Rethinking the Downtown Visitor Experience

Discover how Red Wing Downtown Main Street and Downtown Austin alliance are creating better mobile visitor experiences. Transcript below.

[0:03] Patty Ruland:
Hey everybody, welcome to today's webinar session. My name is Patty. I'm with Engage by Cell. And I am super excited to have everybody here today, talking about one of my favorite things, one of my favorite services we offer at Engage by Cell, with some of my favorite people who have done some amazing things with our technology. We have Ashley from Downtown Austin Alliance. We have my dynamic duo, Candace and Andrea, from Red Wing Downtown Main Street. Of course, myself. And in the background, running this whole thing and hoping we don't go off the rails is my colleague, Megan. So if you hear me saying, Megan, advance the slide, I'm not talking to an invisible friend, she's just here helping us out. I'd love to take a quick minute and start by asking everybody to introduce themselves in the chat window, maybe let us know where you're joining us from. We always love to see who's here with us. A couple of housekeeping items. If you have questions during the presentation, go ahead and throw them in the chat, and Megan will be feeding those to us. We will have a session for questions and answers. And I'm just checking to see, oh, we've got, Zuni Pueblo Main Street. Who else am I seeing here? I just want to give a couple of shout-outs. Ryan from Sanford, Florida, Tony from Titusville. Wow. Thanks, everybody. Again, I'm so excited to be here. So let's go ahead and get this started. Ian, do you want to go to the next slide? For those of you who aren't familiar with Engage by Cell or what we do, we are a mobile technology solution provider. And we are based in the US. We've been around for about 20 years. We're a cloud-based platform, which means, although we offer apps, they aren't native apps, so there's no downloading required. They're super easy to access just by scanning a QR code or clicking a link. I wanted to mention that. Most importantly, we are a human customer support organization. We are not a company of bots; we're real people. We answer phone calls and emails, and we're here to support our clients and make them as successful as possible using our technology. So let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Let's get right into it. Our technology includes basically two types of platforms. One is text messaging for communicating. And that could be pushing out reminders about construction, or upcoming events, and so forth. And the other is, like I mentioned, our mobile web apps. That's where you provide all your content, information about events, maps, tours, and so forth. And again, very easily accessible for just about anybody with a smartphone. And like I said, I'm going to go through these slides a little quickly, because I really want to share what these folks are doing. Megan, why don't you go to the next one? the common things that we find that people are looking for, and I am an avid traveler, I travel as much as I can, I always want to find something unique to a certain area, or something different, or something that's, home of that area, and so forth. So I am curious by nature. But a lot of folks just, they want to know the basics, maybe, they want to know what's going on in town, and so forth. So we found that, over the course of our research, people are always concerned about is parking available? In smaller areas and towns, maybe that's not such an issue. When you're talking about someplace like downtown Austin. There are challenges. What's happening today? Maybe I'm, and we talk about visitors, but visitors are inclusive of your residents, because, be a tourist in your own hometown, I always say. Maybe I want to see what's going on that day, what events are going on. Maybe a new restaurant has opened, and I hadn't heard about it and where should I go eat? What's around me? What can I do? And so forth. It's a great way to easily provide answers to questions that visitors or residents might have. Go ahead to the next one, Megan. I'm sure the gals can speak to this, but we have found that people have information. It's not that there's a lack of information, it's just not packaged in an easily accessible format. So there might be a website that has a Google Map, and then there's your social media and Facebook and so forth, where you can find out information. Then there might be a separate Cvent or event calendar, or stuff like that. People may also be searching for parking garages. People still do brochures for walking tours and things like that, which, by the way, I love a printed item. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use a map very well, so I'm always lost, but I like it as a souvenir. And so forth. Let's go ahead. Ashley's laughing at me. What we try to do with our platform is meet your visitors where they already are. Most people have a smartphone, they know how to use it. It's their own personal device, they know how to tap and swipe and things like that. Again, no download required for our platform. It's available anytime. All of our customers encourage people to save the app to their home screen so they can refer back to it in the future, and so forth. And again, these can be updated, for changing events and so forth, whether it's adding events or new restaurants or shops to a certain area. We want to make it easy for the person who's interacting with the area. I love this. We're talking, let me ask you gals, in Red Wing, what is your population?

[6:41] Andrea Hanson:
We are about 16,000.

[6:45] Patty Ruland:
Ashley, what's the population?

[6:48] Ashley Marino:
Yeah.

[6:48] Patty Ruland:
Austin, Texas?

[6:49] Ashley Marino:
The Austin MSA area, I think, is between 1.25 million and 1.3 million, so we've got a lot of people surrounding us.

[7:01] Patty Ruland:
Right. And the great thing about our solution is it scales. There is certain basic information that everybody wants to convey. What's new in town, businesses and attractions, events, tours, things like that. And then, in Austin, they have added challenges of traffic and construction and so forth. But, like I said, luckily, the program scales from super tiny to super huge. Different challenges, same goal: make the downtown experience easier. I was super excited. I met my gals from Red Wing at the Main Street Conference, I think, last year. And we started chatting, and I learned a little bit about their town, and we talked, and they were really excited, because they both have a background in education, they're used to teaching, presenting, sharing, so it was like a perfect fit for them. They completely understood how the platform would work and how to best utilize it. Let's go to the next slide. And I want you all to be able to see what they were able to create. I have to say, they are our A-plus superstar clients. They signed a contract with us, and I think within three weeks, they had this app up, ready to go. If you all take out your cell phones. And simply scan the QR code. And I'm gonna play along here also. Hopefully you get a pop-up. Of their site. Go ahead to the next slide, Megan. again, making Downtown easier to explore. You guys had certain goals in mind, and we'll talk about those in a second, but I mean, one of them was to give visitors an easy way to discover different places. You've done some of the best things, and I talk about it all the time. Why don't you talk a little bit about what some of your objectives were, and what you wanted to provide to the public?

[9:30] Andrea Hanson:
I'll start, and then Candace can fill in if I miss anything, but our main goal was to create a user-friendly experience for visitors that Don't know where our shops are, don't know what restaurants are available, and we do have paper maps available, but those are changing every 3 months with a business moving, or a new one opening up, and so this gives us a way to be making those updates in real time. And also to let them know about all of the other attractions that we have within walking distance. We also have very walkable attractions, such as a sculpture tour and a history tour. We have a lot of historic homes, so they could walk a couple of extra blocks and see some of the older architecture. And we just kind of kept adding and building things that we thought would be nice if you don't know the area. Candace, I don't know if you want to chat about, the trails and stuff that we have?

[10:26] Patty Ruland:
Yeah, and Megan, why don't you go to the next slide? We'll talk, we can talk a little bit more about the trails, the map, and so forth.

[10:33] Candace Dudley:
Right, we already had a lot of things created, a lot of different organizations, the city, Visit Red Wing, all these different organizations, and ours, each kind of had different things made. The city has wonderful hiking maps, and we have lots of them throughout our community, and so this has also allowed us a place to just put everything in one spot. All the great work that people have already done, it's housed in one spot. You can see the map here. We had different things, like being a small community. Not everybody's open on Sundays, or we have a late night Thursday shopping night, so there's different things like that, and we wanted people to be able to easily tell, who's open and where can we go, so we have that. As a toggle on our map. We have so many tours, our community's really big in history, we have very beautiful historical buildings, and so we've already had things made, like history, walking tours. Audio clips that go with these, articles that have already been written about this building that you can walk from one to the next, and so this really gave us a place to house all of these really incredible things that were kind of just being hidden in the past.

[11:47] Patty Ruland:
Yeah, and I love that, and I, now I tell everybody about the open on Sundays. I currently live in Las Vegas, so everything is open all the time, but in smaller communities, that's not the case. I mean, I totally respect things being closed on Sunday, people get a day of rest and so forth. But, if you do want to go out to dinner on Sunday night, what are my options available? I love that you guys added that. As, one of the features of the map. And again, the late night Thursdays, I think that's super fun. You did some other things that I brag about all the time. Megan, you want to go to the next slide? We as part of our service, not only do our clients meet with me and talk about the possibilities and so forth, we have a, we call it a game plan call with our customer success manager. I'm going to give a quick shout out to Casey. And Casey talks to all our clients and gets great information and is so willing to share it within, our client base and so forth, about how to get people involved, how to promote, the site and so forth. And you guys did something that nobody's ever done before, and I think it's absolutely amazing. So you guys want to talk about the coasters?

[13:09] Andrea Hanson:
Yeah, we were trying to figure out ways to just get it as visible as possible, as frequently as possible, and just googled, where can we make custom coasters, and asked our local businesses if they would take some free coasters if we gave them to them, and they said, absolutely, we always need coasters. So we had these printed, and they've been setting them out, and it's just getting visibility in front of a different crowd.

[13:38] Patty Ruland:
Yeah, we've heard, like I said, coasters was new to me, and I think that's ingenious. We've heard they people have printed on cookies and handed them out in, an inaugural event and things like that. I know you guys also do some magazine ads, some posters, and so forth. And then you have your map. Which, again, is, you mentioned that it was changing every couple of months. I'm sure the printing costs have reduced once you go electronic. You don't have to print, and then you don't have them out of date. Megan, do you want to go to the next slide? We could show the map. I want to talk a little bit about this. I mean, you have basically, all the things highlighted here.

[14:22] Andrea Hanson:
Yep, so this is a labor of love, and something that I have personally updated, every 6 months with current locations of businesses. We do print these out, and other businesses buy little packs of them. I pay for them, they reimburse me by buying a few packs. It's a group effort, and it's really valuable for somebody that has never been to town to just have a tangible thing to walk around with. But we always have the QR code, now that we have the app, in the corner so that they can scan it and actually see their blue dot moving on this exact map.

[15:03] Patty Ruland:
Absolutely. I think it's very smart. Like I said, I would want the map as kind of a tangible souvenir of my visit. But being directionally challenged, having the blue dot technology, and I don't know if the folks on the call are familiar with all of our maps are GPS enabled. We use blue dot technology, so if you were in downtown, you would see a little blue dot on the street where you are. It can give you directions to locations, whether it's walking or driving and so forth. So it's super easy for navigation, so you're not walking past the same thing five times like I'm usually doing, looking around. Let's go to the next slide. What do your visitors find? And like I said, you launched pretty quickly, and it's been maybe, what, a little over a month or so? Two months that you've been using it? I'll preface it by saying our platform has a really great reporting and analytical section. It'll track how many times people tap on a pinpoint on a map, which categories, which tours, things like that. What do you find the visitors are using most?

[16:21] Andrea Hanson:
Candace, I'll let you start, and then I'll fill in anything that you don't mention.

[16:26] Candace Dudley:
I'd say the maps, and then we also have a tab for perks, so, partners of our organization could, at this time, give us a coupon or an ad of some sort, and we have those in a perks tab, where you can walk in, show it and you get, a percentage off, or some perk by using it. I'd say that is a big area that, our residents are incentivized to use, as well as people that are just stopping by. But for sure, the map, just navigating where things are, that's a big one. We have other things throughout it our newsletter that gets emailed out, that gets put in a tab as well, so it's kind of like a nice hub for residents to get a lot of information as well as tourists, so it kind of hits both of those things and makes both feel important and wanted in our downtown.

[17:22] Patty Ruland:
Excellent. And what, if anything, has surprised you guys?

[17:26] Andrea Hanson:
I think what initially surprised us how easy it was to build, but that also comes with a skill set of Candace and I building our own websites for our own businesses in years past, so we're used to using, website templates, and so it was very user-friendly. We didn't know really what to expect. Going into it initially, but very user-friendly, easy to update in real time. We'll be walking by a business and see that someone changed their hours, and we can immediately update that, put a little to-do list, when we get to our computer, and just update things to keep it as fresh and current as possible. Yeah.

[18:12] Patty Ruland:
I love that. And finally, what would you tell other, another smaller downtown organization? Either about the experience or, just general feedback about the success of this thus far. Like I said, I know it hasn't been very long, but, what would you want to share with some of the folks that are on the call?

[18:34] Candace Dudley:
I would say that, we were just really excited with how many people and businesses were also excited. When we brought the QR code flyer to our hotels in town, which they don't often participate in. The events and things we have going on, but they were really excited to have it because they said it's always what they get asked as a front desk person, what can I do, where can I go? And now they just scan this QR code, and it saves them a lot. I was personally excited to see that, how many people came together and got excited about it as well as just how easy it was to work with you guys. I mean, your map specialist, Anna, she had a baby, I think, and she's still emailing us back, updating our maps, so fast, and it's just, if we had a question, it was answered so quickly, we didn't have to sit on like, call lines, talking to bots, and hoping we pushed the right button, so it was a really seamless experience. We had a lot of things ready; we just needed a place to house them. And then the last thing I'll say is I thought that the features were not just fun for us to play with and use and create, but useful. I mean, there's different things, we took the articles, the historical articles about our buildings, that's our history tour, and I recorded audio, so that it can play right with it. So it had a lot more features than I think we were expecting. Like, of course, we were excited about the mapping feature, but, there's just a lot more to it than that.

[20:08] Andrea Hanson:
Yeah, and we still have things we haven't tried yet. We have some ideas rolling on using the quizzes and other features within the app, but as far as what I would tell other downtown organizations around our size is that just start. You don't have to have it all built, because it you build it in real time as you think of ideas, of ways to, allow that interactive piece with the people that are coming to your downtown, start with a map, and then build from there as, if you have an event, you can have a tab for that event specifically. Even if it's, then taking you to the website that you've already built around that event, you at least have a place for them to see that you're hosting something, and then over time, you can pull more of it to the app if it makes sense, but it's just a great way to have it all in one place and guide them to the information.

[21:08] Patty Ruland:
Yeah, I always refer to it as the nice, pretty little package with a bow on it. So you could pull from here, and there, and there, and, package it nicely, make it look pretty, and provide the resources. Thank you guys. I'm gonna obviously stick around because we'll have some questions, and I wanted to talk about some other stuff at the end, but, let's go ahead and get Ashley involved in the conversation. Downtown Austin Alliance has been a client of ours for a couple of years. They started with our basic, web app, and have expanded to include our text messaging platform. We're doing some integrations with their systems and so forth, so it's really kind of taken on a life of its own. So Megan, let's go to the next slide. And so, as I mentioned, Ashley uses text messaging. You can still scan a QR code to opt in to get the map, but by texting in to access it you then opt in to get updates, alerts, reminders, and so forth, pushed out to you via text message. If you all want to grab your phone again. Go ahead and scan that QR code. And this kind of works a little differently. Once you scan that code, and again, I'm doing it along with you all, you'll see your text messaging platform opens. It pre-populates with the phone number, we've put in a keyword for it and if you simply hit the send button. You will have opted in to receive updates, alerts, reminders, and so forth from them. You should get back a message that says, thanks for joining us today, explore all that Downtown has to offer. And I don't know if you, I can't do this well. There's a link there. Go ahead, if you tap that link. It will bring you to their app. Megan, let's go to the next slide. You guys have problems. I have, I've been to Austin many times. Austin is one of my favorite cities. It's a challenge. Why don't you talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you have in the city of 1.25 gazillion people? Okay, million, but what I mean.

[23:38] Ashley Marino:
Yeah, Austin is, it's changed so much. So I moved there in 2022, but I went to college, right down the road. Right down the road in Texas terms, it's, an hour and a half away. And I would visit for the weekends in Austin, go to the bars, go see a show, that sort of thing. And from 2013, when I really started visiting Austin to, now, the city has, doubled in population. Like, straight up, twice the amount of people live in the city. And the skyline looks completely different. It's just, it's gotten so, so big, so quickly. Yeah. And we

[24:20] Patty Ruland:
Especially.

[24:20] Ashley Marino:
after the pandemic, had, a huge number of people move in.

[24:24] Patty Ruland:
Right.

[24:24] Ashley Marino:
Yeah.

[24:25] Patty Ruland:
I mean, having people able to navigate the city, acknowledging the closures and the parking issues and the traffic and so forth. Is an issue, that, smaller communities don't have. Megan, do you want to go to the next slide? Use two strategies, right? The text messaging, there's an example of a type of text that would be sent out. The mobile web app to access the information and so forth. Again, the right channel depends upon the information you're providing. I don't want to necessarily search through an app to find, traffic congestion or road closures and things like that. So being able to have that automatically pushed out to me is super convenient, right? Put the information in my hand. Don't make me work so hard for it. Let's go to the next slide. You guys do some amazing things also. Couple of things that I absolutely love about your site is your public art map. And I should say, you have your regular Downtown map with all the categories of dining and parks and stuff like that. Your public art map, I absolutely love, and if you guys are following along and see it on your phone. Instead of using pinpoints, they use little, thumbnails of the actual art itself. Which I think is so attractive. It makes me want to engage with it it makes me, I get a little tease by seeing the thumbnail image, and then I can actually go to it and see it in person. You also offer recommendations. I know you had your patio picks and patio dining featured. I think that's amazing. It's always nice when a city will recommend one of their own for something. It's always great, and I say when I'm a visitor, if I'm at a hotel, I'll check with the front desk and stuff, but if the actual downtown is recommending something, I'm gonna go check it out. I think it gives the recommendation a little more weight. I know you guys also do some amazing stuff, during the holidays. With holiday lights and so forth, and maybe we could talk about that, but Megan, do you want to go to the next slide? And again, we'll be sending this PowerPoint out to, everybody, as well as a recording. So here's just an example of some of the texts that are going out. And so, let's go one more. And I just want to talk about what are some of your favorite things about the app that you do. I know, like I said, I have my favorite.

[27:21] Ashley Marino:
Yes. I think, for me personally, the campaigns that we run through, so we try to do one every season. The one that you saw a screenshot of was our, spring-summer campaign. We just took that down since we're gearing up for holiday coming up. But I think the reason those are the most impactful, to work on is because that gives us a touchpoint for all of our businesses. So we have about 725 ground floor businesses in downtown Austin, and that's a lot of people to keep track of, right? Each campaign gives us an opportunity to, like. Send out emails to everybody. If we try to, physically stop in every business at least once a year, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot when you have 700-plus, right? And have, that touchpoint with them. A lot of businesses want to do giveaways with us, offer deals and discounts, and promote our work, just because we're interacting and we're actually getting out in the community. So I think that's the thing that I enjoy working on most, but, the text messages regarding construction and that sort of thing are definitely the ones that, kind of put us on the map, if you will. For our holiday campaign last year, we partnered with Uber to run a pilot where folks could Uber into downtown. specifically to avoid the whole parking situation and make it really easy to get here. We had a decent amount of money set aside for that campaign from our construction mitigation budget, so we're working cross-departmentally to, support that. Our funds for the entire month of December were gone in four days. And we were like. Oh, okay. So people want to know how to get to downtown, what opportunities exist.

[29:32] Patty Ruland:
hard for it right?

[29:33] Ashley Marino:
Exactly, yeah. And Uber said, 'Yeah,', it's the easiest way to get there. So we've learned from that, and it's clear that people need to know where to go physically to be downtown. Right. And the reason we got the app is because we want locals within a 30-minute drive from us to be the ones that really come and populate the city. We have Visit Austin for bringing in people from everywhere else, but our job, we see it is to be the resource for everybody who actually lives within a 30-mile radius.

[30:12] Patty Ruland:
And you've done some great stuff. I know with your VIBE event that you had last year. You provided great information, great contact, but then you did something very smart. You did a survey. And honestly, I see people do surveys, and it's three questions, rated from one to five, did you have a good day, and stuff like that. You guys got deep. You did a really great job of asking questions that you could use, I call it actionable feedback.

[30:47] Ashley Marino:
Right?

[30:48] Patty Ruland:
For those on the call, we're just touching upon a couple high-level things and ways to use the platform, but there's so much more to it. You could do scavenger hunts, for wayfinding, you can direct people to areas that maybe don't get as much foot traffic. You can do these in-depth surveys and get this actionable feedback to improve the way things are run, maybe for the following year and so forth. I think the flexibility of the platform is key for organizations.

[31:25] Ashley Marino:
I love that you mentioned the survey, because the data that we gathered from that. We sent a text message to everybody who subscribed using that event's keyword on the text platform. And we used all of that data in our impact report to give a summary. That program was funded by a grant, and so in order to, meet the grant's requirements, we had to report back, and that helped us get that information we needed.

[31:52] Patty Ruland:
Yeah, like I said, paper maps are great, but paper maps don't answer questions. That's true. And don't provide feedback. Yes. We're running late. Let's go on to the next slide. I apologize, we're running a little bit over. I hope you guys can stay with us. We'll just be a few more minutes. I guess one of the big things I want to convey is that there is no one-size-fits-all Downtown experience. Right? We've talked about small, we've talked about large. Start with your community, not necessarily the technology. A lot of questions I get are about pricing, and I'm happy to have conversations one-on-one with any organization that's interested, but we try to make our platform available for organizations of all sizes, whether you're 5,000, whether you're 5 million, and try to really make the technology work for your community. Let's go to the next slide. Again, just to recap, before choosing any type of technology, whether you're looking at our service or a similar one, you need to find out what people are trying to find, right? Is it, Is it wayfinding? Is it restaurants? Is it shopping? Is it where are they getting stuck? Where is that disconnect? What information changes frequently? Like I said, printing costs of maps can become astronomical. Then, there's the other thing, you're wasting resources, right? You're killing a bunch of trees to print some maps. Again, map collector, so not judgy. But, it's always nice to reduce the amount of waste we produce. And what should people be able to find on their own? Again, make it easy for me. If I'm coming as a visitor, or even a local. I want to enjoy myself, I want to have a good time. Make it easy for me to find stuff. And then finally, what information should come directly to me? Like, things about traffic and road closures and stuff like that. Let's go to the next slide. We talked about our, you guys had talked about this earlier. You don't have to do everything at once. Start with something simple. Maybe it's just a map to start, highlighting restaurants and shopping in the area. Bring together the information and the resources you already have. If you have a service that lists all of your events, we can put a link, we can link right into that. Connect with visitors at the right moments. Provide information that they would want to know about then. It's, what is it, September now? I know soon everybody's gonna start putting up their holiday events and stuff, and that's the best time. If anybody's interested in, anybody on the call is interested in a demo, feel free to reach out, but I'm excited because I can't wait to see what the organizations we work with are putting out there for the holidays. It's usually information about their light displays and voting for favorite, setups, and so forth. It's really exciting. And then. The great thing about the platform, after the holidays are over, you just click a little button, and that information still stays there, but it just disappears. You can pre-build things, launch it when it's appropriate. And then finally, expand upon what people actually want to use. And again, our analytical portion or reporting section will tell you what people are tapping on the most. And maybe that's something you can expand upon. Maybe offer additional scavenger hunts, or if you find that, audio tours are super popular, maybe you want to create some more of those. So the point is that it doesn't have to, and you all, with the exception of my Red Wing gals, who did amazing work, and they were ready to go from jump. When Austin first started, it was not the site that you see now. It was, something that you're building. I always say, and especially in the community, the word placemaking is a very common vocabulary word. And I always say it's place-making, not place-made, right? Because it's that constant evolution, that constant adding and changing and so forth. Let's go to the next slide. Here are 5 things that you could do next, looking at your own community. Audit your visitor information. Where is all that, currently stored, or where can you access that information? Identify, the top things that your visitors are asking for. A good way to find out about that, if you don't know, is check with your local hotels. What are people coming to the front desk asking for? Is it wayfinding? Is it maps? Is it recommendations about, shopping or eating and so forth? Look for information gaps. What's hard to find on a phone? Do they have to go to five different websites, especially on their phone, to find information? And then, finally, what visitors should find, what should you push out to them, what should you make available? And then, finally, connect the physical and the digital experience, right? The signage, QR codes, promotions throughout your downtown. Megan, let's go to the next slide. For everybody here, if you want to type your answer in the chat box, you could fix one part of your downtown visitor experience, what would it be? And maybe, my gals from Red Wing and Ashley and Austin, what would yours be? If you could change one thing about it what would you do?

[37:43] Andrea Hanson:
For me, I would say consistent hours across businesses.

[37:51] Patty Ruland:
Ah.

[37:52] Andrea Hanson:
Yeah, it's not

[37:55] Patty Ruland:
I totally get that.

[37:57] Andrea Hanson:
Slowly but surely, we're getting there.

[38:00] Patty Ruland:
Ashley, anything that you would change?

[38:02] Ashley Marino:
Yeah, block off all

[38:05] Patty Ruland:
All the streets and don't let cars within 50 miles?

[38:07] Ashley Marino:
I mean, we've piloted that for some of our entertainment districts. It really would be to stop the amount of construction. We have, four capital projects going on right now. Our convention center is a giant pit in the ground. So that would honestly make the app just for happy, fun, scavenger-hunt-style activities.

[38:34] Patty Ruland:
Right.

[38:34] Ashley Marino:
Rather than the nitty-gritty street issues.

[38:37] Patty Ruland:
The necessary evil of construction and parking and all that kind of stuff, right?

[38:41] Ashley Marino:
Exactly, yes.

[38:44] Patty Ruland:
Okay, Megan, next slide. Let's just open it real quick. We still have some folks here. If you have any questions, Toni replied: more retail businesses downtown. I know a lot of communities struggle with, having new businesses move in. In certain areas, there is a lot of business turnover or vacant spaces and so forth, but I totally understand that. Anybody have any questions? Feel free to throw them in the chat box. A couple of things I also just wanted to mention that I didn't touch upon earlier. My Red Wing gals, you guys actually got your platform sponsored or paid for through donations or sponsors, correct? Many of our clients will use the platform to include sponsorship. The great thing about it is that it creates an extra revenue line for you? I know a lot of yours are foundations and so forth, but we have clients who are using local businesses as sponsors and so forth, and then they get a little icon on the app of their business or organization, and so forth, to help offset the cost of that. We talked about, I talked briefly about, scavenger hunts, for wayfinding, getting people to maybe areas of town that they wouldn't necessarily go to. By making it a fun little game, and kind of redirecting where they end up and, seeing and so forth. People discover whole new neighborhoods, or whole new sections, or a block of stores that they've never seen before, once you direct them over there to get a clue to something, so that's kind of interesting.

[40:41] Andrea Hanson:
I will also just interject on that whole, revenue side of it. We have decided, so we're a membership-based program, and we have people pay to be a partner of our organization, and so all of those people got additional perks on the map. We listed all businesses, but if you're a partner of our organization, you got a direct link to your website, you have your logo on there. And the rest are just simply listed, where you would have to then go to Google to, like. Learn more about them or find their website. And we have had people reach out and say, can you add our website? And then we can explain, that is for our partners; here are the options to become a partner. Kind of in a roundabout way, we're using the app as an additional perk to entice people to partner with us.

[41:31] Patty Ruland:
Very, very smart. It looks like we have a question from George. What is the smallest population size you serve? I have a client that's 5,000. What did you say your population was?

[41:51] Andrea Hanson:
16,000.

[41:52] Patty Ruland:
16,000. We do have folks as small as 5,000, 6,000. From there, we go all the way up to over a million. How many Main Streets are using this platform? I don't know the exact count at this point, but quite a few across the country. We have folks in California, we have folks in Texas, we have, I'm trying to think of some of the ones off the top of my head. Baltimore, Maryland, gosh, of course, now I'm drawing a blank, but literally, cities and towns across the country. Any other questions? Megan, just throw up that last slide. Again, I want to thank you all for being here and attending. I want to thank my special guests. Like I said, I love sharing information about this technology, but it's so much more exciting when I have the people who are actually using it share their experiences and thoughts and so forth. Ladies, thank you all. I do appreciate your support. We love working with you guys. I hope you, I hope that. Oh, I wanted to give a quick shout-out. You mentioned Anna, our map girl, I call her. I gave Casey the shout-out before from customer service. Anna, I call her our map magician. She does amazing things with the map. Looks like Toni had a question about cost as a big issue. Toni, we can have an offline conversation about that. I can show you a demo of the platform, all the benefits and features and so forth, and discuss pricing for your organization. But once again, thank you, I appreciate you being here, I appreciate the folks that attended, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Otherwise, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day! Thanks again!

[43:55] Ashley Marino:
Bye.

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