Marketing firm outlines digital campaigns to recruit businesses and boost local engagement
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Summary
Current Media Partners presented targeted national, regional and local marketing plans to the ODC board, emphasizing paid search, dedicated landing pages, social campaigns for façade grants, case studies for funded businesses and site-selector outreach at a regional conference.
Current Media Partners (represented by Christie Callicutt and Brittany Mann) presented the ODC’s 2025 marketing roadmap, emphasizing a dual focus: recruit targeted industries from outside the region and increase awareness among existing local businesses.
Christie Callicutt said the firm runs segmented campaigns for five target industries identified by earlier studies and highlighted new digital tools: paid search with dedicated landing pages to match industry-specific visitors, a lead-detection platform that identifies company visitors to the ODC website, and expanded case studies showing how ODC grants affected recipient businesses. "We're trying to recruit businesses from outside the area into Odessa," Callicutt said, and the team described a regional site-selectors event (the High Ground conference) the ODC will host to bring six site selectors to the community in April.
Local outreach plans include social campaigns for façade and infrastructure grants, workforce-development content coordinated with Monica Shonner’s staff, and monthly marketing deliverables (blogs, targeted ads and digital perimeter targeting at trade shows). The firm said it monitors campaign performance hourly and adjusts targeting for better engagement.
Callicutt also described practical tools for staff: one-page case studies for each grant recipient to support business retention calls and an on-site 'ticker' intended to show tax roll impacts and jobs created by ODC-funded projects. The marketing team urged continued coordination between economic development staff and the firm to ensure fresh content and stronger communication with small businesses.
Questions from board members centered on local versus national spend, measuring outcomes and increasing awareness among small businesses who rarely complete applications. The marketing team recommended targeted outreach and repeated contact (including walking business blocks and direct mail) to improve take-up of local grants.
The presentation concluded with the firm offering to provide additional materials and performance data to staff; the board asked staff to continue refining the approach and to consider increased local outreach in upcoming campaigns.
