Dual Economic Development Priorities

We interviewed a group of people who had worked closely with Choose Santa Cruz. We wanted to understand how the department is perceived, what led the interviewees to connect with them, and what communications channels are best to reach different constituencies.

It might seem odd for a city government department to develop a Theory of Change. In our previous work with Santa Cruz Economic Development, we came to realize that they act a lot like a community foundation, serving as a community hub and resource. They set short, medium, and long-term goals to help make the city a better place to work, live, and visit.

Developing a Theory of Change helped them look at what’s worked in the past, set achievable goals, and outline steps to achieve a desired economic state. The desired results were developed for the Covid 19 aspect of the project at the same time.

Framing the goals of the website update under a Theory of Change led to grouping the work that Choose Santa Cruz does into four interconnected pillars of the local economy.

This approach also created the messaging and language direction for the revised site.

The economic pillars serve to help people understand what Choose Santa Cruz does and to guide people to find the info they seek.

We designated an icon and a color for each pillar, and codified the brand hierarchy between Santa Cruz Economic Development, their programs, and the City of Santa Cruz.

We encouraged the use of the Choose Santa Cruz brand over Santa Cruz Economic Development except when communicating with other City departments.

A new behind-the-scenes feature of the site is the use of Zendesk. The integration of the helpdesk platform is geared toward adding capacity to the team by providing site visitors with the ability to self serve and get answers to common questions and find resources on their own. This gives the Choose Santa Cruz team the ability to see what questions come in, know that they are being answered, and to free up time so they can better serve the community.

The design system from the previous site continues in the expansion. To minimize new elements, we used the previous About and Resource pages to design a cohesive set of Pillar pages & Pillar Resources pages using design elements and sections from the existing site.

Each Pillar page includes an About banner that anchors each page and reinforces the idea of the interconnected system of the four pillars.

The Contact forms on the site now create tickets in Zendesk, allowing them to be tracked and easily sent to the right person. Tickets also help the Choose Santa Cruz team take note of frequently asked questions and add them to the Knowledge Base.

Our Brand Style Guide makes it easy for new content creators to maintain brand consistency and gives them clear direction on brand usage, hierarchy, colors, typography, messaging, and more.

Icons represent each pillar and different elements of the Theory of Change. These single lineweight illustrations are an extension of the existing icons that depict Santa Cruz in a fun and professional way.

A major goal of the project is to connect the community to the services and resources available via Choose Santa Cruz.

One key component of those efforts is a postcard that introduces the four pillars, and also steers people to COVID-19 and economic downturn recovery services and resources.

Several tactics influenced the design of the postcard. The 5” x 7” format is larger than a standard postcard, helping it stand out among other mailers. The full-bleed photo and the use of lavender brand color creates a consistent experience from mailer to website. The postcard feels more like a lifestyle brand distinguishing it from political and sales oriented mailers.

Already known as business advocates, the Choose Santa Cruz brand story now includes the three other pillars under their purview as well as their role in disaster mitigation and recovery.

Specific messaging targets each of their four audiences: Santa Cruz Business & Civic Leaders and Nonprofits; the City Council, City Manager and Adjacent Staff; the General Community; and Housing Funders & Partners.

Topline messaging for each audience gives content creators established language to use when addressing their audience and retains brand consistency over time.

The Santa Cruz The City Council sets policy and guides the City's vision. Santa Cruz Economic Development Department works to fulfill the policy directions set by the City Council.

Taking this relationship with other City departments to heart, each Pillar now has a vision statement along with an overall vision statement for the Choose Santa Cruz program.

In-depth discussions about the goals of the site update led us to create wireframes to explore functionality, information presentation, and the best use of existing design elements.

The wireframes act as a roadmap for all of the changes and additions to the site, including navigation and how new sections on existing pages integrate with the visitor experience.

The main navigation is now configured to match the pillars. The footer includes the addition of the Pillar and associated Resources pages.

The wireframes and designed pages gave our developer clear guidance for building new pages and updating existing ones.

The seamless Zendesk integration into the Contact forms enables the Choose Santa Cruz team to capture inquiries and surface information in a clean and engaging way on the user side. At the same time, the backend allows content creators to add and organize new resources.

Our content strategy is to have all of the Pillars on equal footing and provide the internal team with a framework that includes foundational copy examples. This gives them everything they need to communicate the vast array of services under the Choose Santa Cruz umbrella.

It also gives them a starting place for the creation of targeted awareness campaigns.

Another outcome of having this central messaging nailed down is the production of a Benefits and Community Values document. This addition to their communication arsenal allows them to create a handout for new internal employees, employees from other City departments, the general community, and new City Council members.

Through this handout, these critical audiences can quickly understand the expansive role that Choose Santa Cruz plays in supporting the economic vitality of Santa Cruz.

The primary goal of revamping the site is to create greater awareness of the services and resources available through Choose Santa Cruz.

But an expanded site is just the first step. We also built out a series of email, social media, paid media, and traditional mail awareness campaigns designed to enhance the brand and grow the audience.

The awareness campaign leans strongly on email marketing strategies. As a City department, Choose Santa Cruz has access to an extensive list of contacts that can benefit from their services. Four branded email campaigns — one for each Pillar — were written and designed by our team and curated by the Choose Santa Cruz leadership.

Another powerful communication channel we targeted for the awareness campaign is social media. Ads and posts created for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram serve as templates for campaigns outlined in their editorial calendar.

Different campaign elements include paid media at different points during each campaign. For example; the Arts & Culture Development campaign includes Suggested Social Media for developing an event and Required Paid Media for event promotion to the community.

Similar to a nonprofit, Choose Santa Cruz has limited capacity. The collateral we designed aligns with an editorial calendar we produced that provides step-by-step guidance for running five integrated campaigns, for three months, paced to work with existing resources.

The editorial calendar also serves as a blueprint for future campaigns as well as a year-long campaign that leads to a Juneteenth event.