Middle Discusses Communication Strategies

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township has been active this year in its efforts to promote the township as a promising place for business investment and a desirable location for residents. 
Efforts in 2017 included expanding recreational facilities, exploring redevelopment areas to promote new business, organizing programs to help small businesses with access to loans and expertise, and increasing activities to lure tourists to do more than pass through the township.
As the year ended, Township Committee devoted a work session on Dec. 18 to a presentation and discussion of a strategic communication strategy.
Led by Township Administrator Elizabeth Terenik and consultant Meg Tornetta, the discussion focused on a communication strategy that would reinforce and enhance township operations and services. While there was some discussion of a branding strategy, that aspect of the communication effort was less developed and left largely to future development.
Communication Strategy
As Tornetta described it, a township communication strategy represents an attempt to present information to the public that is consistent, easy to access, tailored to its targeted audience in both content and delivery mechanisms, and organized for an actual return on the township’s investment.
Among the points Tornetta made was the need for the township to have a central employee or office that has overall responsibility for messaging. “For the strategy to work, someone has to own it,” she said.
Tornetta warned that messages need to be customized to the township’s demographics. “Just relying on a press release to get the word out no longer works,” she said.
She provided the committee with statistics that showed that millennials are averse to phone calls and seldom read a traditional newspaper, yet 13 percent of the population does not use a computer or the internet. She also said that many groups are heavily reliant on social media. 
Depending on the message and the target audience, distribution of the information may require using multiple channels for getting the word out.
Both Terenik and Tornetta said the township’s website was in need of redesign to make information easier to access. They urged that the township use analytics on the present site to determine what information is most often sought by users. “Use your prime real estate on the new site for what people want most,” Tornetta said.
The discussion ranged over many areas, urging the township to do a better job of empowering employees and keeping them in the loop on all messaging strategies to the public. It also touched on the need to monitor social media to know what is being said about the township.
Image Building
Committee member Timothy Donohue brought the discussion back to image building on a couple of coactions. For Donohue, a communication strategy depended largely on answering the question, “What do we want to be? 
“How do we answer the question of what our brand should be and then use that to drive the narrative,” Donohue asked.
Donohue talked of goals for business development attracting tourism, improving quality of life for residents, environmental protection, and recreational investment, noting the need for a focus on what the township is trying to present to what audience. He spoke of residents, investors, business owners, tourists and individuals who live in the county outside the township.
Donohue was pushing a discussion of a narrative that would be consistent with a specific image or brand for the township. That discussion, a complicated one, was not fully explored in this meeting.
Next Steps
Terenik said that actions needed to be looked at in short-term and long-term categories.
She argued that short-term goals should be tackling the website design, doing analytic investigation of the historic use of the current website, and perhaps developing a township newsletter.
Terenik returned to a discussion item and said she liked the idea of having a centrally available calendar of events that could guide sponsorship from local businesses. She also promoted developing a mechanism for getting Planning and Zoning Board decisions out to the public. “This is a way to let people know what really is coming,” she said.
Longer-term goals included the development of a specific communications plan, organizing a position to oversee consistent messaging, and working on a more formal branding effort.
The discussion was wide-ranging and open-ended, but that made it useful. At the end of the work session, the township had recognized a need to deal with communications as a formal, organized, and important aspect of governance.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.