Rising water raises all ships in the harbor

One of the biggest issues I see today as I travel, work and communicate with smaller local communities is the inability to afford the price of transformation.

Trying to go it alone seems like an unattainable task as funds are sparse, expertise is difficult to find and enough willing and able bodies to carry the mantle are few. Because of this, at worst, communities simply give up or, at best, they struggle and settle for only marginal or muted progress. This need not be the case. There are answers to this seemingly insurmountable dilemma.

Smaller communities in most cases are a subset of many small communities located in a general geographical area. While they may have competed in the past for many of the same tourist and outside dollars, by simply understanding the marketing world, they can work together, still maintaining their individual identity in transforming and attracting regional tourism.

There are very sound reasons bitter rivals such as Burger King build next to McDonalds. There is a reason you see a CVS close to Walgreens. While they are rivals in a cutthroat business, they are allies in drawing bodies to mutual locations. They understand where there are bodies, there is business, some of which flows to them.

Thus, you have the rise of destination marketing, regional branding, coop marketing and other similar marketing terms. This is simply where small communities in a single county or area, or even several counties located in the shadows of larger tourist or business attractions, must work together to effectively compete against the bigger draw. When they work together, they can marshal the needed resources to compete. This is the “rising water raises all the ships in the harbor” approach to smaller community transformation.

When you look at larger markets, you have large and well-financed chambers and economic development organizations, you see magazines, both print (yes, print is still in demand) and digital promoting their destinations. Larger savvy markets build their own databases and have digital resources rarely seen in smaller communities. Larger markets tend to draw the human capital needed to market and brand effectively. Larger markets get all the headlines in the media, except a few token stories about their fringe outliers. In short, smaller markets struggle in the shadows of their big competitors, losing valuable dollars to them in a constant outflow.

While the intent is to encourage smaller communities to band together in ways that make sense for them, here are a few ways these communities can work together to conquer mountains. Combine on a print/digital magazine that promotes the entire region and distribute it into the surrounding areas. This increases the advertiser base and can lead to building a regional database that can be shared and utilized by the small business base as well. Utilize the many nearly free digital tools available to market, brand, create newsletters, consolidate email, build texting databases, all of which can be done in a broad swath, yet breaking down to a local base.

The point is simple. Smaller communities working together can and must harness nearly every resource used in larger markets just as effectively when implemented in a strategic fashion.

Smaller communities can no longer effectively compete on their own; they must work together. Make no mistake, help from the cavalry is not coming.

Nearly every market, large and small, is under some sort of economic stress. If you are relying on them for help, you will be waiting a long time.

The federal government has shown its disdain for small communities and local businesses by shutting them down during the pandemic while national chains with their larger crowds were allowed to remain open.

Those communities in which you are in the shadows rarely have an interest in you other than how they can extract more of your dollars into their communities. Smaller towns must fight back by working together in a common cause. When you do, you raise the level of dollars flowing into the entire region, thus growing the revenue base for all.

John A. Newby, of Pineville, Mo., is the author of “Building Main Street, not Wall Street” a weekly column appearing in communities around the country. He is CEO of Truly-Local, LLC and dedicated to assisting communities create excitement, energy and combining synergies with their local media to become more vibrant and competitive. His email is: info@Truly-Localllc.com. The opinions expressed are those of the author.