HANCOCK - Individual business owners usually run advertising to promote their businesses, and the city of Hancock is hoping a marketing plan will help make downtown businesses better known and more successful.
At its March 17 meeting, the Hancock City Council approved a $26,000 plan to hire the Marketing Department of Houghton to develop an ad campaign, and to acquire advertising to promote the campaign.
Glenn Anderson, Hancock city manager, said the plan is to promote the businesses in an area defined by the Downtown Development Authority, which runs roughly from Dave's BP on Front Street west to Deja Vu and Daily Brew on West Quincy Street.
"We estimate we have 200 total businesses there," he said.
In the DDA area, Anderson said businesses are both retail and service.
Although the DDA is involved with improving downtown with bricks-and-mortar projects, Anderson said the marketing plan is something different for that organization to be involved with.
"The DDA has typically done capital improvements," he said.
An ad hoc Downtown Promotion Committee consisting of the DDA, the Hancock Business and Professionals Association and Anderson met several times in February to develop a guideline for the marketing plan.
On that ad hoc committee is Jack Eberhard, owner of Book Concern Printers and HBPA member, who said the marketing plan is in the first of up to four phases.
As part of the first phase, Eberhard said a meeting of downtown businesses took place this morning to get their ideas about what will be important in the marketing plan.
Exactly where to advertise is something that has to be determined, Eberhard said.
"We're just at the starting line," he said.
Eberhard said the marketing plan that is eventually developed needs to be a living document.
"I think they need to develop some short-term and long-term goals to establish an ongoing program that will develop over time," he said.
Eventually, Eberhard said the Marketing Department will probably create a "branding strategy" for downtown Hancock much as they did for Houghton, but first exactly what the needs of downtown businesses are must be identified.
Besides business owners, Eberhard said business managers will also take part in the development of the marketing plan.
"It's sort of exciting to involve the Hancock business district," he said.
Karyn Hanks, co-owner of the Marketing Department, said she's told members of the ad hoc committee much of the research done for the Houghton marketing plan could be brought across the Portage Lake Lift Bridge.
"There's a lot of that information that can be used for downtown Hancock," she said.
Hanks confirmed what Eberhard said concerning developing short and long-term goals for the marketing of downtown Hancock.
In the short term, Hanks said an ad campaign, the goal of which is to jump start awareness of downtown, is intended to develop synergy of commitment between business owners and city officials, and getting business owners to realize city officials want to promote downtown.
Hanks said it's important people understand the short-term goals won't immediately solve any problems downtown may have, won't improve the look of downtown and won't create economic vitality. All of those things will be long-term goals of the marketing plan.
"There's a lot of steps that need to be taken in a lot of areas," she said.
One of the important goals of the marketing plan will be to fill empty storefronts, especially the former Gartner's Department Store building on the corner of Quincy and Elevation streets.
After the meeting with business owners today, Hanks said she'll work on an ad campaign then present it to city and DDA officials.
"It's going to take four to six weeks to develop a few concept directions," she said.
Anderson said with the current poor economy, some downtown Hancock businesses may not have money available for promotion or advertising, and having a marketing plan for all of downtown will help them.
Despite the slow economy, Anderson said there has been some positive activity downtown, including the opening of new restaurants in the Scott Building and the former Pic Theater building, and a new Middle East grocery store, so it was thought this is a good time to develop a marketing plan.
"We've got a little uptick in our business community, and we wanted to take advantage of that," he said.
Kurt Hauglie can be reached at khauglie @mininggazette.com.
