SOMERS POINT — Chuck Westcott, chairman of the Somers Point Economic Development Advisory Commission, provided City Council with an update on marketing efforts for 2023.
According to the data provided, online marketing via Facebook reached 171,225 people in 2023, a 31.2 percent increase over 2022, and 19,157 visit, a 131.8 percent increase.
The total of 293 posts was a 9.7 percent increase over 2022, for an average of 48.8 posts per month.
The city’s contracted marketing firm Performance Marketing drafted 86 scheduled social media posts in 2023, an average of 14.3 per month.
Fourth-quarter median reactions, comments and shares per post were 2,100, a 111.2 percent increase over the previous 90 days.
Performance Marketing also distributed seven news releases to local and regional media outlets, generating 44 media placements, an average of 6.2 placements per release.
The firm also created and launched a new eNewsletter for email sign-ups collected on the Somers Point website, visitsomerspoint.con/sign-up, completing an issue in October, November and December.
Through that effort, the contact database grew from 0 to 322 deliverable emails with an average open rate of 55 percent (average open rate of 38.49 percent across all industries) and an average click-through rate of 15 percent (average CTR across industries of 8.29 percent).
Westcott said City Councilman Charlie Haberkorn was instrumental in creating the forward momentum last year when co-chair of the EDAC.
“My role as chair is to keep the momentum going and take on some additional projects,” Westcott said Jan. 25.
Performance Marketing won a contract last year to promote Somers Point through news releases both online and in local publications. That contract expired at end of year and Westcott, noting they are working with Performance “on a bridge status,” said requests for proposals for a new contract went out last week.
“We hope to have a quick response,” he said.
Westcott said the city “had great success with Performance Marketing.”
“We got far more value than we spent the dollars on; they were really good at what they did and extremely responsive, provided a lot of data,” he said. “There was significant movement in terms of public interactions with our promotions.”
He said another element of the marketing efforts is the city website, which now has a calendar that is “very much up to date and almost completely accurate.”
Westcott said the EDAC has presented its budget to City Council and is hoping for approval.
Rob Hopkins, who oversees the Farmers Market on the grounds of Somers Mansion, now is the board’s vice chairman. In addition to operating the market, Hopkins and his wife, Desiree, own a yoga studio and created the Wyatt Strong Foundation. The organization holds a toy drive and other events to benefit hospitalized children in honor of their son Wyatt, who died in November 2017 a week before his fifth birthday.
“I’m very happy to have Rob Hopkins on as vice chairman. He is younger and has a tremendous amount of energy. He deserves kudos for the Market that has been very successful.”
He said this year’s goals are to continue the marketing effort and “expand it where we can with minimal costs.”
One of the marketing successes last year was creation of a QR code that people can scan to link to the city’s calendar. It collects email addresses and both broadens the city’s reach and targets those who are frequent visitors.
Westcott said this year’s big initiative is joining with the Atlantic County Economic Alliance, which offers access to Triad Associates, a planning firm from Vineland. Last week, Westcott was elected as a trustee to represent the Somers Point Business Assocation for one year.
“We really feel like the ACEA and Triad relationship is going to pay off at a very finite cost,” he said.
Councilman Howard Dill, who is a member of the EDAC, said he is looking forward to advancing its efforts.
“We have a full agenda on the EDAC this year,” Dill said. “The volunteers on that committee have worked very much in unison to get things done and I am very proud to be part of that.”
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff