Beyond Brochures: How Mobile Technology Is Transforming City Attractions and Amenities
Today’s visitors and residents expect more than printed guides — they expect dynamic, mobile-first experiences. Watch our inspiring panel discussion featuring leaders from Downtown Houston and the Town of Danville as they revealed how they are using mobile technology to connect people to parks, cultural venues, restaurants, shopping, and hidden gems — all through smartphone tours and GPS mapping.
Transcript:
[00:00:34] Patty Ruland: Perfect. Everybody. Welcome to today's webinar session. Thanks for joining us. We're gonna give people a few minutes to log on and join in and get situated before we get started. In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves? Maybe put your name and the organization you work with what state you're in or city in the chat window. and we'll get to get a little familiar with you all. I see a couple of folks that I had called earlier this week to thank them for registering. We have Andrea from Clovis. She's at the Botanic Garden, hey, Katie? Thanks for joining. Who else we have here. Heidi, Linda Allison. Katie and Heidi are both from York County, Virginia. I see, Jerry. We got Michael from Seattle. I feel there was a childhood show that I used to watch, and I'm probably dating myself where the 2 hosts would welcome people every day. I always wanted them to say my name. I don't think they ever did, though. again. We'll give everybody another minute or to join. if you'd like, and you've just joined. Feel free to introduce yourself in the chat window. Give us your name, maybe the organization you work with, and where you're located. Tammy. From Chattanooga we got Allison from Arizona, Kitty from Minneapolis. We have Dave from Memphis, Tennessee. And can we kick Dave off? I say that jokingly, because Dave is actually our CEO and he's on a a road trip today, or a field trip, visiting some of our clients. But of course he's checking in on us, Caleb, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Excellent! We'll give it another, maybe 30 seconds or so, and we'll go ahead and get this kicked off. We do try to make these as interactive and engaging as possible, we will have a question and answer session. We encourage you to ask all types of questions, both of myself about engaged by Cell and our guest speakers. I'm really excited about the folks who are joining us today. let's give it one more minute and we'll go ahead and get started. Anna is not on screen as one of the the host, but she's behind the scenes running the slides for me and forth. if you hear me talking to her. I'm not crazy. She's a real person. She's with, engaged by cell as am I, and she's just helping this out here. she just threw up a poll on your screen. feel free to answer that. I'm interested in seeing the results. the 1st question is, does your organization currently utilize apps maps or digital maps, or any type of texting for outreach or communication? And then the second one is just simply, who's your main audience? Are you serving a local community of your residents, visitors, tourists, local businesses. or somebody else? We'll give you all a second to get your poll answers in. And then, Anna, why don't you go ahead and show the results? looks many of you are currently utilizing some of the things that we mentioned. Love to hear more about that. As we're going along. If something is of interest, or you realize you're doing something similar, feel free to put it in the chat. And then, wow, residents and tourists. that's that's interesting, that the percentages are dead. Even so, anyway. Thank you for participating in that. Let's go ahead and get started. My name is Patty Ruland. I'm with engage by cell. and I think many of you are familiar with engage myself. We are a mobile technology company providing services for all types of organizations. But today we're focusing on how mobile technology is transforming city attractions and amenities. you know. Gone are the days of printing multiple brochures and forth. And we have a couple of our clients who are willing to share their stories, and that's the best part about my job is being able to hear from our clients how they've utilized the platform the results they've achieved, how it's benefited them and forth. I'm joined today by Melissa Vandermel. She's from the town of Danville, which is in Northern California as well as Clint Self and Jenna Beasley from downtown. Houston. Why don't you say, Hi, guys.
[00:07:17] Jenna Beasley: Hello!
[00:07:19] Clint Self: Everyone. Thanks for joining us.
[00:07:22] Patty Ruland: Annie, you want to go ahead and advance the slide. Thanks. we hear a lot of organizations are facing the same types of challenges. We've indicated some of them on the screen, right? We're in the day and age where people want real time information and they want it quickly and easily, and that kind of equates to getting it digitally. You know, there's been issues with having printed materials and then being, you know, out of date, 10 min after they've been printed and forth. And it's also quite costly to continue printing brochures, etc. looking for ways to create new experiences, something that's different, interesting, unique. that's again, one of the main things that we hear when people come to us, both of the organizations that are with us today started off the same thing. They had a a similar need that they needed to get met. and then they've kind of expanded from there and then. Finally, you know, how do you communicate this information to your visitors, to your residents, to local businesses, and forth. those are the top challenges we hear about, we're able to address those thankfully. But let's hear a little more. Why don't you go ahead and advance the slide, Anna. why, cities are adopting mobile tours, maps, digital technology. It's a great way, you know, everybody's trying to go local and support local businesses. But if your community doesn't know about these businesses. How are they to support them? you know, highlighting those focusing, you know, little sections and blurbs about the businesses are a great way to boost that local business. Oftentimes the area is very large. How do you get from 1 point to the next? What's the quickest, easiest path. What can you see along that route? What is there? And I know Houston will talk about their murals and forth. Showcasing more attractions that again. Maybe people aren't necessarily familiar with having it easily accessible, being able to make changes and updates on the fly and then finally capturing data. There's not really, you know, if you print records or brochures and things that, it's great for your visitor. But what are you getting out of that? You're not able to track your visitors through a paper brochure. You're not being able to see the things that interest them by handing out a paper brochure. capturing that data has become more and more important to organizations. We work with next slide, Anna. I'm going to kind of be quiet for a second and turn this over to my team from downtown Houston, Jenna and Clint. Why don't you talk? Oh, 1st off, let me say, if you'd to see what downtown Houston has done. Take out your cell phones. open your camera or your QR. Code. reader, scan a little QR code on the page you see there, and that'll take you to their their mobile web app. You'll be able to tap around, see their maps, things that they offer, and forth. So, Jenna Clint? Which of you would to start? Why don't you tell us a little bit about the challenges you were facing? Why, you came to us. You know. maybe options that you had thought about before going mobile and forth.
[00:11:08] Jenna Beasley: Yeah, awesome welcome, everybody. We're excited to kind of showcase what we have done with engaged by cell in downtown. Houston. Our introduction to engage by cell was from a conference that our director attended, and we were mainly looking for a way to create a mobile walking tour of our public art. We've had over 50 murals put on sides of buildings all across downtown Houston in the last few years. and our as many as we're being added. They were. Quickly our maps were becoming outdated. And we were challenged with finding a digital version of that. And yeah, we booked a call with engaged by cell, and they more than delivered in terms of creating and helping us put up this walking tour and displaying our public art digitally. Yeah. And then there was just many other things that I quickly realized we were gonna be able to do from a marketing aspect. And yeah, and we've already done a lot of things. I'm excited to share those today.
[00:12:15] Clint Self: No, no, I was just gonna say to to cascade, you know, a little into Echo a little bit what Jenna said. It was kind of a cascade effect where we saw this need to create a you know, digital mural map? But then, after you know, meeting with Anna and Patty, we realized that like, there's a lot of things that engage myself can do. And you know, Jenna and my, my eyes just kind of lit up like, oh, we can do all these things. And it's not gonna cost us any extra to put these things out. I mean, obviously there is an upfront cost to that. But, you know, it was really helpful to be able to put things out things out and be able to activate them super quickly. Jenna can attest to the fact. There's a lot of things we think of on a Thursday for something that needs to go out on the weekend. And what's really great about the services, you know, we don't have to, you know, stop and have meetings about it. We can literally just throw it up there, and it's good to go immediately. And it's a shout out to engage myself, or, you know, being able to help us at a last minute service as well for that.
[00:13:17] Patty Ruland: And for those who aren't familiar with how our service works, we're a web app. it's not a native app that needs to be downloaded by a visitor or a resident. and subsequently changes can be made on the fly. like, Clint was saying, if all of a sudden something's going on this weekend, and it's Tuesday or Wednesday, and you want to get it up there. You can quickly add it. You don't have to go through an update process. It's automatically available there for your visitors.
[00:13:50] Jenna Beasley: That's some of our key messages is it's a no download app, because you know, asking people to double click. To install these days is a lot but asking them to scan a QR code and bam, it's right there. And then you guys have that nifty option to add it to your home screen almost as if it were an app and that's really that's really been cool.
[00:14:11] Patty Ruland: And I know you guys started with the mural arts, and I know you had shared with me they were going up quicker than you could print the brochures, which I think is great. I love public art. I think it's such a great investment for a community. It kind of brings people together. But again, if you don't know that there's these 3 new murals that have been painted. how do you get that? You know that exposure.
[00:14:40] Jenna Beasley: Well, and not even just finding them on a map. You know, when you're dealing with a printed version, you quickly lose real estate in terms of description of the artwork, the artist's name, all of these things, and we don't just want to map with 50 QR. Codes. And this is really great, because you can see what the mural looks like. You can click on it. You have a description of it. It links straight to that artist Instagram. our website. And we even have the address on there. And that's really been helpful in terms of having people explore all of the murals out there.
[00:15:19] Patty Ruland: Excellent and you guys, and if you want to go to the next slide, you guys used us for something. I mean, I love this. I think it's pretty special. if everybody has their phone with them. Still, go ahead and scan this QR code that's on the bottom of the screen. It'll bring you to something that looks this, or, you see on the picture. You did some great stuff for the holidays Incorporated a lot of really really interesting fun. Out of the box. Kind of thinking right? why don't you talk a little bit about what you did? And again, this isn't only applicable to the the winter holidays. It could also include summer festivals or markets, or, you know, but this is just kind of an example of what you guys did. why don't you talk a little bit about that?
[00:16:14] Jenna Beasley: Yeah. although our engage by cell journey started with us wanting to do walking mural tour, it really kicked off with our holiday season, and I think we had all of this stood up in about Clint. You can correct me if I'm wrong, 2 weeks, maybe a week and a half we had maps.
[00:16:34] Clint Self: What's that?
[00:16:35] Jenna Beasley: Yeah. And Anna was great with helping us and guiding us there. But yeah, we partner with our our local destination making organization called Houston 1st for the holidays, and we do a big campaign called city Lights, downtown, holiday magic and we have all these different villages around downtown. And that also again involves a printed map. bus stops. Just a lot of this granular detail stuff that from a consumer or outsider perspective can get really overwhelming and we really wanted to get this launched by the holiday season and on. There we pretty much put all the villages on here with cool photography, descriptions, hours, what was going to be offered there? We were doing our own little holiday activation called Snow glow on the bayou. And Anna helped us like, create this really cool map where you can see on that slide which showed you kind of where the water screen was the main viewing area. There was boat tours. We had a cool photo OP. That was one of my favorite things. You can click on that photo. OP, and it's like, you found a holiday photo OP. And then it had, a picture of kind of the type of photography you could take there. Great for Instagram. And then we also were going to be hosting this elf on the shelf. Scavenger hunt, which yeah, there you go. Which.
[00:18:02] Patty Ruland: Everybody can see that the photo OP.
[00:18:06] Jenna Beasley: The scavenger hunt again, instead of, you know, in the past we've hosted scavenger hunts, and I think maybe we had sheets of paper that people go and pick up at a specific coffee shop or something that. But again, everybody has their phone on them. It's much easier to just utilize that. And I think I emailed Anna and was like, Hey, I know you guys can do a scavenger hunt. But like, what does that look like? And yeah, she was great on clarifying that. And it's really cool, because you can just like, take your pictures in an upload from your camera roll into the scavenger hunt. And that was great. We did a big drawing. We could see everybody. I think we had 140 participants in our scavenger hunt, which was amazing. And then, yeah, we did big SMS text campaigns around everything. You can segment out your lists, that you know, if they opted in for the holiday season, then we made sure they were receiving all of those those communications about what was going on. it's good stuff. Clint. Did you want to add anything.
[00:19:10] Patty Ruland: Yeah.
[00:19:10] Clint Self: Yeah, I think from from my perspective, a a big thing. And and a lot of people around here know that I'm always trying to be very cost. Conscious of a lot of stuff we do. I deal with a lot of our printers vendors and that. I wanna make sure that you know we're getting the most bang for our buck and I think something that Jennifer got to mention here is all of these things on this map would have been a printed piece. You know. We would have had a printed map. We would have had printed. Flyers would have had this. We didn't have to worry about any of that, and I think we still did a few printed things here and there, but for the most part engaged by sale took about 90% of the load here, and it was no additional cost to stand that up. And again, you know, shout out to Anna for helping us get this out, and you know she was always able to. She was always available to, you know, quickly, change something or help us get something going just because this was our 1st thing that we were using. Engage myself for but we couldn't have been more happy with it. And we got we got a lot of great feedback from this and you know, throughout all of our projects with engage myself. We have yet to hear one negative thing about it. It's been super helpful for everybody, and I think this was a go ahead.
[00:20:20] Jenna Beasley: Yeah, I was. Gonna say, I think we had 3,000 people opt in during the holiday season. Through engage myself, which was cool.
[00:20:28] Clint Self: Yeah, no, it was. It was a really really great hit. And this was kind of a precursor to a lot of our other events, you know, once we saw that we could do this, we started. You know we did something for the Houston Rodeo. Where people could go and see you know how to get to the light rail that we have downtown and take it to the rodeo, which is a, you know, a few miles away. So, and and again that came with some cost savings, because that would have been flyers. That would have been posters. That would have been, you know a lot of printed material but we're able to meet people where they were at. We had QR codes around the city where people could scan and say, Okay, you go this way to get to the rail. And this was all done through, engaged by cell and we had the same thing for our park car parade and then what else? Lunar New Year? We did a big celebration with that. We it was a great hit. yeah, this was the 1st of many applications of engage myself for that.
[00:21:21] Patty Ruland: I love that I love to hear about different ways that you're able to accomplish, you know. Presenting this information. Jenny, you had mentioned. You knew how many people had, you know, participated in the scavenger hunt. You know how many people click on the you know the snow globe map? Because that is all tracked. And you're not I mentioned earlier. If you just had a paper brochure you would have no idea you could have 5 people, you could have 50. You know what I mean. this is giving you some, you know, pretty solid numbers. Now, granted, not every single person has a phone. I'm sure there's couples or families that will be sharing the same device. But that gives you kind of an idea as to how many people are participating, and what they're doing, and forth.
[00:22:10] Jenna Beasley: Yeah. And our CEO. Here is a big data nerd, and he loves any metric that we can provide as do our 82 board members that we have. it's been really great to be able to utilize the reports and pull all that traffic and those details for them, especially when we're reporting on impact and stuff throughout the community.
[00:22:33] Patty Ruland: Yeah, and I just want to address something in the chat. That anna had posted a link to the site with the scavenger hunt. Somebody had asked to see what that looks like. And then Jerry asks, How does text messaging work do users have to register, sign up, or whatever, in order to send to receive text messages. Why don't you go ahead, Jenna, and talk about it, since you do utilize text messaging.
[00:23:01] Jenna Beasley: Yeah, we have a, we have a primary keyword which ours is downtown. And I think other organizations probably have a different keyword and they can text downtown to 5, 6, 5, 1, 2, and also we. Yeah, we printed these great little postcards. Clint was saying. We saved on cost printing stuff, but we do print these 4 by 6, and if you scan this QR. Code, it populates the text for you on your phone, and and then that opts in that way. And then, yeah, it's just kind of any other texting service. You can segment your list. You can have secondary keywords. downtown is our first, st and then holidays was our second for that season. And anybody that texted downtown holidays to 5, 6, 5, 1, 2 went to a list that we had segmented and titled holidays, that way we can track how many people were subscribing, and then we can, like, you know, send them out specific messages, and we have a few. We have a master list, obviously, and then we have a residential list. people can text downtown resident to 5, 6, 5, 1, 2. That's gonna put them on that list, and then we can communicate with them. We do resident bags Biannually for all of our apartment complexes. And we we have a different color of these. The backgrounds purple instead of blue for our residents, and then that will automatically pop up that downtown resident text for them. And then we yeah, we did the scavenger hunt with a keyword. I think it was downtown elf or something, because we were doing elf on the shelf scavenger hunt, and then we have a street closures, one which is really handy as well. People can text downtown detours to 5, 6, 5, 1, 2, and get added to that list. And anytime there's a street closure or some type of something going on that's going to impact transportation. We send that out on the app as well.
[00:24:59] Patty Ruland: Yeah, that's great that you could segment and send out messages based upon what people want information about. You know. Maybe I don't want information. Maybe I'm just a tourist. I don't want information about, you know, road closures or residential opportunities or things that. I could just opt into a specific list. And I don't know if it's clear enough or not on the example on the screen. but opting in to get the text message or become part of the list is even simpler than it was in the past. You don't even need to type in a phone number and a keyword. You can just scan a QR code and our system will automatically open up your text messaging platform, insert the number and the word, and you just have to press the send button, and you're opted in. it really simplifies the process. Oh, yeah, there we go.
[00:25:55] Jenna Beasley: Very quickly. And then it's great, too, because I forgot to mention you can create phrases responses. once people hit downtown and hit send, then it's welcome to downtown Houston. Explore all that we have to offer, or, if you know, they're they're a resident. It's thanks for choosing downtown to be your home, you know. you get creative with all those little fun messages, too.
[00:26:18] Patty Ruland: Excellent, and I know you guys have some big stuff coming up next year.
[00:26:24] Jenna Beasley: Yeah. No problem.
[00:26:26] Patty Ruland: Yeah, kind of pressure. It's just the World Cup, you know. I mean, do you just see this growing and expanding, finding different new ways to utilize it. You know I don't. I don't foresee you guys ever going back to the way things used to be. But I mean have you been? And you mentioned it when you 1st talked with us? You guys. All of a sudden your eyes lit up and you started realizing you could do all these different things. Do we still have that same butterfly feeling where it's like, oh, can we do this? Or, you know, let's try that, and forth.
[00:27:03] Jenna Beasley: For sure. I think there will be many a custom things coming down the pipeline for that. I think. There will be fun utilizations in terms of yeah, scavenger hunts or I don't know. I think there's there's many tools, too, that I I'm not even completely familiar with that. I'm excited to explore, especially around that we have. There's selfie opportunities. There. yeah, it's gonna be good.
[00:27:33] Clint Self: Yeah. And then, from my perspective, one of the the biggest things that I do with the organization is, I work with our graphic design itself. the ability to be able to custom design these maps. And it's not just a standard Google map that's going out like, it's actually nice, well developed intentional map with certain graphic elements on, there has been really great to be able to do that.
[00:27:55] Patty Ruland: And it's branded with your aesthetic right, which is the best part you want to keep that consistent brand quality and forth. And have it consistent with what's on your website. And you know what's on the printed material. You still do.
[00:28:09] Jenna Beasley: Well, and I think gauge by cell is really helpful, too, if not, everyone has a client on their team. Anna is amazing at helping to build out whatever vision you have, too. So.
[00:28:22] Patty Ruland: Yeah, I mean, i i. 1 of the great things about working with this company is the people that are here. They all want to help. They all want to make and and Anna type in thanks. Jenna. We care about our clients. We often measure our success on the success of our clients. We want this to be phenomenal for you. we do everything that we can to help make it as impactful for you folks as we can. We are not just some software you buy off the shelf. And we say, Here you go. We have tons of training and support, and we're always available to answer questions or come up with creative new ideas. I mean, you know, we've our platform has evolved over the years. We've added new features, bells, and whistles. But the fun part and the really interesting part is the ideas that our clients come to us with saying, Hmm! Do you think we could maybe do this, or can we do that? Is there a way that we can do? XYZ. This might be exciting. I love that I love to hear what our clients are doing, how they're utilizing it. Love the elf on the self scavenger hunt, I mean, I would if I was in Houston I would be doing it every day you'd see my entry 50 times somebody asked, can you show how to add points and info onto the map. We can. Jerry, we can go over that. I'll have you talk with one of our folks, and we can actually set up a demo for you to see the back end, and how everything is included and uploaded. But it is, and I, said, Jenna nor Clint have any coding, or it experience and Anna has helped out. But I mean, you guys have done your fair share of of adding content and pinpoints and map markers to the platform. User, intuitive, pretty simple and easy to manage.
[00:30:20] Jenna Beasley: Yeah, I would say so.
[00:30:25] Clint Self: Sorry my mic is muted. But yes, I would. I would agree as well. Yeah.
[00:30:29] Patty Ruland: Well, I know we're happy to have you as part of the engage by cell family, and I appreciate you guys showcasing what what you're offering to your residents and your visitors. So, Anna, if you could advance the slide. I'd love to talk with Melissa. Hey, Melissa, thanks for hanging in there.
[00:30:52] Melysa Vander Mel: I'm taking notes about. All the exciting things downtown Houston is doing, too, so.
[00:30:58] Patty Ruland: Yeah. And I have to say to Melissa's credit, she is a 1 woman show. She doesn't have a team behind her. She's kind of doing this all on her own. Of course, you know we've offered assistance and guidance to help her along the way. But, I mentioned, Melissa is with the town of Danville. They are in the San Ramon Valley, Contra, Costa County, Northern California, Ish and similarly she came to us because she had a walking tour that she wanted to get set up. And why don't you tell us a little bit about how the process went for you? How you arrived at coming to engage by cell, and where we're at now.
[00:31:44] Melysa Vander Mel: Absolutely so. Thanks much for inviting me to be here. I actually inherited the relationship with engaged by Cell. Our Heritage Resource Commission group had been looking for a way to digitize our historic walking tour that they could provide a more real time. Opportunity for people to walk through our town and see the beautiful historic buildings and learn about the history there. And economic development decided, hey, we really that. And we'd to hop on that as well. we added additional opportunities for people to walk and dine and shop, and see what else was in downtown as well. we were really looking to as as Houston was, we were really looking to move away from a digital or I'm sorry from a printed map that would have to be reprinted when anything changed to something digital where we could log in, make the update and our residents would have real time updates.
[00:32:57] Patty Ruland: Yeah, and for everybody watching. If, again, you'd to scan this QR code, you'll be able to see what Melissa has created far. I think it's really great I had mentioned earlier. We try to support our local businesses, but if we don't know who they are, what they are what they offer. You know. I, this is a really great way to get people familiar with, you know their new favorite coffee shop, or or boutique, or what have you? Have you noticed any feedback or have gotten any anything about what your local businesses think about having this option.
[00:33:42] Melysa Vander Mel: Yeah. our local businesses, particularly downtown, are really hungry for more foot traffic. That is sort of the request that we continue to get from them. And we are this. We're a much slower rollout process, Patty had said. I'm 1 man show here. Working with our community outreach team to Tell all of our residents how easy it can be to find your new favorite spot for dinner or coffee or whatnot. we think it's in the next slide, actually. But we.
[00:34:18] Patty Ruland: I could.
[00:34:19] Melysa Vander Mel: In advance.
[00:34:19] Patty Ruland: The slide. Please.
[00:34:20] Melysa Vander Mel: Thank you. Yeah. the at the top of that slide, we've got our postcards that are going to be available at all of our town facilities. the community center our town meeting hall. The senior center, all those great places where residents will be able to scan the QR code and get taken directly to the app. And then we reached the historic flyer was created specifically for a hundredthth anniversary veterans Memorial building event. To get people to walk through downtown and see what what the town used to look like. we did see some people really enjoy that we had probably around 500 people that day downtown, enjoying the event and festivities and taking part in that historic walking tour which it was great for it to be self guided. People could walk around at their leisure. And then the last piece there is going actually already went out to resident homes. we are seeing a slow increase in our number of users. In in getting people to, really. you know, take a look around downtown and see what they'd to explore more.
[00:35:42] Patty Ruland: Excellent. I you know I kind of used to live in the area of Danville. I think it's great. I think every town should have these types of services. again, we had a little chat before the Webinar, and working for an organization that provides this types of services every time I go someplace, I'm always thinking. Oh, they could really have a map here, or they should have, you know, walking tour, or something that. I mean. And and I think the biggest thing I want to convey is obviously downtown. Houston is a little bit bigger than Danville. But you know, the technology works for any size organization. Whether you're a 1 woman show Melissa. Spreading information through the town, Danville, or you're a big city area downtown Houston. the technology works the same. It provides easy access to content that people want to see ways for people to learn more and forth. I know, Clint, you are actually Anna. Can you go to the next slide? and Clint? I think you might have a little bit to say about this. You know, we talked earlier. the the different ways. It's it's applicable, right? you can do pre-planning. You can opt into a text message list and get information about upcoming events. I'm sure you guys are doing going to do some campaigns about upcoming things. I think you did some about the rodeo to let people know that was going on, and then again with the holiday program, and forth. I was gonna say, yeah, for the rodeo. It really helped us out. One thing that we really wanted to push out because I don't. I don't know if any of you have been to the Houston Rodeo. But it's more than just a single rodeo. It's an entire month. Long event. Think of a State fair on steroids, basically for an entire month. it's not a. It's not a downtown specific thing but one of the things that we really wanted to push out, you know, because parking around the rodeo is ridiculous one of the things we really wanted to push out like, Hey, we have an abundance of parking downtown. Come, park your car here, walk a short few blocks over and ride our light rail down to the rodeo, and we really wanted to push that forward. what we did is, it was a joint effort. There were some printing costs in this as well, but we had QR. Codes that we had on stickers that were all, or decals all throughout downtown on the sidewalks. and people, and and then we had them rodeo theme they'd have cowboy. Yep, Jenna, showing a picture now. They had cowboy boots and things that on there. And there was a QR code that people could could scan, and this would take them straight to what we called the the rodeo roundup they can go there. They can see, you know. Exactly. Yeah. they could see exactly where the light rail stops were. We had we called them pop up performances. think of street buskers and things that. we really wanted a way to promote that. But but what I was getting at the point here is that it wasn't just a downtown thing. we really wanted to kind of ingrain everybody to, you know. Plan your visit before you check that out, look it up, open it up. and see what we've got going on. And see how downtown kind of plays into the rodeo and there there are rodeo related events that are happening downtown. We had a rodeo run, a 5 k run that they had as well as a parade as well. And like, I said, it's it's a month long event. but all I had to say, engage myself really helped us out here because we were able to activate this. And what Jenna? Less than a week, I think. yeah, we we we we rushed to get it out. But honestly, I don't think anybody could tell. It looked a fully baked product. And it looked really well. we were really happy with it. And and again, that was just kind of a precursor to the things that we can use it for. you know, Patty, I know you mentioned the World Cup obviously coming. We haven't even had those conversations yet, but they're probably coming soon on how we're going to activate. Engage myself for this because we could absolutely see obviously, our light rail system being used parking things that. And yeah, because I think, yeah, correct me, if I'm wrong, Jenna, the the World Cup is gonna be at. It's at Nrg, right? same location as the rodeo. a lot of it's gonna be a lot of, you know, cutting paste with that that we'll be able to say, Hey, come downtown. Avoid all the parking around the stadium, you know. Take a leisurely ride on the light rail downtown down to the World Cup. yeah, it's a. It was a nice, nice test for that. We could see how a lot of that worked. And I think it's kind of become something that people are gonna expect out of us. And and we're we're excited, for we're excited to be able to provide that service as well.
[00:40:52] Jenna Beasley: We have 2. We have 2 big things coming up that we're gonna utilize it, for. One is our downtown Houston marketplace. And this is a traveling market that will pop up at different places around downtown a couple of times a month. And that will probably have its own button with the dates of when it will be the location of where it will be, and then hopefully, we can keep it up to date per market with the list of vendors, because everybody loves to know what to expect. And then, secondly, is our our marketplace. And then I was just thinking of something else. I forgot it, but anyways sorry. I know. Anyways, the marketplace for sure is coming up.
[00:41:37] Patty Ruland: Cool, and we've kind of talked about on site usage, obviously having information about stops on the walking tour or having information about the murals and the artists, and forth. We've talked about and touched upon that. It's not a native app, there's no downloads required, etc, and Clint. I'm gonna pass it back to you. Just for a second, as far as marketing opportunities. you guys are considering in some of our other clients have done this with sponsorship.
[00:42:07] Clint Self: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:42:08] Patty Ruland: The app.
[00:42:09] Clint Self: Yeah, as an organization as a whole, we've really started shifting our focus a lot more towards what we can sponsor. We have a private arm of our organization that can handle a lot of these things. And Jenna and I kind of looked at this oh, I mean engage myself could easily be sponsored, you know, and that could be the inclusion of a sponsors logo on top of the map, or as a footer, or something that, or a certain section is sponsored by you know, one of our big partners. And so, you know, with all that considered. it could easily offset the cost of everything, and then some and also just bring, you know, a lot more money to the organization that we can support, you know, better events and things that as well. we really do see this as a driver for funds for the organization as well. And that's not an area we've gotten into yet. But we have started exploring I said, our our organization actually just hired, you know somebody to actually handle a lot of our sponsorship stuff. that's coming down the pipe for that for sure. But you know we're we're pretty excited. That. You know. We, as a team, you know, can bring that, you know, level of income to the organization as well.
[00:43:16] Patty Ruland: Not only are you able to get sponsorships, and then market, you know, marketing to your users with those sponsors, as well as regular overall marketing opportunities. Special offers, surveys, things that.
[00:43:34] Clint Self: Again.
[00:43:35] Patty Ruland: The data is valuable, right? We love. We love to know who we're serving, what their interests are, and that way we can better address their needs going forward.
[00:43:46] Clint Self: Yeah. And what's great is, it's, you know, operational cost is 0 for us. you know, adding this on there, you know it. It literally cost us, you know, a hour or 2 of our time. And you know, then we've we've got this, you know, level, that's a stream of income coming to the organization. And and you know, Patty, to your point, you know, as as scalable as engaged by cell is. you know, we could easily see any organization of any size, you know, easily putting this stuff on there. yeah, you know it, it's been really great to have that as an opportunity for sure we're excited to explore it.
[00:44:19] Jenna Beasley: I do remember what I was gonna say. And I can't believe I because we've been talking about it all week. We have a huge Main Street promenade that we're about to start construction on. we're literally going to be tearing up our main street that runs through downtown and creating this really awesome pedestrian promenade. we're going to be using and engage myself to communicate those different construction miles milestones to the to the folks on Main street. we'll opt in all of our small businesses and property managers segment them on a list and communicate to them that way with all that stuff. So, okay. how's it?
[00:44:57] Patty Ruland: Excellent on. The screen are best practices and tips. I'm not one for reading slides to people, but, you know, start small. Melissa started. I said. She's a 1 woman dynamo, a little powerhouse here. She started with the walking tour. She's added things as she's gone along, and we're here to help, you know, ask for help. I don't think any of our clients ever started with a fully I don't want to say fully functioning site. But they started with something small, maybe one or 2 things, and then built and built and built. And it's easy to build upon And you know, once once you see all the information you can gather, and and the feedback that you get, it's really kind of almost fun to do as Clinton had mentioned, involve local partners and sponsors. You know, if they're willing to pay for a portion of your service or help defer the cost. That's great. very easy to promote, although they are still doing some printing, they're not having to do the amount of printing that they've done in the past with maps and forth. It's more printing, you know, smaller cards with just QR codes on it, and forth, or the postcards that go into neighborhood bags and things that or just small rack cards, for you know, hotel lobbies and forth. We kind of talked about the value of getting somebody to opt in to text messaging. Once they've opted in, you can communicate all types of information for them. If it's information that they're not necessarily interested in. You can segment them into a list that you know is important to them. and I think you guys both have it. We encourage everybody to save the little icon to their home screen. It'll look just an app on their phone, but without the hassle of taking up storage needing to be updated, going through Google play or the app store, and forth. And then finally use that data you collect, ask, you know, put out feedback surveys. See what's working. See what people love? I mean. I would guarantee if you guys sent out a survey asking. you know, feedback on the elf on a shelf scavenger hunt. you would have probably gotten some amazing feedback. I hate to keep harping on that, but I think that's such the cutest idea. Anna has graciously put in some links for the individual pages we saw. Saw if you didn't get a chance to scan the QR. Codes but what I'd to do right now is open it up and maybe have some folks ask some questions in the chat window. and whether it's directed, or a question about engaged by sales, services, or technology, or questions for downtown Houston or Danville. I see here. Kitty wants a demo already. That's always exciting any questions from the group. Do you think this is? Or maybe I'll just ask a general question, and you guys can all answer in the chat is, do you see this type of technology working for your organization? Is this something that people in your area would come to expect the ease of use and the availability of information. And Michelle said, possibly great. Kitty says, yes. excellent! Well, we're pretty close to time. If we don't have any final questions. I just want to do a quick wrap up. Anna, could you advance the slide on behalf of myself, Anna, behind the scenes and engaged by cell. I want to personally thank Jenna Clint and Melissa for being here to share their stories I said, I love to hear what our clients do. And I think nothing is more valuable than real life stories and being able to share them with our potential clients and forth. Any final words, you guys, again, I appreciate you much. I appreciate our attendees showing up anything else you want to add.
[00:49:40] Melysa Vander Mel: I just wanna say thank you for the invitation. And both times that we've the panelists been together. I've walked away with something new that I wanted to add to our engage by cell. when Patty talks about starting small and scaling up, we are the prime example. Very small town. But looking at more inventive ways, to be able to engage with more people. and engaged by cell is definitely been that solution for us. And, like, I said, inspired every time I talk to someone or attend a webinar for something new that I can add to our app. thank you.
[00:50:23] Clint Self: I would just also.
[00:50:24] Patty Ruland: I'm learning the same thing. I agree with you, and I've been with the company forever.
[00:50:31] Clint Self: I would also just to add to, you know, kind of piggybacking off what Melissa said, you know. Start small with this, but also don't. Don't be intimidated by what this looks like. You know we were when we 1st had our meeting with Anna. you know we we were expecting this to be, you know, a 1 to 2 month. Build out you know, and I, I, you know, hate to reveal her secrets, but it took her less than 2 weeks. I felt and she was there with us for every step of the way to get her up and up and going and yeah, it was. It was a really great process. Engagement has been there every step of the way. And you guys have also been really great about, you know. If we have suggestions on how to improve the service, you know, you all been very, you know, open to those suggestions and implemented quite a bit of them. it's been really refreshing to work with you guys. Even, you know, if we've encountered issues or things that. You know, we get a response immediately. we don't feel we're on an island here. You know, we we feel we've definitely, you know, have support along the way. And that's been really great. if that could be any encouragement to people that might see this as like, you know, pretty daunting to get this up and going it's really not at all so, at least at least for the consumer. It's not, you know, engage myself, takes a lot of that, and it's been really great to have you all on board, though.
[00:51:47] Patty Ruland: Excellent. Well, thank you again for participating. We appreciate it. Thank you, folks, for registering and attending. We will be sending out a recorded version. if you got a little distracted or something, you could watch it again just for fun, you can share it with other members in your organization. Our team will probably reach out to you folks to follow up to see if you have any questions. I know Kitty definitely wants a demo, I'll be reaching out to her to set up time to chat with her. Feel free to reach out to us. If if you know we don't get to you quick enough. We're here to help. And with that said, I hope everybody has a great afternoon, and enjoys the rest of their day, and thank you for coming.
