Okotoks economic development is setting its sights on connecting with local businesses in 2021.
Josh Welz, economic development specialist with the Town, said the top three priorities for the year are to build relationships, support in business disaster recovery, and look toward business attraction and investment.
He said typically the business attraction would be top priority, but given COVID-19 the strategy has shifted into a more supportive role focusing more on communication with local business owners.
“It’s evermore important to make sure we’re supporting our local businesses and helping them not just survive, but thrive,” said Welz.
Key to that will be relationship-building, which begins with communication and establishing a two-way informational flow between the Town and its business owners, he said.
An improved My Business section of the Okotoks website is one way the Town is making information available, he said. In addition an economic development newsletter will be sent to inboxes and available in print form in February.
“It’s going to have all the information businesses are looking for throughout the year coming from the economic development department but also the Town in general,” said Welz.
He said a social media strategy is also being developed to hit up online audiences.
While disseminating information from the Town is important, he said it’s just as vital to be listening to what’s happening in the business community and that means going out and visiting businesses in-person once COVID restrictions allow, as well as hearing what groups like the Okotoks Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (OEE), River District Business Association (RDBA) and Okotoks and District Chamber of Commerce have to say.
“Once we can do this communication piece and we can understand what the issues are, that informs us how best to support our businesses, how best to provide more support whether it be just with COVID-19 or anything else moving forward,” said Welz.
Coun. Tanya Thorn said she was pleased to hear the plan to visit businesses throughout the community, because she said a criticism she hears often is that owners who don’t belong to the OEE, RDBA or chamber are left out of the conversation.
“I feel that we do have a huge gap in that area,” said Thorn. “I think the newsletter that’s being proposed and the business visitation certainly will help address that gap.”
She also cautioned against using social media extensively, as many business owners are unable to spend significant time on those platforms and information may be missed.
“They’re too busy right now, they’re just not focused on going to social media so they’re not going there,” said Thorn.
The plans for 2021 will also continue building on success and lessons learned in 2020, said economic development manager Colleen Thome.
Priorities in from 2019 to 2020 were on business retention and attraction, strengthening and supporting the downtown and becoming investment-ready. Several projects were undertaken to achieve these goals during the pandemic, such as the virtual reality tour for developers, she said.
“We will be able to make the full virtual reality experience available through the municipal centre once COVID restrictions have been lifted,” said Thome.
One “major win” in 2020 was the development of an online business intake form, which launched in June, she said. It helped reduce the average time to process a business licence application from three days to one.
“It was a big win on streamlining and convenience for our customers,” said Thome.
The Town also began consultation on its new way-finding signage in the fall, and after hearing feedback from the community she said it’s become clear the project needs to go back to the drawing board with a new communications strategy.
A public survey regarding the signage closes Jan. 31, and she said at that point its results will be analyzed and a new engagement strategy will come out later in February.
