Virginia Tourism is way ahead of the pack…again.

One of Virginia Main Street’s most prized relationships is the one we have with Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC).  We often plan our strategies to complement theirs and they often ask us what’s going on downtown that they can use to better market Virginia.  They believe in Virginia’s historic commercial districts as tourist attractions to the point that they designed a special category of their Passionality quiz called Small Town Hound.

Many of the really exciting innovations at VTC have been ways to get your information out to travellers, whether they be from out of state or just down the street.  The Richmond Times Dispatch published an article touting VTC’s new iPhone app.  The application allows small businesses to directly reach travellers in a number of ways by self posting information about their businesses in a way that the app users can find them while they are travelling.

Features of the Virginia is for Lovers app include:

• a “near me” feature which finds all attractions within a 15-mile radius;

• directions and mapping for every listing;

• direct access to making reservations via phone or website;

• customer reviews of restaurants and lodging properties; and

• pet-friendly attractions listed by locality

The Virginia.org website has many tools to help local businesses and organizations promote their events and products.  You can go here to add your events now or you can contact a VTC representitive here.

Pop-up shops a temporary solution to the empty storefront

With commercial real estate continuing to reel from the economic downturn, some major brands are looking at temporary leases in heavy volume areas.  Empty storefronts are not good for anyone, and leases in desireable areas have become much more flexible.

These “pop-up” stores are potential strategies for fledging businesses trying out a concept, artists promoting their work, and districts working to maintain a critical energy level. And a well-executed, intentionally temporary use sends a very different message than a space that unintentionally turns over after a 90-day stint by a poorly planned business.

While a major car company may not be looking at your district to establish a pop-up store as Ford did in Portland last month to promote the new Fiesta, their model might spark local thinking about temporary uses for your vacant spaces.  The space Ford is in had been empty for two years.

With the holiday shopping season approaching, now might be a great time to encourage a creative use for a critical vacancy in your district.  If the property owner is willing, work with him or her and a brainstorming team to identify potential pop-ups that would complement existing businesses. 

Here are some quick thoughts: a seasonal Halloween or holiday store in a vacant space could bring new shoppers into the district.  Perhaps a successful charity such as goodwill would be interested in setting one up, or maybe a local club already has a holiday sales event that could use a temporary space. A successful home-based business might be a good candidate for a pop-up, or the local arts or craft guild might want to try one.  

If you have a local theater group (or maybe even the high school theater club), you might enlist their set design skills in creating an entertaining and attractive space.  Use your revitalization network to help promote the temporary store. And remember, the more people you involve in the effort, the more people will support it during its run.

Interested in reading more?  Try Inc. Magazine’s recent article, “How to Open a Pop-up Store.”

Who needs all that negativity?

It turns out you do.  At least if you are trying to gain traction and trust in the online world.

It may seem purely intuitive that bad press or reviews are not good for sales, but this short article from Fortune magazine says otherwise.  This article is geared toward online sales, but the idea can be expanded to include any online presence.

The idea is that a negative comment helps build trust in your site, making it less likely that a potential customer will look for information about your product elsewhere.

“If they leave your site to look for reviews, they most likely won’t come back,” says Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee Results, which provides customer satisfaction surveys for Web sites

The other item you’ll notice is that negative feedback can help you address problems that your end users may be having.  Rather than deleting the negative comment, make a follow up post that helps correct the problem.  This shows you care and are listening.  Beware, however, of ever coming across as defensive; it can be hard to listen to people criticize your hard work, but in the end knowing exactly what people think about your work or product is important to your future planning.

Sample Comment Page From Zappos.com

As you can see here, most comments are good; in fact, excellent.  The two “negative comments” are very constructive and describe the fit and fabric.  The positive reviews are more about function.  This leaves the decision up to the consumer as to whether the fabric is what they are looking for or not.

If the comments were almost all negative and the complaints were more along the lines of “This jacket is made from poor material and the sizing is wrong,” then Zappos might discontinue the item and work out a refund deal with dissatisfied customers, hopefully maintaing trust in their brand.  Without the comments, they might not know why they were losing the customers forever.

Entrepreneurial stories

We have been promoting the idea that recessions and layoffs, while very difficult to navigate, provide the impetus for an entrepreneurial boom.  Now, the Kauffman Foundation has issued its report supporting our claims. In economic gardening terms, this is the equivilant of burning last years crops to make way for the new “green shoots.”

 

Entrepreneur magazine has an article called “Bringing Wall Street to Main Street” that describes several laid off bankers/financial services professionals that started their dream businesses after losing their jobs.

Richmond Biz Sense describes how three former S&K Clothing employees are translating the knowledge they learned from their now defunct former employer into their own online clothing store.

Virginia’s Main Street communities are well suited to attract some of these newly minted business enterprises for several reasons.  Virginia, as a whole, is a business friendly state.  Many communities have low property tax rates (especially gauged nationally) and underused or empty warehouses that can be purchased or leased at a good rate. 

More importantly, though, as these entrepreneurs leave the world of high pressure finance and begin focussing on enjoying their lives – the scenery, friendliness and plethora of activites in and around Virginia’s Main Streets proves very attractive. 

Making sure that your community is welcoming and has an entrepreneurial spirit can go a long way to attracting new businesses.

Growing a success narrative

Is Abingdon on the brink of a new renaissance? That was the title question of a front page Bristol Herald Courier story this week connecting new businesses in the Washington County town to a strategic investment in Southwest Virginia’s cultural heritage.

This little town might be the next Asheville, at least according to the buzz downtown,” opens staff writer Debra McCown.

“It’s been a sudden, subtle change, but seemingly overnight, the same sort of art galleries and crafty, eclectic shops that define that North Carolina tourist center are popping up in Abingdon, Va. – another artsy mountain town that some say is on the verge of discovering its creative economy.”

While people behind the scenes in any community revitalization effort know the development process is far from overnight, the article is a good sign for the systematic investments  in a job-creating, quality-of-life enhancing, tourism-attracting infrastructure made over the past decade. And it’s just the beginning.

Ground’s due to break on  Heartwood: Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Gateway early next month. While the cultural center is to be located in Abingdon, its mission is to send travelers, well-armed with tour itineraries and a piqued curiosities, out into the region to discover the authenic Southwest Virginia for themselves.

The Herald Courier article makes the connection.  And just by asking the question, “Is Abingdon on the brink of a new renaissance?” the paper establishes the narrative (and it’s more than that of an Asheville wannabe).  

Visible improvements downtown will now reinforce that storyline for local residents and answer the question with a resounding, heartfelt and fully engaged, “Yes.” It’s an opening, an invitation for further investment, and it’s a call to action.  There’s an opportunity at hand.

While Heartwood can help build a regional narrative for all of Southwestern Virginia, it’s up to individual communities to use it to construct their own success story, building on very local and unique assets.  And there are other opportunities out there in other regions.  The Blue Ridge Parkway celebrates its 75th anniversary next year. The civil war sesquicentennial represents a major marketing opportunity. And regional toursim trails add possibility throughout the Commonwealth.

But first your community has to know where its been and where its headed.  It’s part of every good tale of a hard-working community making good.  It’s the heart of our work.  What’s your revitalization story? And who’s telling it?

Virginia’s Main Street in the news

The Sunday, April 5 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch had several articles of note about Virginia Main Street communities.  First was an article about Abingdon’s latest downtown promotion, then an article about Page County’s (including Luray) attempt to be designated as the “Cabin Capital of Virginia.” Then yet another article, this one talking about the Lynchburg Museum’s new exhibits.

Lynchburg, Altavista and Manassas all were noted for their recent milestone acheivements.

An editorial in the Star Exponent of Culpeper extolls the signs of a strengthening economy as evidenced by the entrepreneurial spirit in Culpeper’s Historic Downtown.  The Martinsville Bulletin ran a story on another entrepreneur who is doing his part to revive a local economy hit hard by factory closings.

Lastly, at least for now, the Franklin News Post has an article on Rocky Mount’s uptown facade inprovement program.

Trading Faces: Building and caring for your online reputation

You’ve spent years building your professional reputation and protecting your organization’s good name, but in today’s interconnected, information-rich world it’s easier than ever for the actions of others to damage the goodwill you’ve established.

Networking is a basic responsibility of business owners and organizations serving them. We network to keep abreast of best practices, to identify opportunities and attract new customers, clients, and members. There’s a big upside. But Entrepreneur’s networking columnist Ivan Misner points out that there’s a risk involved as well (Word-of-Mouth Marketing Can Bite Back, March 4, 2009). When you pass on information, you do so with an implied stamp of approval.

That’s just common sense. If you recommend a consultant to another community, and the consultant overcharges or performs poorly, some of that negative feeling is cast back on you.  But now that online networking has stormed the nation (No, Grandma, I don’t want to be your Facebook friend), haven’t we all gotten a little liberal with our recommendations?

Being a fan, befriending, posting, and inviting are all ways to put your stamp of approval on an organization or person. Do it thoughtfully.

Forbes’ Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg make this connection, encouraging readers to consider their reputation as currency (Is your reputation worth $15 Billion?). Trading posts on social networking sites and Web sites is one popular way to increase traffic to your organization’s message, but it’s worth considering how readily you trade links. Is your organization still on message? Are you linking to anyone you wouldn’t want to go into business with?

Search Engine Optimization guru Jim Boykin says who you link to matters. While page rankings currently rise with traded links, search engines can tell who’s linking to you, and may soon screen out the links on sites where an extraordinarily high percentage of links are reciprocated. Reciprocal links with natural partners are good, but if there’s not a match with what you do, you might want to clean them up. And don’t link anywhere you wouldn’t want your grandmother see.

Get noticed

Once you have designed and launched your Web site, your next task is to get it noticed. One of the top ways to do this is to make sure you show up in relevant Web searches.

If you are selling your charming and thriving business district, you will want to be sure that your Web site pops up when someone Googles the obvious things like “historic Virginia towns,” or “antiques + Virginia.” There are several ways to do this, some paid and some not.

When trying to make your Web site relevant to searches, free methods are called Organic Search Engine Optimization (OSEO). This article from Entrepreneur magazine gives a brief overview of some do’s and don’ts. Although the article is geared toward startup and small businesses, you can pretty much substitute “downtown” wherever it reads “business.”

The key to getting a high ranking is being relevant to the search keywords and having a high hit/response rate. To increase your pull from nearby travellers, make sure you show up when searches for nearby attractions are made. Examples might be “Blue Ridge Parkway,” “Floydfest,” or “Lake Gaston.”

Recession advertising

This article  in Entrepreneur magazine could help some of your downtown businesses use their limited advertising dollars more effectively.  Then again, it could help your promotional efforts as well.

While Entrepreneur’s Kim Gordon gives a four-point recession advertising checklist to make sure your ad budget does the most good, her advice should adapt well to any economic climate:  Make sure you are reaching the right people; Repeat your message; Present it in context; and Be memorable.

Of course, before you begin advertising, you need to make sure you know what you are selling, who your best customer is, and what your clear message is.  Business author Brad Sugars gives seven tips on differentiating your business. 

Your customers are exposed to a lot of “clutter” so it is important to make sure you can clearly explain why your customer needs or wants what you are selling.