Commissioners press outreach team after social campaign shows strong reach but weak conversion

City communications staff and their contractor presented a summary of January outreach performance, reporting broad reach but limited conversion to meeting attendance. Anna (communications contractor) summarized channels used—paid social, newspaper display, press releases and newsletters—and shared platform metrics showing reach of roughly 26,000 and 808 reported clicks (about 3%), with an 83% drop at the landing page.

Commissioner Deanna asked for the measurement that justified describing the campaign as successful in driving engagement. Anna said the campaign delivered awareness and strong click'through volume and that the next step is to diagnose the landing'page loss and consider different top'of'funnel activities. Mike and other staff cited known website redesign problems and said web fixes were approximately 90% complete, which likely contributed to the dropoff.

Commissioners requested the communications team return with a short corrective plan that addresses landing'page performance, suggests demographic or channel adjustments to reach older residents, and lists proposed changes before additional spending is authorized. "If we spend the money again, I hope those [website] updates are done," Commissioner Deanna said.

What happens next: staff will share web analytics and updated campaign recommendations at the next meeting and will coordinate radio and outreach engagements that commissioners volunteered for.

Quote: "We saw broad awareness but it's not translating into people in the room," Anna said. "That's the ultimate conversion that's missing."