Survey seeks input about promoting Northampton as a destination

NORTHAMPTON — The city is seeking input from the public, both locally and afar, through a Community and Visitor Perception Survey that was launched on April 9.

The effort stems from a $75,000 grant awarded to the city through the Casino Mitigation Fund to support a comprehensive digital marketing campaign aimed at promoting Northampton as a vibrant destination for residents and visitors alike.

Northampton-based marketing firm Marketing Doctor is a partner in this effort and is leading the survey.

Efforts thus far have focused on the planning phase, including stakeholder interviews and the early development of an overarching strategy. The project grew out of discussions with stakeholders about the best way to promote and market Northampton as a destination.

The survey aims to further inform and shape the city’s branding and marketing strategy.

The survey is available at surveymonkey.com/r/RCYM82X and responses are anonymous. The city states that this is not a satisfaction survey, nor is it tied to any specific initiative or project. Instead, Northampton is making a genuine effort to listen to and understand how Northampton is perceived, what people value about it and where there is room to grow.

Chief of Staff Alan Wolf told Reminder Publishing this effort spawned from conversations with the mayor’s economic development department, which Wolf leads with Operations Manager Annie Lesko. Wolf said in partnership with Marketing Doctor, the city gathered members of the downtown business community to talk about how city efforts could best help downtown cope with changing economic environments.

Wolf explained that throughout history, main streets in American cities everywhere have had to adapt to changing economic conditions, ffrom malls to big box stores, the growth in online shopping, the pandemic and, most recently, inflation and national conflict. The effort aims to help the Northampton community prioritize what they want to promote about their city for visitors and neighbors.

“All of those things have been changing the nature of how people use downtowns. One very clear way that it was identified the city could help was to come up with a branding and marketing campaign, probably mostly digital, that promotes the city. Like a destination marketing campaign,” explained Wolf. “That was the kind of thing we could go to the Casino Mitigation Fund for, and the mayor also matched it with city ARPA funds to make it a $150,000 initiative. The hope is that the initiative will last two to three years, and you are now seeing phase 1 of this, which is the development of the messaging that we’re working on.”

The city began its partnership with Marketing Doctor on this effort last fall. The marketing firm then led interviews with community stakeholders in the business and arts community. Marketing Doctor is specifically focused on identifying what draws people to the city, what keeps them here, what works and what doesn’t.

“In my role as economic development director, I see my role to support downtown Northampton by bringing people to the city to do things that are interesting, and that then hopefully they eat here, come to our music venues, shop at our retail establishments. The city cannot open businesses, but we can make sure there are people coming, and this is designed to drive that,” said Wolf. “It was widely agreed upon that this was a good investment on the part of the city in its role by the downtown businesses.”

After this survey is conducted, Marketing Doctor will make recommendations about a digital marketing campaign with associated branding assets that help attract people to Northampton.

Wolf explained that the grant funding from the Casino Mitigation Fund is valuable funding for the city to use toward fighting back against the pull of the MGM Casino in Springfield in terms of music and other entertainment options.

“The idea was, we can’t wait, we need to get started now to try and bring people back and excite them about what’s happening downtown, and there are many, many exciting things going on here that we just want people to be aware of and get the word out as far as possible, that sort of 50-mile ring, to make sure people realize Northampton is still an exciting place,” said Wolf.

Whether a lifelong resident, a regular visitor, or someone who’s only heard of Northampton from a distance, all perspectives can fill out the survey, according to the city.

“I guess my hopes for the survey is we get what we need to make a killer campaign that people can really embrace and get around, and make people think about Northampton when they’re making plans,” said Wolf.