ATTENTION TURLOCK BUSINESSES AND TAX PAYERS: Will any Council Member or Council-Elect demand accountability for services they pay for? The City Council has plans to approve a $249,253 marketing contract overseen by the Turlock Chamber of Commerce. There are only 2 pages of supporting documents (very little even for a $1,000 expenditure) so I dont have much to analyze, but thats the point. Who makes a decision without results, data, and stats? I have listed, just quickly, some surface concerns that I have toward demanding results for any government spending. Hopefully this item will not be approved on Tuesday and someone will work to get a real proposed strategy to support local business and promote Turlock. 1) There are only 5 pages total explaining the marketing for all the aspects listed within and for Turlock business and tourism. Council Members cant make an intelligent and educated decision regarding business, promotion, and marketing with this general of information. So either Council Members never ask for results and/or the Turlock Chamber of Commerce and City Staff just dont provide them. Either way shows no analytical decision making, usually associated with an expenditure of nearly $250,000. 2) There are no results, or data and stats, in this proposal or report. Ive never seen a marketing proposal and/or report for even 2 weeks with this little supporting information to analyze. 3) The budget spending plan is pretty much the same as it was in 2013. This would indicate that nothing has changed in our community, the economy, in technology, or community and marketing practices/tools. It is a completely different landscape now with business and marketing than 2012. It is impossible for a spending plan to remain even close to the same if results are being demanded from this tax money expenditure. 4) $138,000 is being spent on administrative costs to oversee and implement only $111,000 of actual marketing (and most is really just spending and not working). 5) The visitor center or tourist visitor services provided out of the Turlock Chamber of Commerce stop when they close, and that means no visitor information from the visitors center after 4pm Mon-Fri and nothing on the weekends (probably when most visitors need the services). 6) $20,000 is being spent on printed maps and directory. People use Google for both of those services. Also, if the City is funding the official map and there are advertisements from Chamber members, why isnt that paying for the maps instead of the City? That would be double dipping. 7) There is little information on the breakdown of spending but I dont even see $7,500 on digital/online outreach and promotion to out-of-town visitors. I have never seen a marketing plan since about 1999 that only allocated 4% of a marketing budget on digital/online promotion... and that is now including major spending for collection and analysis of data and stats... I now have clients who spend close to 90% on digital/online marketing, and mostly targeting outside of Turlock to add to their market pool and instead of moving around customers in their limited market pool and fight to barely increase their limited market share (even if they get 50% - 75% of their market share with competitors, its still limited). 8) This spending plans allocates $13,283.83 to subsidize the Turlock Chamber of Commerce CEO, a position and organization that is actively involved in other City proposals AND involved in political campaigns. This is in addition to letting the Turlock Chamber of Commerce have their space in Central Park and not put out to bid for a lease to other non-profits providing community services. 9) Speaking of putting out to bid, these services should be put out to bid with real proposals that include detailed spending plans with breakdown of strategy, stats and data, and more marketing/promotion than administration costs. In all honesty, $250,000 and one organization is not enough money or expert resources to provide what the stated goals are of this contract.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 19:09:10 +0000