A performance on Arthur Avenue, Little Italy in the Bronx, Courtesy of SBS
How to use this guide – think of it like a cookbook!
Part of a series of toolkits for BIDs, this guide is filled with easy-to-follow “recipes” for common BID-led consumer marketing strategies. The recipes were selected following outreach and consultation with the New York City Department of Small Business Services, BID leaders and practitioners. Each recipe is designed to offer BID practitioners a step-by-step set of actions, together with an understanding of key implementation details, including level of difficulty, magnitude of cost, lead time, necessary partners, and options for monitoring success.
The Recipes
Key Definitions and Ideas
Boosted Post – A post to your social media account that you pay to boost to an audience of your choosing. When you boost a post, it’ll show up as an ad.
Earned Media – Earned media, is any material/publicity written about your District that you have not paid for or created yourself.
Engagements – Any action taken by a social media user on your page e.g., “likes”, “comments”, “shares”, “video views”, “saves”, etc.
Engagement Rate – The number of times your content has been engaged with, in relation to the amount of people who have seen it. The formula used: Engagements / Impressions X 100.
Evergreen Content – Content that ages well and maintains value over time. If there is a pressing event or promotion that pops up, you can choose to post that and move the evergreen content to another date, since it will still be relevant at that time.
Feed – The stream of content you see from other users. The feed functions as a homepage and is the most common way to see people’s posts.
Geotag – Directional coordinates that can be attached to a piece of content online, on both Instagram and Facebook. This allows your content to become more searchable.
Hashtag – A way of connecting your posts on social media to other posts on the same subject or trending topic.
Impressions - The number of times your social media post is viewed on the platform
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - a set of quantifiable measurements use to gauge and evaluate long term performance
List Hygiene – The process of creating, editing, and maintaining a mailing list’s email addresses, subscriptions and opt-ins.
Market Analysis – Detailed assessment of your district’s customers/population and competition. From neighboring communities, other retail nodes/shopping districts
Market Segments – Sub-groups of consumers with shared characteristics. I.e., residents, employees, college students, visitors/tourists, professional/medical visitors, business travelers, young professionals, commuters, etc.
Organic Post – Anything you post without paying is an organic post. Photos, random thoughts sharing posts by other accounts, and links to blog posts are all organic posts if you don’t pay to boost them.
Owned Media – Owned media is the media that you create and have complete control over. This includes your website, blogs, op-eds, advertisements you pay for, etc.
Psychographic research and data – Information and analysis that profiles the psychological characteristics and traits of customers, including the values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices that inform how they spend their time and resources.
Shared Media – Shared media includes social media, and any user-generated content. Influencers would fall under shared media.
User-generated content (UGC) – Images and videos that come from within your community.
Consumer Marketing Basics
The objective of most B2C marketing is to increase spending in local stores by residents, employees and visitors to the district. There are hundreds of ways a BID could go about trying to increase foot traffic in a district, so it is important for practitioners to think strategically and creatively when deciding the right strategies.
Consumer marketing is a field that rewards creativity.
Most – if not every - BID in the City of New York spends money on marketing. In FY2022, nearly 23% of all NYC BID dollars were spent towards marketing and public events. In FY2019, before the pandemic, BIDs were spending more than 20.8% of their budget on “Marketing and Public Events,” which was twice as much as they had the decade before.
In FY2021, NYC BIDs with operating budgets under $1 million spent an average of 13% of their budgets towards consumer marketing and public events, making it the third largest spending category behind sanitation services and salary/payroll. While this is a decrease over pre-pandemic levels of marketing spending, which averaged closer to 20%, it is likely that the percentage of BID spending on marketing has grown as recovery continues.
In the table below you can see the breakdown of marketing expenses and stats for NYC BIDs with operating budgets under $1 million for FY2021.
Source: SBS FY21 BID Trends Report
Common BID Marketing Efforts
BIDs in New York and across the nation use a variety of both B2B and B2C marketing strategies to promote local businesses and increase foot traffic. Some of the most common tactics include:
Websites – while nearly every NYC BID has a website, they are not always used for B2C marketing purposes. When they are, they can be a resource for information or highlights of local attractions and events, special promotions, maps, and user generated content that can help the BID engage with customers to the district.
Branding efforts – many BIDs have created a cohesive identity in the form of a logo, district name and/or tagline that helps raise awareness of the district as a consumer destination. This visual identity can be applied to a variety of contexts, from logos on street furniture and uniforms for district ambassadors, to wayfinding that helps visitors effectively navigate the area.
Social Media – m any BIDs use social media to promote the district and businesses. This can include creating and sharing content, running social media ads, and engaging with followers.
Email Marketing – BIDs often maintain an email list of subscribers who are interested in updates and promotions related to the district, including information on events, sales, and other initiatives.
Public Relations – BIDs often work to build relationships with local media outlets to get coverage for the district and businesses. They may issue press releases or create press kits to share information about the district with local media and journalists.
The Recepies
Each recipe below is designed to offer BID practitioners a step-by-step set of actions, together with an understanding of key implementation details, including level of difficulty, magnitude of cost, lead time, necessary partners, and options for monitoring success.
![Hudson Square Press Conference](https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/300/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=cac5e4ab0042eb64e57b70fff0c221963296f3d4fcbcf1797e8321820d914d33 171w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/600/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=dad23b570437ebc24886d5e6aa5166c46364ee48f3537820d629e30e32e9af57 343w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/900/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=463eaabcb7835a68a7512ff8561dc71626e9bde9afd7fc832927472047648af2 514w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1200/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=176d7315b269217f0b86f68fb89c2b43d51ce31a5e2fc36c60515b04ae8579ad 686w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1500/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=a8b8032ae6392b5cce0945d0095669dd254581baefaaa84982d01541949c1fc8 857w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1800/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=ca416447c59631be422d32368030215699b31e14f6b38a176bf3ac7e9acb3259 1029w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2100/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=e2941790d65e7cf738d5823bcf16ad8da1911c05187202bd46cbd00c986299fa 1200w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2400/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=9f1233cae8bc272608cd5f56bd15a286bfa749ed496079c887c3edaf367dd37a 1371w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2700/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/HudsonSquarePressConference.png?bossToken=589ede342a60caa8fdd87f10e6f5bdb126f673e37cdd68beacc826c3d9f385d8 1543w)
Source: Hudson Square BID opening of Hudson Street with Mayor Adams
Step-by-step – monitoring your newsletter impact
While newsletters can be an effective way for BIDs to communicate with members, stakeholders and the broader community, most BIDs are not sure whether the efforts they put into email marketing are effective. BIDs need to know when it’s time to change course. If the audience is not engaging with the newsletter content, it is time to shake things up and try something new. There are a few ways to find out whether what you are doing is working.
Track open and click through rates - most email marketing platforms provide data on how many people open and click on links. By tracking these metrics over time, the BID can get a sense of what kind of engagement is popular with their audience.
Monitor website traffic and social media engagement - a newsletter may include links to the BID’s website or social media channels, so monitoring the number of visitors, “likes”, page views and other metrics and how they align with the distribution timing of the newsletter can help offer insight into whether the newsletter Is driving traffic to your content platforms.
- Conduct A/B testing to discover what resonates with your audience - A/B testing is also known as split testing, which is when an audience is split to test several variations of a campaign or newsletter to determine which performs better.
- For example, do subject lines with questions get more opens? Do CTAs (call to actions) with action words get more clicks? Test different things to see what’s working (and just as important, not working)
Helpful Tips
People are the most interested at the time they opt-in to receive emails so be sure to send an email at that time. An automated welcome email/email series can introduce people to your business/brand, encourage visits to your website and social follows, and set the expectation as to how often they’ll receive emails from you.
- Practice good list hygiene. This entails removing invalid and uninterested/unengaged email addresses from your list. Aside from avoiding spam complaints, the benefits of maintaining good list hygiene include improved email deliverability and a better sender reputation.
Review your list every 6 months to a year. Only send to the most engaged subscribers.
You can try re-engagement campaigns or reaching less engaged subscribers on other channels.
Never buy or rent lists. Only send emails to people who have opted-in to receive emails from you.
- Think about mobile – half of emails are opened on mobile devices. Test your newsletter’s design to make sure it looks good on mobile and all images/graphics/links function properly.
Keep subject lines under 41 characters (around 8 words) because that is what will show up in the subject line on an iPhone in portrait mode.
Not all email tools show emojis the same and some may just render emojis as blank squares or just the word ‘emoji’ instead of your intended icon. For this reason, do not replace an actual word with an emoji.
Don’t use one large image for your email content. Avoid the habit of just inserting a flyer or a pre-made media image and blasting it to your audience because there’s always a chance your recipient won’t be able to view images, and therefore your message gets completely lost.
As a BID, you engage with different stakeholders, who all have different interests. Your newsletters may become more valuable, must-reads if recipients know they are tailored for their interests. Have dedicated consumer marketing newsletters that are separate from what is sent to the Businesses in the BID.
Be consistent and follow an email calendar to be sure not to fall off your subscriber’s radar.
Downtown Brooklyn Beat Newsletter
Source: Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
STEP-BY-STEP – DEVELOPING CUSTOMER PERSONAS
![Personas](https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/300/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=d1a781b2d2896b3c7f4493f5da751c4f56aafdd151f265b48b189184c68817c3 171w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/600/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=640b279f56d5b105129900db1af6bede8db2b913f69bbea3d5aa62f1d0920121 343w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/900/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=b2ad398e14f7eef83e002d528d09106a9b2d4ea06b310aeeb536f7716e06537a 514w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1200/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=8e1fd096ebd6c3c36135264d6d4193e581b82eeaab83e08af52095c845961f21 686w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1500/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=bbe34568cb05927440ec6bc6221315ae88a8ce072680574adb4de926e9520749 857w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1800/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=311145b00fd7e7b9e66689ed9189ab3cb77f644d5216386fc05c954cc83f3e63 1029w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2100/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=471f8d123a02f46951f4af069c555a5f66728edca211528f637156ba0a789696 1200w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2400/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=791dc62c1a9722571049020b77ecc7051b95fbbc97dcd25232069dbf7e79a029 1371w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2700/quality:80/work/Reports/2023-reports/BID-Marketing/Personas.jpg?bossToken=24a3acf9ae50c8e18f1724ba37e3f69f255f3686f4c9f62024bffdb92f5c52d2 1543w)
Customer persona example prepared by Streetsense
Resources
Massachusetts Rapid Recovery Plan Program Marketing Toolkit
IDA Influencer Marketing Webinar
Social Media Sites for Marketing
Facebook Ad Account
Facebook Business Manager
Facebook Shops
Instagram
Instagram Shopping
Google Business Listing
Improve your retail website experience evaluation
Tutorials on Grow with Google
Google for retail
Yelp
Bing Places
LinkedIn Business
Analytic Resources
Hootsuite – Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard
Mix Panel– Product Analytics for Mobile, Web, & More
Parse.ly – Content analytics made easy
Clicky – Web Analytics in Real Time
Google Analytics – Google Marketing Platform. Unified Advertising and Analytics
Acknowledgements
Authored by
-
Larisa Ortiz
Streetsense, Managing Director, Public Non Profit Solutions
-
Emily Morin
Streetsense, Research Analyst
This checklist and the BID Toolkits were developed thanks to generous support from the NYC Department of Small Business Services and The Association for a Better New York (ABNY).
Funded By
![](https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/300/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=bf701c4c32803978de25679e007da7b03ed973fb046ff89673bbe85e289a16a6 171w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/600/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=a8b0c6084e7fe6d9e665bd82f91ce2218c187a35f6389e34c20b7c2d69d55276 343w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/900/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=eaad1697f901a7f92497f77ef69276f6bca5c9cb0a94dd96382fe79b08cfb541 514w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1200/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=2d41080984b6d38a74c7d51e7f5365c11c14e68e1a33e328b21000938206b2ee 686w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1500/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=6f7b7db2ab5f455171efaa3adeefb30eb00c74f67ca6c4578f7fccbc4d77c75b 857w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1800/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=c51f78cf310c01a3a79ee792b1e693e7bc8da9ea9fb8ae4f91ae6178402eaa5e 1029w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2100/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=48faf804320db2224ff1dc83c3f4b617eb5e2757c3459598953193f9e1996b48 1200w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2400/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=72e5a2fad872f394bf5cdd0c67425dbf69b43475eb7296b8988a54fd364cf74a 1371w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2700/quality:80/logos/SBS-Logo1.png?bossToken=67c08b2d57e788f09d2f9f823edc92ca0e361392a26696c4ca89c1ba2d72522a 1543w)
![](https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/300/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=e1dc1ea5f885b08f52855f29991df6c999a22b4815325df8b507e6a5cecd6ad7 171w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/600/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=5213cf34e6dd1b10fce1fa00a938e14e73a2b09779f37e976527c20957d3e226 343w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/900/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=fad22613b6276ee1c6ef4976b5d6101f3e7067f2f05fba21b4489087dba9edd3 514w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1200/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=ec8e637ebcf986b9dfb64471ecd5a486b474a9bca54966db6de0dc2fa6e8a444 686w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1500/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=803b646415fc9497eecc6393e4761c04edb1522a329a4b2747eac4a4cd697e0e 857w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1800/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=21301ffb0f9b99f668a428ee044b956644619e580e90d0b70fa39cc49d025a2d 1029w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2100/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=a9fa9e21a26746beb8ca03232c443442a121808b59f27a8c6262a9d8410d4dbc 1200w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2400/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=15ee38d499a38f11680437ce854fecd1704448a5eeb04e3d7383d6670441b872 1371w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2700/quality:80/logos/ABNY.png?bossToken=ed65ed83081a8aea1690c6345fd8a9f5013f6520a47729477f1b49c7c55a5308 1543w)
Produced With
![](https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/300/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=6859088a2155acd88b7aa07e99085f183bde04e79dde05868c573396752522b6 171w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/600/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=e70696433106fb069a12fca7a4e0d9db715aceae090888da99f2816b6aaab741 343w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/900/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=ccad3c11481a22b835a18e0b0bbee31685d91105ad87b28e283d093a2a44764d 514w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1200/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=bb0dc5f2a03094ce072a6fae4504822e81e0c3935bcf59a5aefb3cb4333abc06 686w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1500/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=195449e4969b35d03f739ff580f86b29557f200c457cc79338094f0684e5e14e 857w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/1800/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=3ea1dc9124c21f1b90ff9daa6c2ad55f78a180ab30bd5c8cb4bfa2265e645209 1029w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2100/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=2c712a207f9996c8e7c8b9a7a69436466f12a0431361c26def3e6378f9b12041 1200w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2400/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=71564bb05fd38fc6b1a8289bb410f1c9e09a7558cc70ee99f1571acf0bed4059 1371w, https://img.imageboss.me/general/width/2700/quality:80/logos/Streetsense_Logo_Primary1.png?bossToken=d87de5175335a89909649cbcfa1240062817099ecb801b7489977747d2a85d66 1543w)
Related Reports
461