

The yellow oval in the upper right indicates the area you click to use your Facebook "fan page" like a profile page.

2.  "How was everyone's Black Friday and Small Business Saturday?"  From a member business. All over the place.  Generally speaking, those businesses that aggressively pursued business through marketing and specials did fairly well (up for a similar day).  Those businesses that were passive in their traditional marketing and expected to capture people that were just "out shopping" did not.  Remember, although people are expected to shop during this time of year, people have more options than ever before in where to spend their money.  Are you giving people a reason to spend with you this holiday season?

3.  "What do you mean when you say "sustainable"?"  From a volunteer. Although difficult, it is more beneficial over the long term to sustain a business or development than simply to start a business or development.  We use the word "sustainable" because we want to put our businesses and developers in situations where they can succeed in the long term.  By looking at a master plan, determining how businesses and developments interact with pre-existing businesses/developments, we can create sustainable areas.  When we view every development or business as independent of one another, we fail to take advantage of "cluster" development that can help the community grow and prosper.  So, we use the word "sustainable" because we seek long term planned growth as opposed to a "place and hope" approach.      

4.  "So when is ________?" From several people concerning local events. One of the reasons we send out weekly e-mails is to ensure you are up to date on upcoming events.  Please check the calendar of events on this e-mail or check out the Main Street web site at www.emporiamainstreet.com .  We want to keep you informed with accurate, up to date information.  Occasionally, information and dates change for community events, and we do our best to inform you of those changes.  If you have questions, or if you hear conflicting information out in the community, please contact us for accurate information.

5. "How was Breakfast with Santa?"  From a media member. It went well.  Lori Heller of the Emporia Public Library estimated over 450 people at the event, despite a cold and persistent rain.  It's great to get local kids breakfast, some face time with Santa and help them participate in some fun activities.  The Emporia Public Library is the lead agency on this event, and I think I can safely say that Emporia Main Street and the Emporia Arts Council are happy to help!  For pictures of Breakfast with Santa, click HERE: