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County staff recommends marketing retainer to improve outreach; commissioners ask for metrics and internal capacity analysis
Summary
Administration reviewed an RFP process that recommended Novum Productions for an organization-wide communications retainer; commissioners applauded progress but pressed for measurable outcomes, clarity on retainer hours versus deliverables, and consideration of an internal communications director versus a multi-year vendor contract.
Jenny McKellar, special projects coordinator, briefed the board on the county’s communications work and an RFP evaluating marketing and web-support firms. She described existing vendor relationships (Grama Bay Promotions for promotional distribution and Novum Productions for web support and creative content) and recent investments including a website redesign and a pilot community-engagement platform (Granicus).
McKellar said the RFP produced several strong proposals and that a committee recommended Novum Productions as the top-scoring candidate for a retainer arrangement that would provide consistent, organization-wide communications and web support. She said Novum’s proposal emphasized measurable outcomes, user-experience improvements and substantive campaign work (for example, the Epic GT self-service portal outreach).
Commissioners welcomed the focus but raised concerns: persistent website findability problems, the need for quantifiable before-and-after metrics to justify continued spending after previous payments, the retainer’s lack of explicitly capped hours, overlap with existing vendor services and the option of hiring an internal communications director instead of or alongside a vendor. Staff and department representatives described uses of Granicus for newsletters, examples of recent campaigns (recess events, Epic GT), existing analytics and an AI-enabled chatbot prototype (Cora) being tested for the site.
Outcome: Staff did not present a formal contract for approval and the board invited further detail on measurable outcomes, the retainer scope, and the cost/benefit of an internal position versus vendor retainer as part of follow-up work in the new year.
