Marketing

JESSICA SLENDAK Marketing Director jslendak@clpoc.org

Marketing Associate Lindsay Halcomb lhalcomb@clpoc.org Assistant Webmaster Lee Ann McCormick canadianlakes.org

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Here we are in the beginning of high season in Canadian Lakes, and while I had hoped that Lindsay and I would be master wizards in Salesforce by now, I am quite possibly the biggest fool in Canadian Lakes today, still holding onto that hope. Boy, I was sadly mistaken.

Since December, Lindsay and I have spent hours with Sam, our IT consultant, who’s real, full-time job has him working with Salesforce data and insights day in and day out. He is a pro in the set-up and implementation of the platform. And while he cannot make the output of it’s marketing abilities pretty with rainbows and butterflies, his teaching ability on how it all works has been a godsend. When frustration set in because we were not further along with implementation, he quickly grounded me by explaining that implementation with his employer took over a year to fully achieve, and it’s forever evolving. Salesforce is an extremely powerful tool, and a simple flick of a switch just will not happen.

In case you haven’t been following or heard what the Marketing Department has been up to the past few months, late fall of last year I took the leap and bought Salesforce, a customer relationship management software program. I also bought Pardot for automated marketing along with Social Studio, which will manage all our social media. All three platforms will be integrated.

In the past, since the Marketing Department was formed six years ago, the relationship with management software was a three-ring binder—well, three of them now. Implementing the platform, the use of, and then regurgitating the data into visible results finally happened! With the Salesforce reports function, we were able to see that between March 1 and April 15 we had about 40 people inquire about becoming property owners. Of those 40 people, one had already become a property owner! That new property owner had found out about Canadian Lakes through Group Golfer. He purchased a coupon last year. He found my email address on our website and sent me an email, asking me to call him. I filled him in about membership. What would previously have been close to impossible to track, and then taken a week to track down who he was and how he found us and made contact, now took me three minutes. It was beautiful and quite exciting.

For those asking for return on investment, your answer is coming. How many people came to us by our radio commercial? Who is being referred to us by current members? How many people are seeing our display ads on the internet, which continually is our biggest producer of web traffic; and how many people who saw our TV commercial have become property owners so far? With Salesforce, these questions can soon be answered as Lindsay and I become more adept with the platform. With the new departmental reports being part of each monthly board meeting, I’ll share these Salesforce reports so members will see results of our advertising and marketing. Lindsay and I

certainly need more time with Sam before we are the self-proclaimed wizards that I mentioned earlier, but here’s to working hard and being hopeful, right?

Here’s also to summer, warm weather, sun, boating season, my birthday month—but most importantly, the fathers in our lives. Over the years, being (almost) born in the area, raised here, growing my career here, and working for the CLPOC for the past five years, I’ve met some wonderful Canadian Lakes dads. I’m blessed to have my dads still in my life—I have two. My parents divorced when I was eight years old. The divorce had very little effect on me then. So long as I was still able to ride my bike to the nearby store to buy candy, swim in Rogers Pond (Muskegon River) every summer day, build forts in the woods behind my house, and draw in chalk on the roads between my house and Sarah Bruskhotter’s, I was just fine! These two dads both raised me, along with, of course, my wonderful mother, whom I lost just six months ago, and a stepmom, too. So, here’s a big shoutout to the Canadian Lakes dads, and some extra love to my two dads and my special man, Kevin, for being the awesome dads you all are. You are loved and appreciated. Happy Father’s Day!

P: 231-359-1195 | C: 708-542-6418