St. Cloud Shines is a local placemaking initiative dedicated to sharing the shining faces, places, businesses, organizations, and events happening in the Central MN area. They’re a client of ours and an organization that we proudly support both personally and professionally. Over many years of partnership, we’ve had the opportunity to create and execute a variety of marketing strategies to help them continue to grow brand awareness and continue to strengthen the connections between the communities they serve.

#StCloudShines: A Community Placemaking Initiative

St. Cloud Shines was started in 2018 by St. Cloud, MN Locals (and our colleagues + friends) Katie Virnig & Lacey Schirmers - who learned about the power of placemaking and saw the potential it could have for the central MN communities.

If “placemaking” is a new term and/or idea to you, you’re not alone. Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to community planning, design, and management that capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential for those willing and wishing to experience it. The intention behind placemaking is to foster the growth of a community and help steer the narrative in a direction that brings awareness in a more positive, community-centric voice. Placemaking is often seen as a way to revitalize regions (both geographical areas and specific locations like parks, plazas, etc.), create a stronger sense of community among people and businesses, and enhance the overall quality of life, well-being, and perception. Successful placemaking projects can transform underutilized or neglected spaces into thriving hubs of activity and social interaction and make residents and visitors proud evangelists of why it’s great.

St. Cloud Shines’ purpose, through the lens of placemaking, is to create digital and physical spaces that promote the health, happiness, and well-being of the greater St. Cloud Area community. Though ‘St. Cloud’ is in the name, the initiative focuses on the cities and communities in a 30-mile radius. The initiative, which is overseen and funded by the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp., has, and continues to, work tirelessly to change the narrative about the region, shining a light on the incredible people, businesses, groups, opportunities, and events in the area. It’s always easy to see, hear, share, and talk about the negative things, but St. Cloud Shines challenges its communities to focus on the good … and that’s something we can get behind at Greenline Marketing.

‘Shines’ - as we refer to them - became a client towards the end of 2020. Like most of us at that time, they were feeling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and were considering organic ways they could continue growing and strengthening their brand. As an initiative funded by local investors, they had pulled back on paid budgets and were exploring an all-encompassing marketing strategy. We were honored to be considered for the job.

After assisting with the completion of 2020 content efforts, we put our expertise to work crafting a robust marketing campaign to bolster St. Cloud Shines in a whole new way. With our strategic approach, our goal was to take Shines to a new level and grow awareness with marketing tactics that hadn’t yet been explored.  As we’ve continued partnering, our efforts continue to be focused on making the area communities aware of St. Cloud Shines, growing investor dollars, expanding online resources, and making #StCloudShines an experiential part of Central MN.

A Shining Example of a Successful Marketing Strategy

When we joined the St. Cloud Shines team, their Shines Stories had found a sweet spot at the crossroads between education and entertainment through great storytelling. This tactic - an original part of the campaign that is still going strong - is structured as a series based on human interest stories using both written content and photography. Think @HumansOfNewYork with a hyper-local focus. From meeting new friends to starting new businesses, these stories all showcase the amazing community members contributing to the greater good, and how they’re part of the shine we see and feel in St. Cloud.  By featuring Shines Stories and focusing on the mission and vision behind the initiative, St. Cloud Shines continues to grow its reach to a wider audience of people, businesses, and investors.

"What started as a social media campaign, Greenline Marketing has evolved into a holistic inbound marketing strategy - building on the initial growth from the first few years to broaden reach and deepen connections to the brand and initiative. They stay up to date on the latest industry trends and tactics while being open to feedback, responding to data and being willing to adapt plans, and working within resources."  - Lacey Schirmers, Co-Founder & GSDC investor-advisor to St. Cloud Shines, and Executive Director of GREAT Theatre

In addition to the consistent storytelling component of their strategy, we layered in various marketing tactics that serve as strengthening elements to grow the recognition and awareness of what St. Cloud Shines is and what they’re out to accomplish. Campaign efforts over the years have included:

• Blog Content: When we came aboard, the photos and interviews that are part of St. Cloud Shines Stories were featured on Shines’ Facebook and Instagram pages only; we recommended these stories continue to work for St. Cloud Shines via a blog, establishing solid evergreen content. Now that each story has its own blog, we continue to share that on social platforms as well as the monthly eNewsletter to maximize distribution. The individual, business, or organization featured is also encouraged to share the blog link with their audience. The Shines Stories benefit a variety of content marketing efforts (SEO, cross-linking, back-links, etc.), but especially by driving website traffic back to the site for these stories.
  
  
• Video Marketing: In 2023, the average online user watches over two hours of video every day. With video, the St. CloudShines audience is able to read, feel, hear, see, and learn more about St. Cloud Shines, as opposed to only reading about it. Ramping up video efforts has allowed us to tell more stories, share more perspectives, and create an additional stream of content that fuels shares, reach, and buy-in. Over the years we’ve created 25 videos on their YouTube channel racking up nearly 5k total views and over 20 reels that have brought in more than 33k views.
  
  
• Email Marketing: With our monthly Shine On email newsletter, we communicate with the St. Cloud Shines audience in a way that continues to grow awareness, share stories and opportunities in the community, and drive traffic back to the website for blogs, videos, or resources. When building the look and layout of the newsletter, we took a page out of Carney’s The Daily Carnage email and kept the content ‘bright and brief’ so recipients can click to read more or keep scrolling to digest as much of the information as desired. By sticking to a consistent layout and message, their eNewsletter maintains an open rate of over 30%. What started as a list of less than 100 contacts has grown to nearly 800, and counting. Adding ‘subscribe’ buttons and calls-to-action throughout the website continues to help grow the audience who receives the monthly email.
  
  
• Calls to Action (CTAs):  In addition to growing eNewsletter subscriptions, CTAs have helped us work smarter, not harder. Finding and documenting stories for St. Cloud Shines required a fair amount of searching and curation at the beginning of our partnership, but as the campaign evolved, the success of the awareness stage started to become apparent. Because more people were finding and reading the stories, we began using calls-to-action on a variety of platforms to encourage more people to share stories they are inspired by. Our Share Your Shine efforts have continued to pay off as stories frequently come to us; this tactic saw a plethora of story submissions, all about positive news in the area.
  
  
• Website Optimization & User-Experience: When our partnership started, The St. Cloud Shines website had been live for over a year. Based on traffic, new additions (like the videos and new blogs), and what the analytics were telling us, we made improvements to performance elements as well as elements of user experience. Annual website updates include back-end performance adjustments for page speed and indexing, SEO (search engine optimization) adjustments based on trends and analytics, and fresh, updated content to expand and add information as needed.
  
  
• Downloadable Offers: Content offers are a great way to generate new contacts, educate investors and prospects, and gain credibility for current and potential residents of Central MN. Knowing a core focus of the St. Cloud Shines website is to be a resource for those who live, work, and play in Central MN as well as those interested in relocating here, we developed a variety of downloadable offers to foster a positive user experience on the website as information was sought out, as well as building thought leadership. The St. Cloud Shines Resources page includes an overview of area housing options, a 50+ page download with insights into each community in the area, and more.
  
  
• Experiential Marketing: Experiential marketing, also called engagement marketing or promotional marketing, includes efforts that directly engage the Shines audience and encourage them to participate in a brand experience in a more tangible way. We’ve got a variety of experiential components in place including branded clothing, free giveaways and swag, coasters in area bars & restaurants, signage, and even a mural downtown. By involving the audience physically with the brand, they feel connected rather than sold to, and this is a significant difference in how they see the St. Cloud Shines brand.
  
  
• Paid Social Media: When St. Cloud Shines came to us for collaboration in 2020, they had just pressed pause on a fairly large paid social media budget. After a few years of focusing on organic content growth, we reintroduced paid social media efforts in 2023 to increase engagement and expand audience reach. Establishing a set budget for boosting posts on social media allowed our stories to be placed higher in audience newsfeeds, and the number of post views has risen. We found the paid budget is small but mighty -  and their target audience is able to easily like, share, and comment on posts. This has increased engagement and helped deliver the Shines message to more people.
  
  

Finding the right recipe for success has been an immensely rewarding piece of working with the St. Cloud Shines team. To date, efforts have resulted in more than 200 million impressions to-date – over half of which are from organic channels. In the first year of our partnership, traffic to the website from Facebook and Instagram increased by 107%. Pages per session have nearly tripled and website traffic continues to climb. Their blog - which started by averaging around two or three hundred visits each quarter is now consistently averaging well over three thousand visits per quarter. Though we’ve seen great success as a result of their marketing efforts, we’re continually monitoring, adjusting, and improving.

A Bright, Beautiful Partnership

A pillar of our beliefs at Greenline Marketing is working with great people and forming great partnerships and our experience with St. Cloud Shines has been exactly that. We work with a variety of full-time and part-time staff as well as board members and volunteer advocates to make connections, get feedback, and execute their marketing strategy to the best of our ability.

Though our communication is ongoing, we meet in person with the full team each quarter to present reports and progress updates. These meetings don’t just include the sunshine and rainbows (though there are lots of them!), but the roadblocks and difficulties, too. Our teams support each other to find solutions, pivot when needed, pick up pieces to help get things done, and push through to hit our goals and reach new heights.

"Greenline Marketing did a wonderful job of stepping in and assuming the contracted curator and service provider role when one of the St. Cloud Shines initiative co-founders needed to transition out of that role. The transition was both smooth and seamless. The Greenline team is highly responsive and responsible, assuring the needs and preferences of their client are being met." - Patti Gartland, recently retired GSDC President

The partnership and collaboration with the GSDC and St. Cloud Shines teams has been an integral part of their success and we know the success wouldn’t be what it is without them. Marianne Williamson said, “As you let your own light shine, you indirectly give others permission to do the same.” Earning the trust, buy-in, and support from St. Cloud Shines to do what we do best is all the proof we need that we’re doing something right; together we shine brighter.