LVCC looks ahead to opportunities, change of focus in 2021

Upcoming board opening, the pending launch of an interactive map website, op-portunities to promote and market Lincoln, and the future of Skijoring all came up for discussion during the Jan. 14 meeting of the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce.

As the LVCC heads into 2021, the seven-member board will have three open board seats, due to expiring terms, with Bob Weatherston of the Three Bears Motel and Goldieknots' Tammy Jordan stepping down after last weeks' meeting. The seat held by Greg Smith is also open, although Smith has agreed to remain on the board. He will likely be re-appointed unless enough candidates strep forward to require an election. Any new directors will be seated, and the board re-organized, at the annual meeting Feb. 11.

Last week's meeting included discussions via Zoom with Envision Lincoln's Karyn Good, who provided an update on a public lands trail website, and with Montana Business Assistance Connection Executive Director Brian Obert, who talked about the potential for a marketing campaign for Lincoln.

Interactive maps

Last year, a $38,000 USDA Rural Business Development Grant awarded to Envision Lincoln for in-town trails planning included funding to develop and implement an interactive map website encompassing existing public land trails on the Lincoln Ranger District.

Good said the website, designed by Joel Wilson and hosted on the Chamber of Commerce website, is nearing completion and should go live sometime in mid-February.

"The need for this, we felt, would re-ally help people who are visiting or planning to visit Lincoln to know where they can hike, fish, mountain bike, snow-mobile, ATV or anything else related

to public lands trails," Good said.

The interactive website builds on work completed in 2019 by Paige Hanover, a Mon-tana Conservation Corps intern who spent 14 weeks with the Lincoln Ranger District mapping and cataloging public land trails in the Lincoln area.

"Really the goal behind this is to give people a better idea of what Lincoln has to offer," Good said. "I think Lincoln gets overlooked

a lot of time because we haven't done a very good job of making the trails known to the public.

We have lots of them; some of them are really great. But people just don't know about them, so they go to places like Seeley Lake, where they've made their trails better known than we have."

Good's question for the LVCC was how to make people aware the site is available.

"We have so much to offer, how can we market this?" she asked.

Although the answer to that will take some work, LVCC President Kate Radford said the Chamber is definitely on board to work on finding ways getting the word out to potential visitors.

Marketing opportunity Marketing was the key topic for MBAC's Brian Obert.

MBAC, an economic development organization representing the business and community interests in Lewis and Clark, Meagher and Broadwater Counties, received funding last fall through the Federal Eco-nomic Development Administration, as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

"We were able to secures some grant money to help recover or reboot the economy," Obert said. "Part of what they were looking at were economies that were heavily impacted because tour ism was down, or event activities that were being impacted."

The idea they're pursuing in-volves a planning campaign aimed at marketing Lincoln, Townsend and White Sulfur Springs.

Obert explained they plan to hire a marketing firm to work with each of the communities, to de-fine exactly who they're trying to appeal to. He said they expect to have requests for proposals for marketing firms out by the end of this month. Once they find a firm, they'll have community meetings to sort out in detail who they want to market themselves to

"We really want to know how you, as business owners in Lincoln, want to monetize that group of people who come to town," he said.

They would also drill down into visitor's discretionary spending, to look at who the different target markets are (or who they could be), to help define how to market to those demographics, and to get a handle on the infrastruc-ture and businesses needed to attract them. He said the community should look at what it wants to be and look at what the target market for that vision looks like. Is it male of female? What is their education level? What sort of "toys" do they own, what's their intent is visiting Lincoln?

"I'd like you to tell us what would be comfortable and not comfortable," Obert said.

Good noted the demo-graphics Lincoln is looking for likely involves a wide number of groups, given the variety of activities from traditional out-door recreation to fine art and the sculpture park. While the community can have multiple target markets, Obert suggested the need to narrow it down somewhat, to help make the marketing more cost effective.

The end product of the marketing effort will be a profession-al one- to three-minute video addressing why members of a target market, or markets, would want to be in the community.

"This idea of the video gives you an opportunity to define who you are for those who are buying in the area," Obert said. "It's a visual representation; we want you to be embracing and leaning into this type of look and feel. This gives us an opportunity to help you define who and what Lincoln is."

Skijoring uncertainty

Among the demographics that seemed to be a good fit for Lincoln were the skijoring crowd that came to town for Skijor Lincoln.

Last year, icy and unsafe con-ditions led to cancellation of the event. This year, COVID-19 was the culprit, with most Montana skijoring events can-celled due to the pandemic.

The fate of Skijor Lincoln remains in question, however. regardless of COVID.

Last summer, the LVCC board began a conversation about whether they should continue to put on skijoring. Despite its popularity, Skijor Lincoln required a considerable number of volunteer hours, had seen a decline in sponsorships and lost money in its last year,.

Radford said the bigger issue is that the chamber is looking at shifting its focus to support the advertising and promotion of events, rather than being the organization responsible for putting them on. She explained that events are an investment in both money and volunteer time that drains the LVCC's capacity to support the Lincoln business community in any other significant ways.

The board had hoped to find an organization or group willing to take on Skijor Lincoln, similar to the way in which the Tenacious Dames took on the Lincoln Bike Rally. In most communities that host skijoring events, local organizations pair up to put on the event and maximize volunteer help, while the local chamber handles the promotion.

While Radford said nobody has expressed a positive interest locally in taking it on, Tammy Jordan reported at last week's meeting she has found someone from the area willing to take it over, but the person still has some additional details and support to work out.