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Greetings!
The Downtown Institute: A Tale of Two Towns in Silver Cliff/Westcliffe was a huge success. Attendees learned merchandising tips to take back to business owners in their communities, online promotional strategies, and tips for determining market niche. Save the date for the November Downtown Institute: Celebrating Economic Restructuring to be held in Lyons on November 27, 2012.
We hope you are as excited as we are for this year's Annual Conference! This year, we would like to offer the chance to have private, one-on-one conversations with our sponsors to discuss partnership opportunities, business ventures and more in a relaxed setting. In order to gauge interest for this format of networking, and
determine who our conference attendees would most like to have one-on-one discussions with, we need you to tell us which sponsors you would most like to speak with. Click here to take this brief survey now.
Have you reserved your hotel room for the DCI Conference? The discount rate of $138 per night ends August 14! Reserve your room at the Table Mountain Inn today!
Cheers!
Katherine Correll
Executive Director
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| Welcome to New Members! | As DCI membership continues to grow, we would like to recognize our new members. Each month, we will list newly registered DCI members:
Patience Crowder, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Robin Enright, Merchandising Matters
Susan Fries, Pueblo Performing Arts Guild
Richard Lindblad, Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation
Marilyn Manning, Manning Business Solutions
Charlene Meeker, Castle Rock Economic Development Council
Jim Mulligan, Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P.
Dahna Raugh, City of Fruita
Joanne Tullis, North Fork Valley Creative Coalition
Michael Udgar Parsons, Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation
Jason Wells, Town of Silverton
Do you have any news or great stories to tell of your community for member features for upcoming newsletters? Email your stories to events@downtowncoloradoinc.org!
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Creating the Perfect Downtown Events Calendar
| Kristi Trevarrow is the executive director for the Rochester, Michigan downtown development authority and runs a blog called the The Downtown Geek where she gives tips and tools for downtown revitalization.
Much like a recipe for your favorite dessert, crafting a perfect downtown events calendar takes many ingredients, a little bit of love and a lot of patience. Event selection is key. Just because an event knocks it out of the park in one city doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fit for yours. When building an event calendar for your downtown, you want it to be uniquely yours and not a list of generic events that people can find in Anytown, USA.
Take It Slow
Event schedules are not built overnight. You need to determine your community's appetite for events and how many your organization can execute effectively. When I started in Downtown Rochester back in 1997, we had three different events, totaling 8 event days. Fast forward to 2012 and we are planning 25 events, totaling over 150 event days. Every event or promotion that was added each year was based on exhaustive research and a taking a really hard look at what we believed our downtown wanted and needed.
Friend-Raising vs. Register Ringing
One of the eternal struggles of downtown event planning is striking the balance between retail events and special events. Of course, the majority of businesses would love to have every event ring their registers, but that isn't always practical and can be a recipe for disaster. By continuing to push "sales" events, you run the risk of your downtown shoppers becoming fatigued by the constant "come spend money downtown" message that those events send. That's not to say that register ringing events don't have their place in the overall event calendar, but they should be created in moderation. |
Social Media in 4 Easy Steps
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Social media can be a great way to promote your organization, events, and projects in a low-cost way. Unfortunately, when there seems to be a never-ending load of work with even less time available to complete it, social media and marketing seem to be the first project to be dismissed. With a little bit of planning, you can come one step closer to making time to market your community or online! Below are four key tips to consider when managing social media in a small organization:
1. Set a schedule in advance. Did you know you can schedule posts on Facebook? This is a great tool to use on a weekly or monthly basis to make social media manageable. For example, if you would like to post at least 3 times per week on Facebook, schedule for Monday's to post a link to an event, Wednesday's to post an article, and Friday's to post any announcements or program information. On the days without regularly scheduled posts, with time permitting, you can read through your news feed and share links that others have posted. (See how to schedule Facebook posts here!)
2. Track visits to your website. This can help you determine which social media is routing the most visits to your website and then help to determine which area you should most target. Google Analytics is a free program that tracks how visitors find your website. (READ MORE)
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Spotlight on...Sterling
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 Located in the northeastern corner of Colorado, Sterling is known as the regional shopping hub and has the largest population of communities in Colorado east of Pueblo (estimated at 13,900). The city's proximity to Interstate 76, and State Highway 14 provides great potential to bring passers-by to the community.
DCI brought a technical assistance team to Sterling in mid-July. Throughout the assessment, the technical assistance team met with community stakeholder groups to determine the needs of the city. Council members, business owners, community organizations, and residents met in focus groups to update the team on past revitalization efforts, and what they would like to see for the future of their community. Common observations included the need to eliminate one-way streets, improve sidewalks and design, make use of historic buildings, and satisfy the organizational needs to bring all downtown business owners on the same page. Downtown business owners expressed the concern that most of their business came from out of town, and very few Sterling residents go to the downtown district to shop. (READ MORE)
Interested in DCI's technical assistance program? Visit www.downtowncoloradoinc.org for details or contact us at 303.282.0625.
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DCI is an equal opportunity employer. DCI employs personnel without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental handicap, veteran status and marital status. |
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2012 DCI
Calendar | |
Save the Date!
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Community
Bulletin Board | |
August 24:
Local Entrepreneurship Day Hayden
October 3-6:
October 7-8:
October 15-19:
Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting Denver |
Jobs & RFPs E-Notice
| Let us help you get the word out to our huge network!
Submit all job openings and RFPs by next August 13, to ensure your notice will be included.
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| Our Sponsors | |
Thank You to Our Patron, District Partner, and Main Street Supporter Sponsors!
 
 
Interested in DCI sponsorship? Download our sponsorship brochure now! Or contact DCI at 303.282.0625.
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DCI members receive a 30% discount on Constant Contact services if you sign up through DCI!
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