It’s been a while coming, but it shouldn’t be much longer before a series of short videos highlighting New Castle amenities and attractions are available to assist the community with marketing efforts.
In December, 2013, Mayor Greg York and members of the city council agreed to spend riverboat revenue to finance a deal with Savor Indiana, the entity responsible for producing the videos. At that time, $107,000 was allocated for seven projects and the Savor Indiana effort was among them.
The city regularly receives funds from riverboat casinos on the Ohio River that must be spent on community development. The City of Lawrenceburg disburses the money to local governments within a certain radius of the casinos.
Mayor York said he and other community leaders, including Corey Murphy from the New Castle-Henry County Economic Development Corp. and Missy Modesitt from the local chamber of commerce, recently met with Savor Indiana representatives to get this project moving forward.
The city will receive seven video clips. Savor Indiana will shoot the footage, but city officials get to decide which local features and attractions will be highlighted and will be responsible for drafting the script that will be used in the final video production.
“This is going to be a great marketing tool for us to put on our Facebook page, on the EDC’s and the chamber’s websites, on the city’s website. We’re going to be able to use it as a marketing tool to promote what we’ve got going on downtown, the Basketball Hall of Fame, new businesses coming to town, that sort of thing,” York said.
York said he thinks the final product is going to work out well.
“We’ll be able to use it for our own marketing efforts. For example, we’ll be able to include copies in the materials we send to companies we’re trying to attract to town or that might be considering locating here. I think it’s going to be a very good tool for us,” the mayor said.
“I think anytime we have the opportunity to highlight the positive aspects of our community in a video format and then be able to send that to prospects, that’s powerful,” Murphy said. “The ability to take a two or three minute video and send it to somebody while explaining these are highlights of our community is a very powerful marketing tool.”
A similar effort was recently completed that highlights Henry County and places in Henry County like Summit Lake State Park and the Hoosier Gym in Knightstown. Those videos appeared to be well received by county leaders when recently shared by Henry County Commissioner Butch Baker.
Murphy said he was pleased with the videos done about county attractions and is already using those materials when pitching business prospects.
“The brevity of the videos is what’s important, in my estimation. You can’t really expect somebody to sit down and watch a 20-minute video, but if you send them a few 1 or 2 minute videos that’s different. I’m already using them and I’m excited about the city getting involved,” Murphy said.
This effort is moving forward now thanks in large part to city council president Mark Koger, who questioned the delay in getting started and contacted various people involved to make sure production would soon be underway.
York anticipates a production crew will be in town within the next month and that it shouldn’t take long to finish that aspect of the project. He wasn’t sure how soon the final products will be available. A phone call to Savor Indiana was not returned in time to include their comments in this story.