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HRA Meeting Minutes – Tuesday, April 17, 2012 Page 4 1 Chair Maschka thanked Mr. Bubal for his informative and helpful presentation; and advised 2 that he needed to leave for another meeting and passed the gavel on to Vice Chair Majerus at 3 approximately 6:41 p.m. and left the meeting at that time. 4 5 b.George Hornik, Marketing Consultant 6 Executive Director Trudgeon introduced Mr. Hornik. 7 8 Mr. Hornik provided an update of the Living Smarter.com marketing campaign initiated 9 approximately one (1) year ago, with the original intent to promote sustainability and focus on 10 free resources available on line. Mr. Hornik advised that he was unaware of any other similar 11 marketing concept, and expressed his enthusiastic appreciation of the results of the campaign, 12 for him personally and professionally, as well as on behalf of the HRA. 13 14 st Mr. Hornik opined that the 1 goal in raising awareness of the HRA, its activities and visibility 15 as a gateway for the public to access resources on line, had been achieved with incredible and 16 extremely positive results. Mr. Hornik noted that the second goal to emphasize the types and 17 availability of various housing stock options in Roseville, and the positives of Roseville as a 18 growing and vital community, and connect them with resources city-wide, regionally or 19 nation-wide had also been more than achieved. 20 21 Mr. Hornik noted the challenges when the marketing campaign was initiated with a limited 22 $30,000 budget; and the intent to focus on the 30-45 age demographic audience had been met, 23 using a pro-active approach not in a “traditional” way. Mr. Hornik reviewed those approaches, 24 including: 25 1)A robust website created and continually improved over the last fourteen (14) months, 26 with over 20,000 visits to-date, most coming from targeted links with an average of three 27 (3) minutes per visit, and 93% of that traffic coming from within the State of MN. 28 2)Print ads in the Mpls./St. Paul magazine, which had been expensive, but accomplished and 29 creating an uptick of 30% in website traffic. Mr. Hornik advised that other magazines and 30 channels would be examined for future advertising. 31 3)Mr. Hornik advised that radio advertising had been place in the two (2) weeks preceding 32 the 2011 and 2012 Living Smarter Home & Garden Fair, with an identifiable and 33 corresponding uptick on website traffic as well. 34 4)Mr. Hornik advised that the most unconventional campaign was through social media, 35 linking to direct pages on the website, using twenty-eight (28) different ads; and achieving 36 1.7 million visits from that link in only five (5) months of testing. 37 5)Mr. Hornik noted that through the most recent addition to Face Book in January and 38 February of 2012, the marketing campaign had been further exposed to 2.5 million people, 39 with some of those people moving onto the website. 40 41 Current projects in process since January of 2012, included featuring Roseville residents and 42 their contributions to good stewardship of the environment, with the current testimonials 43 already having had 1,400 impressions and 600 clicks, while only currently using Google for 44 access to-date. Mr. Hornik advised that targeted advertising on targeted websites, driven by 45 content was a future initiative; with resources refreshed over the last few months, and the 46 availability of thirty-five (35) pages of resources for residents to connect to; and sixty-nine 47 (69) pages for the Green Remodeling Handbook, which had been very-well received. 48 49 Mr. Hornik advised that future steps included launching e-newsletters with a following, 50 allowing those followers to communicate and share information from the site via Face Book 51 with their friends and families. 52 53 On a $30,000 budget, Mr. Hornik opined that a lot had been achieved through a combination 54 of devices and that a reliable and useful combination of data was now available to move 55 forward and share ideas as the HRA made strategic plans for the next five (5) years.