Company offers to market Harrisburg

At the recent Harrisburg City Council meeting the Community Link Company offered the council their services as a community marketing consultant.

Community Link is a Pickenyville based company that produces multimedia advertising services targeting and championing small communities and the virtues of life there.

Community Link's campaign "Home Town, 10 Great Reasons" offers social, visual and print media formats focused on the individual community, extolling what it is that makes that community a great place to live, shop and raise a family.

"There is something good to be said about being born, raised and living in a small town," Bill Yates, vice president of marketing for Community Link told the city council on Thursday evening.

The package offered for the council's consideration would consist of 1,500 full color brochures, three separate 3-minute HD videos, a webpage dedicated to Harrisburg and a Facebook page, again dedicated to the city. Also included would be a Web portal which would guide any Internet searches for Southern Illinois towards the city's Web page. Community Link would work closely with Harrisburg to produce material exactly tailored to the cities ideas and showcasing the attributes of the community that the city most desires to promote.

Community Link is a new company and is already working with the cities of Chester, Pinckneyville, Centralia and Fairfield to produce a product for these communities. Pinckneyville, Fairfield and Centralia will be the first to see the product roll-out in mid-November.

Yates pointed out that the city could target specific markets in the three videos, for example, businesses, tourism or potential new residents.

"It will be up to you the markets and promotional ideas you want to use," Yates said.

The two-year contract carries the cost of $15,000 and the company would continue to monitor and upgrade the Web page and Facebook page during that time. The brochures would be distributed through tourism bureaus, restaurants, motels and similar venues that see a high volume of travelers. The city would retain ownership rights to the promotional videos.

"We have found that the social media aspect of the promotional campaign is one of the most effective tools in the package," Yates said.

The council thanked Yates for his presentation and stated that it would seriously consider the company's offer.