Source: Berdyansk City Council
Today, on July 5, the city council conference hall hosted the Working Group’s first meeting on development of marketing strategy with support of the international technical aid project “Partnership for Local Economic Development and Democratic Governance” (PLEDDG Project) being implemented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and funded by Global Affairs Canada. The Project’s experts, Larysa Olenkovska, Valentyna Zatyshniak, Dmytro Konyk, and PLEDDG Coordinator in Zaporizhia Obllast Svitlana Kruglyak took part in the meeting. Apart from the executive committee experts, the task team included representatives of NGOs, hotel business, enterprises, national and cultural communities, etc.
Having opened the meeting, Mayor Volodymyr Chepurnyi brought into focus the joint work, initiated in last December by the local authorities in partnership with PLEDDG, on development of Berdyansk Development Strategy 2027, with “City Marketing Strategy” being a part thereof. “The objective of the strategy is to shape a positive touristic image of Berdyansk and promote its brand as well as to use various promotion tools for increasing investment attractiveness of the city. That is why I would also like to express my gratitude to the experts for their readiness to help us in development of this document. I wish everyone a productive work” – the Mayor summed up.
Olena Olenkovska, Project’s expert, made a point at the current environment where cities had to be competing for resources. “City Marketing Strategy is a way to unite quality and a concept of the city to be taken along by tourists behind a certain standard. The two wings of the city are the tourism sector and active enterprises making a great contribution to its development, thus pumping up the budget. That is why getting the balance between these two positions is highly important, and it is necessary to work hard over this”.
During the first meeting, the task team members discussed methodology of the city marketing and branding processes, vision and mission as marketing products, and defined target audiences, etc. Further, there will be carried out the studies on the city, as it is perceived by its citizens and across Ukraine, and on the city’s economic and cultural presence at external markets.
In general, the Roadmap for the city marketing strategy development provides for two stages: positioning of the city (identifying essential features of Berdyansk as a marketing product) and marketing communication (delivery of a message to target audiences, how the city will be promoted). The official approval of the Draft Marketing Strategy is expected to take place in December 2018 – January 2019.