Main Street Monroe is a non-stock corporation whose mission is to improve the lives of residents in Monroe, Wisconsin through interactive activities, historic events, restaurants, shopping and most importantly, farmer’s markets. The Monroe Farmers’ Market has its own blog within the Main Street Monroe website, detailing its times, vendors, events, updates, and connected social media accounts. The Farmers’ Market is all year long, moving to an indoor location in the winter. On the blog, special activities and prizes are listed, including kids’ scavenger hunts, vendor product samples, Instagram photo contests, story time with Monroe Public Library and trivia questions for prizes. Here, Monroe Farmers’ Market appeals to a wide range of audiences, from those on social media to parents, to children, to those looking for activities on a weekend.
Delving into one main issue, Monroe’s size and demographics makes it vulnerable to poor communication via social media, local newspapers and other communication sources. Monroe, Wisconsin is a community of 10,827 people with most people being middle-aged, between ages 35-59 years-old. This may be an explanation for why some of those interviewed felt that Monroe
Farmers Market lacked consistent and effective communication. Many interviewees were unsure how they knew about the Monroe Farmers market, thinking they heard about it via word-of-mouth mostly. One interviewee was not from the area and had trouble finding information about the market, even though he knew a Facebook group was available. Focusing on communication methods will be one of the various problems we plan to tackle with this marketing campaign.
The objective of the campaign is to increase regular attendance at the Monroe Farmers’ market, to increase awareness and knowledge of the market, and to improve attitudes towards the market. Additionally, the campaign aims to increase self-efficacy among community members by providing and distributing up-to-date information regarding the market and communicating this information to the community in an effective manner. Lastly, the campaign aims to to increase customer satisfaction with the products, vendors, and market as a whole. The methods of the campaign will include geo-framing to measure attendance by offering incentives to visitors who check in online within the geofence.
Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.
UniverCity Year Contact Info:
UniverCity@wisc.edu