By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Grayson Chamber of Commerce reported another great month during their regular October meeting, and is now eight away from the 200 mark for members. New members welcomed to the chamber were Second Sister Studio web design, MCS Shipping, Healer’s Touch Holistic Massage, Cell Tech, Collins & Company, and Business Cultivation Foundation.
John Whitt of Kentucky Living Magazine was a guest speaker at the Chamber meeting.
“Our tag line is ‘Nobody covers Kentucky better’,” Whitt told the chamber. “And that is really the case. We have about 522,000 in circulation every month, and about 1.2 million readers. So, if you want to get a message out, we get the message out to the whole state of Kentucky.”
“Something a little different we do with Kentucky Living Magazine that no one else does is we provide three travel issues per year; April, June, and September,” Whitt added. “And in those issues, we partner around the state for a travel giveaway. And part of the advertiser’s portion of that is when people enter that program, you are listed. So, for example, Grayson could be listed and we take all the ‘clicks’ they take for information and provide that as direct leads back to you.”
Whitt said that to put that into perspective, in June Kentucky Living gave out over 28,000 leads.
“That might not seem like a lot,” Whitt told the chamber. “But I Googled today how much a lead would cost if you had to purchase it. It’s $106 dollars per lead. And for someone promoting Grayson, that’s a gold mine. We provided over three million dollars in leads just in June.”
Whitt told the chamber that it would be difficult to go out and buy that number of leads as a tourism entity.
“Another thing is that every day we do a thing called ‘Best of Kentucky.’ We have been doing it for about 15 years and it involves the whole state,” Whitt said adding examples. “So, in February, you can nominate your favorite hamburger, pizza, whatever you like by category. Then the top three vote getters go into the final, and after that you have all month to vote.”
Votes are tabulated after that, he said, and the results are announced in August.
“Then in September in our fall travel issue we post all the winners and all the information about them,” Whitt told the chamber.
“That’s just a couple of the things we do at Kentucky Living Magazine to promote communities across the state because we are East, West, North, and South. So, when we say no one covers Kentucky better, we mean it.”
Johnathan Lewis from Commercial Bank was also a guest speaker.
“This is something that is very near and dear to my heart,” Lewis told the chamber. “Communicating about the successes of not only Commercial Bank, but all of the activities throughout our market area.”
“Isn’t it frustrating?” Lewis asked. “When you hear about something after it happens, and people ask why weren’t you there? You hear about it too late to participate, and that is really frustrating.”
Lewis gave the example of someone saying it was ‘all over’ a certain media another individual might not follow, and pointed out that this particular instance highlights why a marketing strategy is so crucial in bringing businesses together with their potential clients.
“There are different channels available as a business that you can utilize for free or at a very limited cost,” Lewis said. “And this can be used to help your business with day-to-day operations and special events.”
Both guest speakers pointed out new avenues to grow and improve business, which is the overall goal of the Chamber of Commerce. Regularly connecting its members with knowledgeable and insightful speakers, as well as offering an ongoing support network to the business community, helps the chamber to fulfill that goal.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
