6PM STUDY SESSION: COMMUNITY MARKETING PROGRAM
Tonight's City Council meeting will be preceded by a study session (6-6:20PM) to discuss the Community Marketing Program (aka, Visit Golden). This program has a $600,000 budget, funded by a fee that Golden businesses voluntarily contribute for purposes of joint marketing.
Some of the merchants aren't entirely satisfied with the way the City has managed the program. In recent years, they employed a full-time employee to run the program. She, in turn, hired consultants. The Marketing Manager,who lived a considerable distance from Golden and telecommuted much of the time, left the job a year ago. The position has been empty since then. The City's Economic Development Manager has been providing staff support. The consultants have been filling in, and doing good, professional work, but they are based in Colorado Springs and Boulder County.
Visit Golden has also been tied into an astonishingly expensive web hosting contract ($70K/yr).
The merchants would like to try a different approach: they want to set up a stand-alone non-profit (similar to the Golden Chamber and the Golden Welcome Center) managed by a board of business owners from different areas around the city. It would be staffed by a "Field Marketing Manager," based in or near Golden, who will spend more time meeting with the business owners and learning exactly what they want to market and how they want to present their businesses. They propose having this new, Golden-based organization manage the marketing program, while continuing to use City services to post agendas, budgets, etc., and to broadcast meetings.
Councilors Vitry and Reed have spent considerable time over the past year studying Visit Golden, and they will bring their recommendations to the rest of Council in tonight's study session.
