Order at 11 o'clock a.m.
Our first order of business is item number 17 - 0 5 9
receive a report and hold a discussion
Regarding the Denton Chamber of Commerce Office of Economic
Developments
annual comprehensive marketing plan
I'd like to invite Adam Gavoresky up to the podium
Morning Adam and council members
Today we are presenting the Chamber of Commerce's economic
development comprehensive marketing plan
In particular to the timeline for print digital ad buys
maintenance and updates to dentonedp.com
Platforms and schedule of social media and planned
marketing trips
We normally run two ads per year the first one being in
site selection magazine
It's their Texas wide open for business guide which
features the state of Texas as the opening
Advertisement and then start communities can advertise
after that. So we run and we run this particular ad is what
we did last year
this publication is a
Global publication goes out to site location consultants
and sea level executives who have worked expansion products
in the past
We also do an ED directory listing in that same magazine
site selection magazine
This is their annual listing comes out once a year. It
gives the
Listings for all the communities within the state of Texas
So we want to be sure and have a presence and our name in
that so that people know to contact us
The other ad that we run each year is the it's in the
Dallas regional chambers economic development guide. This
is strictly DFW
locations and it's a regional guide on
access to the Metroplex
logistics transportation
Education all the above we've run this we ran this
particular ad last year
Maintenance and updates to didn't need a P calm
We spend a lot of time updating and maintaining our website
It is the typically the first place that site location
consultants and sea level executives would go a lot of
times before they even contact
Us so we spend a lot of time
updating this
monthly and annual
Updates to the pages and every single link we are
constantly checking out
We have a we have a full two page checklist that we go
through each and every month
To update that and we keep we keep in current contact with
it with the city and update all those pages
We are currently doing a website update and facelift
project
Which will be completed by January 2018
This includes full-scale design refresh to bring and to
bring the brand and feel of didn't need a P
To life on your on our site upgrade upgrading the back-
handed core systems behind the site
integrating the new design into the new pro into new
programming
Optimize the site for mobile access or mobile across all
platforms with responsive programming
That will make it basically fit your your smartphones and
tablets and things like that and it will adjust to the
different size screens
Upgrading all 80 suite tools to the newest versions add an
agenda tool staff and board tool and a new map and resource
center to the site
We're also adding a floating header for easier navigation
and user flow for visitors
migrating the current content into the refreshed website
and coordinate with didn't need a P
To refresh the photography utilized on the site work to
develop and plan to better utilize and understand the
analytics attached to the site
And work towards developing a proposed plan to increase the
SEO and targeted marketing of the website over time
It's been three years since the last time we did a full
website
Update and redesign so this is going to give us complete
refresh and updating everything to the newest codes and
standards
Platforms and schedule of our social media activities
linkedin we
Update once or twice monthly depending on what events are
happening that month. These are typically for
For large events that take place Facebook. We update weekly
Sometimes even bike weekly depending on what current what
events are happening currently
Facebook is to to notify and keep the residents and the
people of Denton notified of what we're doing in economic
development within the city
LinkedIn is more geared towards marketing to the site
selection community and sea level executives
And then Twitter we update that weekly as well. Typically
every time we update Facebook. We're updating Twitter
plan marketing trips for 2017 and 2018. I know we went over
this at a recent meeting, but here we go again
We have two separate funds. We have an operations fund
funded from the city of Denton and then the private
development fund
Which comes from our private investors?
Operations funding funds professional development which I
'll get into after this. It's Texas economic development
council meetings and
International economic development meetings TDC and IDC and
then private funding is strictly target marketing
And operations does fund some of target marketing as well
Once again operations funds TDC and IDC all professional
development activities
Along with target marketing. Here is a listing of the some
of the target marketing that we cover through the
operations account
Team Texas we have two of those budgeted for team. Texas is
the statewide
Marketing initiative. It's a it's a pay-to-play type of
organization
There are 104 communities across across the state of Texas
and they do
Ten to twelve trade shows per year. They do marketing
events in different major metro locations where they invite
site selectors and
They do different ballgame activities and things like that
basically trying to bring as many site selection
consultants and seal executives into those events and then
at trade shows they'll have a
Booth and a backdrop that says state of Texas and then we
can go and
Partner with them. We work the shows we get all the leads
from the shows cultivated from the
From the from the booth along with what we cultivate on our
own walking the floor
type 1 marketing trips
These are where we go. I typically go by myself. We go to a
large major metro location
Chicago
New York, New Jersey, Atlanta or LA and we meet with site
selection consultants and to level executives
And we kind of just we spread the the Ditten gospel
Advanced manufacturing expo is in February in Anaheim,
California
Since advanced manufacturing is one of our target market
industries. This is one of the best shows if not the best
show
For the entire year that we can do to to target this
industry and it's a large trade show
It's a broad category seven different trade shows under one
roof all targeting advanced manufacturing
The Southern Economic Development Council is
Twice per year that's all the southern states we get
together and they have
They bring in a lot of site selection consultants from that
cover all the major metros in the southern areas
DFW marketing team is ran and hosted by the Dallas Regional
Chamber
And they will typically take five communities from the DFW
marketing or from the DFW area
With them and we'll go to a large major metro area and
market ourselves as a region and then we have our own time
to market
Ourselves as a as a the city of Ditten as well
The net car event North Texas commercial association of
realtors is a conference held in downtown the downtown
Dallas area once per year
We have a booth presence
So we have our own dent and backdrop and this it's
basically all of the site selection consultants brokers and
real estate people
In the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex one of our better events
for the entire year
Moving on to private funding
Which funds target marketing activities
Strictly from from the private funds once again
We typically will fund one of these through the operations
funding and then one through target marketing
Southern Economic Development Council we just covered
Industrial Asset Management Council or I am see we do two
of these either strictly funded from the private funds both
of them per year
One of the best trips we've done for pretty for the year is
this event
We recruited penske trucks from this particular marketing
event. It's sea level executives
It's site location consultants and it's also consultants
that work within a large company
That would not that's typically too large to hire of an
outside consultant handle their site selection projects
like a Pepsi Co or a Frito Lay
or or one of those
Another type one marketing trip to a major metro area where
we market ourselves as dentin
sightlink forum is a consultant forum and networking
marketing event where they bring in
Anywhere from 12 to 15 site location consultants that we
have the opportunities over three day period to go and
network with
The site selectors guild is the same thing except for this
one
They bring in 42 of the top site location consultants from
across the country
Which I don't even know how many there are total. I would
guess a thousand to two thousand. So they bring in the top
42
Across the country that are in those are typically the ones
that work the larger projects in you know for the entire
year
area development consultants forum is another
Consultant forum where they bring in sites electors and
there's typically about 18 to 20 of those on that marketing
trip
Consultant connect economics forum same type of thing and
other
economic development and consultant
Marketing event and then team Texas. We find two more out
of the private funds as well
That concludes my marketing presentation are there any
questions
Yes
Sir, mr. McCoy
February yes, sir. So we have really made significant str
ides at UNT and building an advanced manufacturing facility
And our materials research facility and we put together
some
Decent looking flyers now sure that would be something that
you'd want to take to that meeting. Absolutely about yes
Brand new state-of-the-art. It's a German company that
makes a very fine
3d printing operation that we purchased and be installed in
January of this year, right?
So if you're looking at that sector and be good to let them
know that we actually have that's probably one of our
biggest
fastest growing areas at UNT is in the whole advanced
manufacturing 3d printing area perfect
So I put you in touch with the two guys that are the key
people that can brief you on what we have
Okay, great. I'll make a note to get with you on that. Okay
, so I'll get with you probably in early January. Sounds
good
Okay, thank you
Mr. Baines you had a question
Adam sir, could you flush out for me help me understand
what the advanced manufacturing expo?
Kind of who the population is and my other question had to
do with the southern ed council
Yes, help me to appreciate what we're talking about there
Sure, the advanced the advanced manufacturing expo. It's it
's really seven conferences under one roof. It's it's a
large
It's they do it once per year. It's
There's a green technology hall. There's an aerospace and
aviation hall
medical device design and manufacturing hall
green technologies
So it's it's really seven industries under one roof all
under the advanced manufacturing umbrella and it is it's
your standard trade show
So, you know we go and we walk the floor. So it's your our
cold. It's basically cold calling on different companies
So we we go for a three-day period and we we hit the floor
and hit
300 booths however many we can hit while we're there and so
it's it's a it's a cold calling mission
Basically, it's a pretty good back and forth a lot of
prospects a lot of opportunities
Yes, absolutely. And I've I've been here four years. I've
done it all four years that I've been here
I did it for six years before that too. I've done it ten
years straight. So it's
It's it's it's proved to be good over the years
Works out well a lot of prospects and a lot of people that
we keep in contact with and you know
These things aren't they don't always give you instant grat
ification
So we aren't run like a land a project immediately after a
show
But sometimes we you know, we keep keep touching base with
these people and you know over time
I think we you know, it will pan out something
So southern ED council the southern ED council is it's
really just geared for the the southern states
And really for the southeast over to as far over as Texas
for that matter. We all get together
It's it's typically in Atlanta a central meeting location
for all the southeast states and then they bring in
Consultants and site location consultants that cover the
our market. So a lot of them are from Dallas a lot of more
from Atlanta
You get some as far as far north as Richmond
But they all kind of meet in one central location and they
'll you know, we get to network with them
there's also panels where they get up and speak about the
latest trends of what's happening in the southeast and what
they're seeing in terms of
Their clients and their prospects that they're working
so our ultimate goal is to get in front of the sea level
executives and the CEO but
Second best is getting in front of these consultants who
are working these global and national projects
Sure
Adam who do we work with the help with our website design?
It's a company called Edie suite and it is who we used
Three or four years ago and they specialize in just
economic development websites
There's a lot of coding and programming that goes into it
that that they specialize in
Basically for the you know the integration of the building
insights components and making that a searchable feature
and and things like that. So
Mr. Hutz with
Thank you a couple of questions as well
So the initial initially in your slide you mentioned some
magazines etc that you're advertising in do you?
Disseminate those links. So for example if I wanted to put
it on if I'm
drafting an email of someone and I want to throw it at the
bottom of the email like here's here's this opportunity
look at this or
Look at this. Is there do you the cement view?
Email those out or those available somewhere where I could
grab them and share them with people if not
Absolutely, I guess I would request that annually if you'll
sure whatever you send out so that I'll have that saved
As a link that I could then
Populate the email sure as needed and then I
Was that the I'll give you the backdrop so I was at the air
show and I went to a museum
Trailer and so it's in Wisconsin and they attend the air
show and they had something similar that we have where you
could get the the
virtual tour
You know of their of their museum, but the other caveat and
my question is
Do we have anything for kids at our booth and I say that
because the most interesting thing about that booth and
made it
Work the time spent was there's a gentleman there that has
a little setup and he has he works with kids to make
cookie cutters
That may seem like a small thing to you
But if I'm not wanting to look at the museum and I have my
seven-year-old with me and she's off making a cookie cutter
that we then have in perpetuity that we can that always
References back to our experience at this museum that I've
never heard of but I'll never forget, you know
Then I think we should incorporate something and if it's a
makerspace type thing
Which is popular with kids that I would ask to look into
that
Is there something that we could do at our booth that and I
'm not saying there's kids always gonna be there and I'm not
Saying it may not be relevant. I've never never attended
one of events
but I'll just tell you from my takeaway from that entire
air show is I have a
Hot air balloon shaped cookie cutter and I have a seven-
year-old that lights up every time we see it and I'll never
forget that acronym in that
That place for that reason so it's great great marketing.
We we do a handful of giveaways
Most of these conferences that we do there are really no
kids
Definitely not below the age of 18
They do they do one day that has it's a seniors senior day
for senior students
But we do a lot of giveaways that people will come by and
they'll give to their their kids and things like that
But we're open to new suggestions. Also, we can we can
really we can have anything
Completed. Yeah, like I said, I wasn't I've never been so I
'm sure it's saying it's a fit
I'm just that that was my experience so forever in a in an
area that is a little maybe different
Then some traditional trade show than that might be
Something to entertain sure. Absolutely we can we can do
that
And many else have any questions or comments
Yes, gesture
For the site selection magazine for example or the Dallas
regional chambers economic development guide
Yes, I wonder if they ever tell us how many they dissemin
ated
they could probably tell us how many they
produced but
We have those we can get those numbers we do especially
from site selection magazine
I know the Dallas chamber will give us those numbers too
Yeah, we can get those for if you want us to send I can
talk to you offline about it. Okay, and we
idea to include in the marketing report is if we're doing a
magazine some
Okay, where those go and how many folks are seeing that
they look great. Thank you. Thank you
We have asked those questions to those magazines as well.
Okay. Thank you
This is Briggs. Yes, ma'am
For other locations when you have an event here locally,
how do you get the word out?
Do you do Facebook invites? I mean it do you just use
social media?
Do you have other ways of marketing your your events? Are
you talking about like the economic development investor?
Receptions and things. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you guys have
yeah those we invite typically just our investors and
willing about the council members
So we'll send out
Email notices while in advance. I think you got the invite
to our one that's coming up on Monday night
The thrive didn't is run run by that chamber of the
chambers staff, which I know I'm the chamber staff, but it
's run by
Strictly the chamber staff. That's not something that
economic development department is doing
But if we were doing something locally, we would absolutely
post it on Facebook
And run social media and send out emails and word of mouth
I
Asked Mr. Carpenter
Clarify when you talked about the actual individuals that
you're hoping to have face time with you referenced a sea
level
executive
Yes, but what is who were you talking to see? What is your
expectation when you meet with?
Because CEO is gonna make the decision but you've targeted
this I think you refer to it as a sea level
executive sea level executives or
Upper level management that would have an influence on the
decision-making process a lot of times
We'll deal with just the CFO believe it or not
Because they're done with all the you know the financial
operations, but CEOs who we try to get in front of
CFOs CEO's a lot of times. It's the the VPs and a lot of
times they have a facilities director
You know a lot of times we'll go and we'll try to meet with
the gym flexes of Peter Biltz out there
You know that are the running the plants and operations
But anybody who can control that ultimate decision-making
process or has some kind of influence in it
All right, thanks
All right, we'll move on to our next order of business
which is item 17 - 0 6 0
Receive a report and hold discussion regarding the economic
development program shop here on purpose and the shop small
Saturday event
I'd like to welcome Christina Davis to the podium
Hold your applause
Okay, really quick I just wanted to update you that and
some of our activities for the shop didn't
Recently we worked with the DTV folks to create a short
video that
We hope creates an instant connection between
Shopping local and supporting public services and so real
quick. I just like to show you that video
We do have it hosted on our shop in Texas the Facebook page
, and you can also find it on this DTV
City of Denton DTV YouTube page I
Don't believe we'll get any sound
I
See it's just showing our different services and for those
you don't know this is the 3d printer at the library
So the idea behind the video is just to help people have a
visual of what it means when you shop locally
How your money's used the tax so hopefully we can create a
little
aha moment for people for that
Something we're also working on is
Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving
There's a small business Saturday shop day the concept
behind this is to
Draw attention to small businesses and help create new
customers and new
Shopping adventures as we like to say for those businesses
So what we do to help the businesses is every year for the
past four years
We've had a shop small selfie contest and what we do for
that contest is we ask shoppers to go out shop small
Take a selfie and tag the business where they're shopping
by tagging the business it helps create
some interaction between the business and the shoppers and
Just a little more fun for your shopping day, so
For the selfie contest we will have
Some prizes we're going to have a eye watch as a prize for
the shopper with the most
Shopping selfie tags and we use social media analytics to
track those
Something else we're also doing is we'll have a door prize
and reason the door prize is a way to capture zip codes
So we can track zip codes and see where shoppers are coming
from and that also helps people that aren't savvy with
social media
To feel like they're part of the day and the excitement
Something new this year also is that we're going to have
some welcome stations will have five
There'll be one in the downtown Denton Welcome Center
The Denton Community Market for the first time fry Street
district is also participating
We'll have someone at the Golden Triangle Mall and again at
Unicorn Lake
The the premise behind the welcome center is to help shop
pers
Feel involved and to point them to the stores that are
participating
So that's it just short and sweet
Sir any questions
Sting are the video are we that we sent that out to some of
the small businesses so that they can put it on their
Facebook pages or get that out to their customers to help
spread the word
We've shared it with the City Council and with the Main
Street Association
And then I also have it here on the website and they can
share it there as well
But I am encouraging everyone who is responding back as
wanting to participate with shops on Saturday
To share the video as well right now. I have close to 50
businesses. It said they're interested in participating
Christina
I've shared it with the CBB staff and Veronica is helping
me to post to push that out through there. I
Think that's a good point though
Most all small businesses
Mr. Reigns
Business we have what's called a bop
Or best an optimistic and a pessimistic. Yes
I didn't know if you have kind of an idea what you were
anticipating for this initiative
Last year we had about 60 businesses participate
My goal is to increase that by 10 businesses
So far right now, like I said, I'm at 50. We still have a
couple weeks to go. So I'm optimistic that I'll reach that
goal
Last year as far as hashtags or tags for shop
Shop small Denton. We had just under 12,000
I'm hoping to increase that to 15,000. I mean, I'm sorry
not thousand fifteen hundred. So eleven hundred
Yes, I know
It was eleven hundred last year and so we hope to make it
up to fifteen hundred this year
Other questions or comments
All right that concludes our work session we'll now move
into our
Regular meeting at 1127 a.m. And the first order of
business is to approve our minutes from our October 11th
2017 board meeting
Take a motion
We have a motion by Jim and second by Carol Anne
Any discussion
All those in favor say aye
Any opposed?
The motion is unanimously approved
And our next item is some staff reports item 17 - 0 6 1
we've got the chamber activity report the stand report
which are previously disseminated via email and
Eric are you going to talk about the TIF?
We have the downtown TIF staff report
You have additional information in your packet
I was just going to highlight the high points on October 24
th
The council held a work session on the downtown TIF
The majority of the council opted to continue the downtown
TIF and directed staff to begin funding
the downtown reinvestment grant program at a TIF fund for
fiscal year 18 19
And to convene a meeting of the TIF board to recommend
immediate uses of the funds for capital projects
the TIF board meeting is being scheduled for November 17th
right now and
Following the board TIF board meeting staff will present
another work session to the council and this is planned for
December 5th
All right, how about an update on Stoke-Denton?
Also on October 24th council agreed unanimously to accept H
ickory and rail ventures
proposal for management services for Stoke-Denton
Entrepreneur Center and directed staff to modify the
contract and to bring it back to council for a vote at a
later date
The item will be on the council's November 14th agenda for
a vote Hickory and rail ventures is set to assume
management
responsibilities on December 1st of 2017
And this is in response to the RFP that went out September
12
Mr. Hitchcock
Thank you, sir. Just outside the numbers in between the the
next few meetings
I would encourage everyone to look at look this group is
very
Has me very excited
They're local and and the person that spearheaded
developing the Hickory rail group is is a
Marshall Culpepper I think his last name, but he works for
Works with cubos established that company, but he's been
the encouraging part for me is he's had to go through the
process
He he and his company went out to Silicon Valley and earned
one point six million dollars in funding
So he's kind of gone through the process and the other
great thing is they're they're
Targeting and bringing in angel investors. So now it's not
just we hope we we develop a company
It's if you develop the right company, there's people
willing and able to to fund those companies
And so I think Stoke is is going to be
It's going to thrive and he's looking at some different
things and one of the suggestions that came out the man may
not be
In the numbers is to build more office spaces and eliminate
some of the walk-in spaces
and so if you go in the stoke you have this giant open area
in the center if we
Condense some of that to more walled offices. We think we
can
Continue to grow it and have a better
Better
Representation of tech companies in there and so I'm hoping
we can help them and support them in doing that
But I'm really excited about this group and what they're
going to do to kind of get this thing
Going in a great direction
Anybody have any questions or comments on any of the staff
reports
Juster
Yes, that seems unusual is that unusual I can't speak for
what normally occurs perhaps
Someone here will interject but there were actually they
was sent to four
they had a pre-bid meeting and for attended one of them
actually supported the
hickory and rail ventures
but as far as that being normal, maybe Brian Lane Lee might
be else, but I I
personally don't know I
Mean competition is generally good
Not that they don't sound outstanding right now absolutely
We we always like to get more than one proposal and
fortunately only got one in this particular case
But we did take a lot of steps to try to get the word out
to the community
It's kind of a narrow niche market of people who do these
kinds of services with we think that's part of the issue
But this was an innovative proposal which will reduce the
cost of the city over time and provide great services
So we're really excited about that partnership and looking
to see how they're going to perform
And whomever was managing it before did they submit they
did not where they approached they were they were and they
didn't they chose
Not to submit a proposal
Thanks for the information. All right, you're welcome.
Thanks, Brian
Any other comments or questions?
Does anybody have any thing for the concluding items
announcements or agenda items for next meeting?
All right, it's 1133 and we'll there's no other business
the regular meeting is adjourned