City marketing effort seeks direction
Apr. 25—HIGH POINT — City leaders say they have goals for a proposed High Point marketing campaign, but details — including who will fund and develop it — are yet to be worked out.
The idea was first proposed in February 2020 as a City Council strategic priority to engage more people in things such as the downtown stadium.
Councilman Michael Holmes, who chairs a task force leading the initiative, said the next step is to decide whether the city's marketing personnel will guide the campaign or an outside consultant needs to be hired, and what, if any, city funding should be budgeted for the effort.
"I think we discovered early that there were so many different campaigns focused on either the downtown or a specific niche within the city," Holmes said. "I think what we arrived at is, this effort needs to unify all the campaigns that are currently underway."
Councilman Cyril Jefferson said he thinks the city needs to show the same kind of boldness it did in developing Truist Point in trying to attract people there.
"There's no sense in investing millions of dollars downtown and we're not getting folks coming and taking full advantage of it," he said. "We don't want to make the assumption that if we build it, they will come."
He said the marketing campaign needs to reach the heavily populated areas of north High Point.
"We've got plenty of people who are north of 311, who are up 68 near the Palladium, lots of folks in Ward 5 and Ward 6 who, when you talk to them, are saying, 'We just don't know much about what's going on downtown,' " said Jefferson. "We've got to find a way to attract those folks."
Forward High Point, the downtown development agency, is working on its own marketing strategy for concerts, festivals and other events being planned once coronavirus pandemic restrictions are eased, Executive Director Ray Gibbs said.
"We've put together an aggressive plan we'd like to implement, which would see downtown events almost every other week from June to November," Gibbs said. "We think we have to come out of COVID hard to get people coming back to downtown."
Forward High Point would like to hold the events in different locations throughout downtown, but budget cuts have left the agency with funding only for its operations, Gibbs said.
The agency is asking the city and Guilford County for help with funding to put on events, he said.
City officials said they will examine the capacity of the Communications and Public Engagement Department to take on all or parts of the marketing campaign.
"I think one of the keys for us is to understand that this is going to take a sizable effort, and we want to support our in-house team for whatever capacity they feel like they need to do it," said Jefferson. "If they feel like it's in the best interest of the city to bring in external (personnel), then we want to support that as well."
pkimbrough@hpenews.com — 336-888-3531
