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BID discusses importance of advertising budget

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The Gallup Business Improvement District spent time during their two recent meetings discussing the operating budget for FY19-20.

The budget draft presented June 26 shows a total income of about $371,185 against expenses totaling $304,788, for a net income of $66,397.

One of the main talking points was the amount spent on marketing, a total of $13,350. Of that amount, the BID plans to spend $6,000 on print advertising.

The question then was where and how the print advertising would be handled.

District member Sammy Chioda said June 26 that running a quarterly ad in a local publication and updating the Gallup BID website to direct visitors to downtown businesses is a good move for the district.

“Maintaining presence [through ads and the website] is good,” he said.

Other areas of the marketing budget include radio advertisements, signs and banners from New Mexico Logos, and web content. These areas make up the remaining $7,350 of the marketing budget for FY19-20.

Francis Bee, executive director for the BID, said at the June 20 meeting that the district should aim to advertise downtown events more broadly to draw more traffic to those events and businesses.

Bee also emphasized the importance of the marketing budget during that meeting.

“Advertising keeps people aware of what we’re doing,” he said.

The budget was just a discussion item for the June 20 meeting, so the BID agreed to hold a special meeting June 26 to vote on approving the finalized FY budget.

District member James Rich said June 26 the BID has undergone a change in its marketing strategies in recent years, going from asking for support from local businesses to grow, to now being asked for support by local businesses for their functions.

“We’ve partnered with a lot of [businesses], so we have to get creative on how we partner with them now,” Rich said.

Currently, the BID has budgeted $25,600 for events such as ArtsCrawl, Relay for Life, the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, Downtown Christmas, and Lions Club Downtown.

By Cody Begaye
Sun Correspondent

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