Old Saybrook committee debriefs Celebrate Saybrook, weighs ways to turn summer visitors into year-round customers

Old Saybrook's marketing committee spent much of its meeting reviewing the town's post-event analytics and debriefing Celebrate Saybrook, with a consultant reporting stronger engagement among summer visitors and staff and members discussing ways to convert those visitors into repeat, off-season customers.

Kevin, a presenter for the committee's analytics team, told members that keyword-level data can show what brought users to the site but that the highest-level signal is seasonal: the summer months generally drive more activity. "It's a really great cost conversion," Kevin said of event-driven campaigns, adding that "your organic traffic... are really, really great numbers," with page views and time on site up year over year and a roughly 14% reduction in bounce rate.

Committee members and staff discussed practical steps to retain visitors: improving the mobile landing-page experience, surfacing an annual events calendar more visibly on the town site, and using email blasts so non-social-media residents receive notices. One member suggested running opt-in lead captures or simple raffles to build a contact list; Kevin called that a "great lead capture" but said targeting depends on which visitor segments the town wants to keep.

The meeting also covered media-capture and promotion. Staff said Miranda Creative and the drone-show vendor recorded footage and that some drone show clips have already appeared on local social pages. Committee members asked staff to follow up with Marnie (who handled onsite signage) to confirm whether attendees used event hashtags and to aggregate community photos for promotion.

Members praised this year's layout and activation of the event's downtown footprint, noting a new kids zone and fuller vendor distribution along the main street. At the same time they said logistics — late-arriving food trucks, barrier placement and an unusually long workday for public-safety and public-works staff — created stress on the day and should factor into planning. Several members suggested adjusting event start times to give vendors more selling hours.

On the drone show, members called the performance a crowd highlight and discussed the possibility of running the show again if a sponsor could underwrite it. "If we had a sponsor, we could consider it," a staff member said, noting the program's cost can make annual repeats impractical without external funding.

The committee tasked staff to follow up with the analytics team for more granular keyword and origin data, to check social tags and calendar subscription options, and to pursue clearer vendor arrival plans for next year. The members scheduled a debrief meeting for staff and volunteers to capture lessons learned and next steps.