Critical communications for Main Street program

I became involved in an incredible opportunity for the City of Kendallville through my work in local economic development in summer 2021. Following the development of a critical "pitch" presentation and helping to facilitate the production and showing of an accompanying video, my work expanded to include ongoing volunteer work to benefit Experience the Heart of Kendallville, that city's Main Street™ Affiliate organization.

The collaborations involved in making that pitch bore fruit when the City of Kendallville was awarded a $2M PreservINg Main Street grant and named a Pilot Community in the new funding initiative. One of the primary expectations laid out by grantmakers was a communications plan. Having recently donated a 5-page website development package, which was purchased by a key leader in the PreservINg Main Street project, we decided the best use of the free website launch would be a new Main Street website. The result is a new Wix website titled Experience the Heart of Kendallville with a URL of kendallvillemainstreet.com.

A key component of this project is the website's blog, which serves as a stakeholder communication tool. Stakeholders can easily subscribe to receive updates each time a new blog is posted so they stay "in the loop" as the grant program rolls out. This helps deliver easy access to grant guidelines, application for funding, a related resource library, and upcoming events and meetings.

As a big fan of the free calendars (that provide incredible customization options and functionality) offered by Brown Bear Software, I once again designed a companion calendar for this Main Street organization. I opt not to embed calendars, to maintain the integrity of built-in responsiveness, but do include a link from the website to the calendar, making it easy to find and accessible 24/7 from any internet connection. Brown Bear Software's calendars provide phenomenal options for users and administrators to subscribe and share updates, and self-manage their own interactions and entries. Additionally, a small fee removes all ads (which I highly recommend and opted to do on this project.)

Main Street Calendar

Kendallville Main Street website

Website takes Room-2-Room to a new level

After launching my business in early 2021 I was approached by the owners of Room-2-Room LLC to design the company's first website.

This local, family-owned business offers such a variety of unique services that, without a website, it proved difficult for prospective clients to fully understand. I knew this first-hand because I had reached out to hire Room-2-Room and found it a little hard to grasp what, exactly, the company could do for me. As I went through the process of designing their website I began to truly appreciate the valuable and rare services they offer (including estate and home clean-out services, home sales, and re-selling merchandise).

To get started, we met and talked about the vision the owners had for their website. They cited some other work I had done to help narrow down the look and feel they sought. Next, I was provided with some electronic examples of brochures the company had developed to help communicate their services, which helped me determine a layout and navigation for the new website.

Within a few days, using photos from the company's Facebook page and a Wix template that I felt worked well for the content and business, a draft site was made available for review. After about three rounds of reviews and edits, the site was nearly complete.

Before wrapping up the project, Room-2-Room provided me more photos to add a gallery to illustrate how they can completely transform a cluttered room to a clean and empty space, helping one reclaim their space, prepare to sell, move, or simply downsize or organize belongings and a home.

To help ensure the new site worked well in the scope of other existing marketing efforts, Room-2-Room allowed me admin authority on their Facebook Business page so that I could help integrate their new website, update graphics for consistent look and feel, and let their followers know the site had gone "live". I also submitted a couple of edits to their Google Business listing.

The overall goal of this project was more about adding credibility and enhancing perceptions of the level of professionalism Room-2-Room possesses than it was increasing sales for the company. The site helps the company be more proactive in explaining to potential clients what the company has to offer and streamlines communications. As the company grows, however, the owners do hope to expand sales by adding e-commerce to the website.

This entire project was completed within 2.5 months with some gaps between reviews of edits completed and the cost to the client was under $750, not including web hosting services or domain registrations (all-in the company's investment was under $1,000 with a one-year hosting agreement.)

Taking S.T.A.R. Team website to the next level

The Super Town of Albion Revitalization organization, better known as the Albion S.T.A.R. Team, has a mission I care about. It is, essentially, my home town's "Main Street" organization, led by a group of volunteers who work hard to make the downtown square a community meeting place and a thriving commercial center.

My interest was first peaked when my husband and I purchased a downtown building. We moved into the third floor apartment and opened an art gallery. My husband, a multi-faceted artist who primarily enjoys creating original oils on canvas, opened Noble Art Gallery on the first floor and maintained a studio on the second floor. As downtown business owners we took an interest in activities that might help bring more people through the gallery's doors.

Fast forward a few years, and although the gallery closed for reasons not solely related to lack of traffic, I found myself working exclusively in economic development at the Noble County Economic Development Corporation (EDC). My job as Marketing Director allows me to consistently look through a lens of "best practices" at how companies and organizations are using digital technology to enhance their efforts - or perhaps are not yet doing so.

When I reached out as a new volunteer to assist the S.T.A.R. Team, I did so noting the organization's website had not been updated for quite some time. I was learning more about what the mission is, who is involved, etc., and noticed the site did not reflect the progress the organization has made in our town. My offer to do some updating was met with an enthusiastic "yes" and, upon receiving the credentials, updating I did!

About a year passed when the organization's board president let me know the website editing platform on which the S.T.A.R. Team's site was built was about to go through a major overhaul and the domain name would be expiring soon. He noted this might be an ideal time to launch a new website - and I agreed!

The S.T.A.R. Team became my first paid client under my new company, Catchy Creations LLC. It could not be more fitting to have a small, non-profit group with admirable ambitions be the first chance I get as a small business owner to do good work and help transform the community I love!

Here is how the S.T.A.R. Team website looked in February.

BEFORE:

The new site went live in late March 2021.

AFTER:

The key design change to the Albion S.T.A.R. Team website was the choice to make the home page really highlight the beauty and opportunities available in town. Information pertaining to the organization itself were moved to other pages in order to make the website more appealing to the people S.T.A.R. Team hopes to engage.

In an effort to really increase the promotion of downtown businesses, an entirely new section was added to encourage site visitors to "Explore" Albion and to engage in doing business here:

The project came in at under $1,000 from start to finish, including a full year of website hosting services.