Like the server at your favorite lunch spot,� our role here is simple but vital.� We work with America’s best communities and the Chambers of Commerce that ably represent them. We spread the good word, make it readable, and raise a few bucks for our Chamber clients in the process. The fact is, so much happens through the Chamber on a regular basis that’s worth sharing. When the public really understands the vital role the Chamber plays in the community, it vastly enhances the public’s perception of the Chamber. We think the Chamber matters—a lot. But
without rock-solid communication with the community at large through the telling of these great stories involving you, your membership, and the impact on your region, folks too often just don’t know. At CommunityLink, we’ve been telling and sharing the most interesting stories from every corner of America’s best communities for nearly two decades, and if we’ve learned anything, it is this: There’s a lot going on out there, and there are stories that need to be told!
The work of a Chamber Igzekyetiv is never done. Between board meetings, executive board meetings, business after hours, young professional round-ups, Chamber-pro webinars, member management software training, ambassador meetings, staff training, volunteer recruitment, membership drives, Facebook updates, getting the electronic newsletter out, planning the annual dinner, selling mulligans at the annual golf scramble, presenting at the noon Rotary meeting, and more, you can barely catch your breath, much less commit to running a fully sponsored digital and print non-dues media campaign in order to share the wonderful stories of your organization with the community you serve! Yet, in your igzekyetiv gut, you know the value of sharing your amazing story with your community. Well, you’re in luck. That’s what we do!
May we suggest a ‘what-do-we-do’ appetizer? CommunityLink serves-up “hot off-the-grill,” creative community communications tools like community video, mobile apps, resource guides, community magazines, websites, and printed and digital maps. We write, shoot, edit, photograph, and program, then we mix ’em in with an awardwinning dollop of professional design before serving up the best physical and digital distribution in the business. What you’ll get is fast, fresh,
tasty Chamber messaging that your entire community responds to. For dessert, we’ll hit you with a healthy heaping of non-dues revenue so you can continue to fund important work. We know community. We get how it works. We’ll bring our fresh eyes to town, identify what makes you special, and position your best attributes for maximum impact. By the time we’re finished, you’ll be extra glad you live there!
Bottom line: We love what you do, and we love what we do. And we’re here to make it fun for you. So sit back. Loosen your belt, grab a sweet tea or the beverage of your choice, and take in all our offerings. Choose a main dish and a pair of sides, and tune it to your taste with some of Chef C-Dub’s exclusive fixins. Then, just relax and let us serve you, while you go about your Chamber-lovin’ day.
It’s that simple.
Whet your appetite for broader community engagement and increased membership numbers by bringing in the CommunityLink community communications experts to find, tell, and promote your best stories! On our menu, we offer seven innovative, effective methods for spreading the good word you can launch faster than you can say, "Who's got my giant ceremonial scissors and why do they have pepperoni on them?!" Our CommunityLink Café menu makes it easy to get started. Just pick a main dish, a pair of sides, and your choice of fixins. We'll fire up the grill, put our game-face on, and deliver professional service with a smile!
10 Great Reasons
Happy Chamberin’ — Chef C Dub
A quick and simple custom 12-page booklet with a beautiful microwebsite, designed to simply but cleverly showcase 10 of the best reasons why your community and/or Chamber rocks! Choose from 5 great design formats, and let’s go! This is a great way to quickly get to the heart of what matters to your target audience. Crafted from a single strip of beautifully recycled, premium matte or premium gloss paper; printed in full color on both sides; accordian-folded into 10 square panels plus covers; and delivered with optional deluxe square envelopes to make a great first impression on relocation candidates or foreign dignitaries. Costs you nothing. We’ll sell sponsorships and have it ready for distribution in 75 days.
Chamber ALIVE! Chamber ALIVE! Some of the stories that matter most to your audience are the ones that feature colorful, human interest angles from the community at large. ALIVE! is a beautifully designed multimedia experience built around a custom Chamber-branded duo-publication (digital and print) on the theme of game-changing active leadership, innovation, volunteerism, education, and entrepreneurship in your community. ALIVE! is an acronym for these wonderful stories unfolding in your Chamber’s own backyard, but of broad interest to the overall community. In addition to the digital magazine, ALIVE! includes a gorgeous print counterpart distributed to local households, every Chamber member, and pre-selected high-traffic locations in your Chamber’s service area. Costs you nothing; we’ll sell sponsorships and have it ready for distribution in 150 days and available with bi-annual service to keep your Chamber brand top-of-mind in your community. ALIVE! includes professional video vignettes so you can punch the point home on your YouTube Channel and make your community look like the super star it is!
CommunityLink A classic community resource guide with chapter-driven content focusing on topics from housing and healthcare to education and recreation. Delivered as an innovative iPad based digital multimedia experience, CommunityLink comes with a standard printed magazine efficiently distributed to pre-selected high-traffic locations in your Chamber’s service area. Costs you nothing; we’ll sell sponsorships and have it ready for distribution in 150 days. Includes professional video interviews with community leaders at no charge and offers class-leading video pre-roll sponsorship options to advertisers for more engaging membership value.
Faces and Places Faces and Places, is the definitive community video showcase from CommunityLink, is available on all mobile devices as well as standard laptop and desktop browsers. There is no finer nor more effective way to promote your community, organization, and members than Faces and Places. We do the heavy lifting of storyboarding, shooting, and professionally editing the videos you’ll use to put your very best foot forward. These are yours to use on your YouTube Channel and through your very own, custom-crafted Faces and Spaces website, built for you by us at no charge to you at all. Community story telling and economic development videography doesn’t get any better
CommunityLink Xpress A leaner version of our tasty CommunityLink dish, the Xpress takes minimalism to a beautiful new place by demanding that only the 6 most important categories of your chapterized story be told in breathtaking full-color detail in no more than 32 pages. A classic community resource guide with chapter-driven content on topics of your choice, from housing and healthcare to education and recreation. Delivered as an innovative iPadbased digital multimedia experience, it comes with a standard printed magazine and distributes to pre-selected hightraffic locations in your Chamber’s service area. Costs you nothing; we’ll sell sponsorships and have it ready for distribution in 120 days.
Place Maps In this era of GPS and smartphone navigation, printed maps actually still matter. Folks use navigation devices to get to a specific place, but they use printed maps for a general overview of a place. Parents like to see boundaries of school districts, business owners like to see geographic market area relationships, and visitors like to quickly see “where they are now” in relationship to shopping, dining, and entertainment areas. Our highly accurate, specialized PlaceMaps are of full-size, easy-to-use printed maps and come with an exclusive online and mobile innovation designed to throw a digital spotlight on your members. PlaceMaps come with Web and mobile-enabled mapping as well as socially enabled online exposure for ALL your members, entry-level price points, and video and audio reputation management for premium sponsors. Like no other Chamber map you’ve ever seen! Costs you nothing. We’ll sell sponsorship and have it ready for distribution in 120 days. Members can magnify their spotlight with integrated social media and professional video provided by either us or them.
GO! Maps
O one of trhdeer Commu se ClasnsiictyLink s!
The perfect solution for Chambers that have gone mostly digital, but still get requests for printed maps. This petite, no-bones version of our PlaceMaps is the go-anywhere companion with no shortage of quality community content or directional cartographic quality. Great for day visitors or quick, get-around-town navigation. Costs you nothing. We’ll sell sponsorship and have it ready for distribution in 90 days.
All of our side dishes serve as a healthy low-cal choice for giving your Chamber a leg-up on digital and online marketing.
MarketWise This tried and true marketing toolbox is designed to help overachieving, understaffed Chamber executives get the word out on events, retention messages, and membership sales activity. Works beautifully with Constant Contact, or Mail Chimp, HatchBuck, and others and has already wowed more than a thousand of your colleagues from coast to coast. But now—with any CommunityLink main dish—you’ll get a free 2-year subscription to MarketWise Express! This full-featured, on-demand marketing toolbox will be at your beck and call with guaranteed, unlimited 48-hour turnaround on up to 4 ready-to-go marketing designs per day.
Social Media Tune-Up Making the most of the social media landscape isn’t just important today; it’s critical. With a CommunityLink Tuneup, we’ll help you build network scale and engagement. With any CommunityLink Main Dish, we’ll provide you and your staff with a FREE analysis of your current social media activities along with a straightforward 6-step, coached plan for simple execution.
Website Tune-Up
Like social media, your website must engage your audience, and today, it is vital to your ongoing success that it do so. With any CommunityLink Main Dish, you’ll get an 8-step analysis of your current website, featuring a bulleted as well as narrative summary of what’s working well along with recommendations for what you can improve. With your authorization, we’ll even coordinate our suggestions with your local webmaster so that improvements you agree to will be implemented immediately.
Chamber Hatchbuck Drip marketing is the concept of regularly cultivating interest in your organization through smart lead generation, continuously automated email management, and coordinated traditional touches. Constant Contact and Mail Chimp do a great job of sending and tracking batch emails, but do not effectively enable the creation and tracking of “smart campaigns” designed to nurture suspects into prospects, prospects into clients, and clients into better, more engaged clients. Chamber Hatchbuck is the new tool all the cool kids are using to make the most of automated marketing opportunities without surrendering their hard-earned lunch money. With any CommunityLink Main Dish, you can choose to take us up on a free subscription of Chamber Hatchbuck for your office, as well as an amazing discount-level for your members. And when your members use our special coupon code you’ll also earn bonus income for your organization. Plus, bottom line, Hatchbuck is so simple and effective, you’re going to fall in love with it.
eNewsletter Overhaul Regular communication with your members is so important. But do you ever wonder how many of your members are reading what you’re sending? Though no fault of your own, people do seem to be developing a shorter and shorter attention span, so the media we share must capture their attention quickly. Our award-winning team of design and editorial professionals will help you with a professional critique and free reconstitution of your current printed or eNewsletter or—if you like—will create a branded design overhaul for you.
More than just a bottomless cup-o-joe; we offer free fixins with any multicycle agreement. And that's better than a well-done pile of hashbrowns! Go ahead; pick two. It’s on us.
Spotlight! Member Spotlight — A oneyear FREE subscription to our exclusive online 3D Web-based marketing system can be added to any of our Main Dishes, just for the asking. This “best-of-class” online mapping system shows visitors exactly where they can find your members, and is searchable by member category. You can elect to feature all of your members, or only those who’ve advertised. Either way, Member Spotlight is a high-wattage member promotion!
Go Big! Giant, Wall-Sized Map or Magazine Cover — Hey, who doesn’t love a big, beautiful map
48 in
or artistic magazine cover on the wall?! Take your pick. It’s yours for the asking. We’ll take the cover of your magazine or your CommunityLink map and blow it up big enough to stop traffic. Just $49, shipped in a crush-
36 in
Show Off! Pole-Topper Graphical Banners Beautify the front of your office or parking lot with a pair of beautiful windand weather-resistant vinyl banners. Add your logo and—voila—great suggestive selling right outside your front door! Want a pair? Just $99 per front & back pair. Hardware $75.
proof tube.
Why, Hellooo! CommunityLink’s unique “Hello
Hello Neighbor
Neighbor!” Telephone Campaign is the perfect solution for an overstressed, short-staffed Chamber team. Look, it’s hard to keep up with every one of your members, but it makes such a difference to your retention and
membership growth efforts when they hear from you occasionally. We can call them very efficiently on your behalf—using a local number, even. We can conduct a voice survey for you, encourage them to utilize Chamber services, or simply say, “Thank you” on your behalf. Just give us the word. Only $249 for memberships up to 500, and just 35¢ for each additional member in your database. Takes about a week or two.
Bonus Bucks! YouSell —The option for you or your staff to sell sponsorship is available with any of our programs. We have handy online training and organizational tools to make it relatively painless, and you can capture real dollars for your organization by limiting what we’ve got to pay our own sales people. Some adjustment to timelines may be required if this option is chosen, but you’ll earn a nice commission on every sale you make. And that’s money in the bank. A hybrid “you sell/we sell” model works well if you’ve got a high-energy volunteer with even just a few hours a week to spare. Worth considering.
A message from the Chef:
I
t’s a big country, and we’ve got big solutions.
We’re lifelong small business owners,
We’ve worked with hundreds of leading
and we’ve been working with Chambers
communities in 47 states, over the years, and
of commerce for nearly two decades.
we’ve learned a lot along the way. We’ve
During that time, we’ve come to realize that
figured out, for example, that every place is
Chambers truly matter to the communities
unique and that no cookie-cutter solution for
they serve, and that too often, the difference
communicating its wonders should ever be
between relevance and apparent irrelevance
applied. We’ve learned the importance of
is tied not to your program of work, but to
balancing really great messaging that your
the degree to which you communicate
audience will actually enjoy against reasonable
effectively with your audience. So when we
revenue generation; not
work with our clients, we
simply using a media
don’t simply view the
campaign—regardless of
work we do through a lens
who sees it—to drag non-
of “how many members,”
dues revenue into your
or “how much royalty,” or
treasury. That’s a recipe
“how many sponsors,” but
for disaster, and for a
through the lens of “how
long-term breach of trust
can we get your audience
with the members asked
excited about what you’re
to support it. So we make
already doing to improve
sure A.) the content is awesome B.) distribution
the community through your organization?”
is active and comprehensive and C.) your
That, my Chamber friend, they will read
members
professional
about in a magazine. Those are stories
creative services, responsive to their needs.
they’ll want to see and hear in video. So
We’ve noticed that you’re pretty busy and that
we emphasize ideas, important stories, and
your support staff may be smaller than it was
the people making them happen in your
a few years ago. So we keep our partnership
backyard. Because THAT’S what will create
simple and do all the heavy-lifting for you.
a relationship of trust between you and your
After all, you’ve got better things to do than to
audience. And that’s what we
babysit another project.
all want, right?
are
well-served
Craig Williams, (Chef C-Dub) Founder & CEO CommunityLink, a division of Craig Williams Creative, Inc.
“CommunityLink has been my publishing partner of choice for more than a decade because of the integrity and professionalism I know I can always count on. My members appreciate their well-mannered representation, and I appreciate how they not only protect, but promote my good reputation.” - Myrna Ballard, CEO Valdosta Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta, Georgia “From the very first time I met CommunityLink CEO Craig Williams, I’ve been impressed with his company’s willingness to discuss solutions from beyond the conventional Chamber box. CommunityLink is an innovator for our indus try at at time when we most need innovation.” - Frank Kenny, Author, Speaker, and former CEO, North Mason Chamber of Commerce Belfair, Washington “CommunityLink’s entire team is just bursting with innovation, a willingness to deliver bendover-backwards service, professionalism, and the highest-quality products in the industry, but their secret sauce is that they all seem to love what they do and, as a result, they bring a sense of FUN to the work they do for us. And we love that!” - Desiree Bennyhoff, Executive Director Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce, Edwardsville, Illinois “CommunityLink has been a friend and trusted partner of our chamber for more than 15 years. We have a special kind of relationship through good times and bad. Following the Joplin 2011 EF-5 tornado, they graciously put our project on hold and restarted when it was community appropriate to continue, and produced the high quality map we expected on our timeline. As a 5-Star Chamber, we expect 5-Star service. Always professional, innovative and trustworthy, the entire CommunityLink team provides that 5-Star service to get the job done right and produces the revenue we expect.”
“I was one of CommunityLink’s very first clients in 1996, and I’m proud to say —three Chambers, half a continent, and nearly two decades later—that we’ve grown up together, serving members and my organizations’ communications needs with top-notch professionalism, creativity and complete commitment to the task at hand. Always innovative. Always clear. And always honest in their dealings.” - Deb Miller, IOM, ACE, President Greater Woodland Park Chamber of Commerce, Woodland Park, Colorado “CommunityLink has served our small organization—fewer than 200 members—with extraordinary professionalism by producing and very successfully sponsoring a beautiful, accurate, and broadly supported PlaceMap. Frankly, their sales performance was far-andaway beyond what we’d expected. Impressive bunch. We’ll be back, that’s for sure.” - Phil Nanney, Executive Director Union County Development Association “CommunityLink’s professional sales team not only exceeded my expectations, but blew them away. Best of all, I get compliments—not complaints—from my members on the sales rep’s performance.” - Brian Gerau, Executive Director Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce, Jackson, Missouri “CommunityLink brings something special to the Chamber table with an awareness of the challenges Chamber leaders face on a daily basis, through their professionally tuned spirit of fun, creativity, and clever approach to age-old problems our industry has encountered for decades. Fresh, forwardthinking people who ‘get’ community; that’s what I see in CommunityLink.” - Jay Handler, Co-Founder, Membership 180 Greenville, South Carolina
- Tonya Sprenkle, Vice President, Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce
Promoting Stronger Community. info@communitylink.com www.communitylink.com 1-800-455-5600
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