Our Town using technology to build Motueka brand

December 12th, 2012
[by David Armstrong]

Technology to support Our Town Motueka's strategy of creating a "brand" for Motueka should be fully in place by next May, OTM's co-ordinator Lori Keller told the Motueka Community Board yesterday.

During a special presentation at the Board's meeting yesterday, Lori said it was important that a brand is built for the town so that people outside know what to expect of the town when they get here.

"We want to elevate brand awareness to encourage businesses to come here."

OTM's strategic goal is built around using new technologies to build brand awareness. First up, a new website has been launched recently (see our earlier story here) which, when rounded out, will become the first port of call for anyone seeking information about Motueka.

Lori, who has plenty of experience and skill in the business use of social media, is also well down the track in creating a lively Facebook presence for Our Town Motueka. "It's now working well," she says. "You can get a lot of impact for little cost with social media marketing."

The third leg of the technology platform will involve OTM working with Motueka High School's video production students to produce an attention-grabbing video promotion. Lori says all three activities - the website, social media and video - will be up and running by May next year.

The OTM website (www.ourtownmotueka.co.nz) will contain daily updated information about community and business events coming up. It will also freely use a news feed from Motueka Online for the latest stories.

"Our aim is for the comprehensive website to be used rather than the Yellow Pages for accessing all local information," Lori told the Board.

She also spoke of the work OTM is doing on community events, including last week's successful Starlight Parade and the winter-time Festival of Lights. She said they were looking at trying some other more business promotion-focused events this summer, such as market days and possibly one evening of after-hours shopping.

Questioned by Community Board members about any intention to get businesses to open on weekends or evenings, Lori said it was difficult to persuade many retailers to change practices if previous attempts at weekend shopping had not proved economic, but it remains something to work on and experiment with.

Another initiative that OTM are looking at is work with Motueka High School to start apprenticeship programmes, which may help some young people to remain invested in the town.

Lori pointed out that drift to cities is a universal economic trend these days. It's not just a Motueka problem, but "we need to work smarter to keep our youth in town".

Running other large-scale community and business events must be considered carefully, she said. It can take years for events such as Hokitika's Wild Foods Festival to take off and become well-known. "You need a long-term commitment to such events, like 10 years, or you shouldn't even start."

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