SEPT/OCT

ISSUE 10

2014

BI-MONTHLY

BUSINESS

REPORT

Barry, Lana and Rance Hamilton of Hamilton Jewelers, sponsor of the 2014 Diamond Dash.

Mount Pleasant

FRIGHT-TOBER IN MOUNT PLEASANT

2014 STATE OF EDUCATION future of education in the coming year P.6

FOCUSED: AGRICULTURE conference P.12

EVERYTHING TEXAS UNCORKED

Mount Pleasant Business Report | Issue 09

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Mount Pleasant

contents: Partners 4

Drive Local 5

State of Education 6

Fright - Tober 8

Everything Texas Uncorked 11

Focused: Agriculture Conference 12

Chamber Events 14

Business Insider 15

Content Marketing Tips 18

11

5

8

6

New Partners

Renewing ABC Auto Parts Adkins United Finance Co., Inc. Ag-Power Inc. Allen Scrap Metal Applebees Apples for the Teacher Bates Cooper Sloan Funeral Home Brown’s Glass & Mirror Carter Blood Care Stewart Center Chapman Transfer & Storage Inc. Clinic Pharmacy Complete Business Systems Country Cottage Florist Stan Crandall Day & Night Foods Diamond C Trailer Mfg. Document Solutions

Elliott Chrysler Dodge Jeep First Presbyterian Church Greer Farm Cecelia Hagey Hiring Partners Inc. Jackson Oil Co. Kassieghs Diana Kennedy Lambs Farm B & B Little Caesars Lowe’s McCoy’s Building Supply Center Medical Center Family Pharmacy Mill’s Flower Shop Mount Pleasant ISD Mount Pleasant Seventh-Day Adventist Church North Ridge Church of Christ

Pate Transportation Partners Payton Keystone Company, LLC PDI Plastics Pizza Hut R. K. Hall Construction, LTD Sisk Motors Inc. Sonic Mount Pleasant Spruill Honda Kawasaki Super 8 Motel of Mount Pleasant Sweet Shop USA Taylor Glass & Mirror Tennison Memorial UMC The Sign Express Titus Co. Historical Preservation Society Trade Management David K. Wall Winfield ISD

July - August Renewals 2014

Print Works Anytime Fitness

Curry-Welborn Funeral Home Diamond T Outfitters Mount Pleasant

Taking

To the next level

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The Chamber and local dealerships expect another successful partnership as the third annual Drive Local campaign kicks off for the month of September. The campaign, part of Shop Titus County, encourages people to shop locally for their next vehicle. The event results in an increase in sales in September, according to Chamber CEO Faustine Curry. Social media drove the campaign last year as people posted pictures and videos of themselves test driving a new or used vehicle participating Chamber-member dealerships for a chance to win a draw-ing for $1,000. The same ex-citement is expected this year with participating dealerships Elliott Auto Group Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ford & Lincoln, Mount Pleasant Toyota, Patriot Auto Mart, Sandlin Motors and Sisk Motors. Here’s how it works: A test drive equals one entry in the drawing, posting a picture of the test drive on the Shop Lo-cal Titus County Facebook page equals three entries and post-ing a video that someone else took of your test drive equals five entries. Drive Local Co-Chairs Larry Cannaday and David Hooper encourage folks to take part in the campaign to drive

home the message that buying locally helps the local economy. Cannaday said for every dollar spent locally, a multiple of about four dollars feeds into the community, which strength-ens everything from schools to the city to roads. Shopping locally for your next car, truck or SUV also

has the added benefit of dealing with hometown people rather than dealer-ships in Dallas, Longview, Tyler and Texarkana. The Drive Local campaign runs through September 30. The draw-ing will be held October 3 at the Chamber’s Friday Burger Party. Last year, Gene Robinson won the $1000 prize after he test drove a vehicle at Sandlin Motors. Post a picture of your test drive at Face-book.com/Shop-

LocalTitusCounty. For more information, contact the Chamber office at 903.572.8567, visit the Chamber Website, mtpleasanttx.com, or check it out on Facebook, face-book.com/ShopLocalTitusCounty.

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STATE OF

EDUCATION LUNCHEON

The business and education commu-nities in Titus County will come together this month as the new school year gets underway. The 2nd annual State of Education luncheon will be held Sept. 17 at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center. The event will feature the super-intendents of the four school districts in the county as well as the presidents of Northeast Texas Community College and Texas A&M Texarkana at NTCC and the executive direc-tor of the Region 8 Education Service Center. Each of the education representa-tives will give updates on the state of educa-tion at their respective campuses or region. “The business community will get to hear from the education leaders in Titus County about what they are doing, where they are going and what that means for the economic outlook for our businesses,” said Amy Hinton, chair of the Chamber’s Education Committee. The first State of Education luncheon held in September 2013 drew approximately 200 people, so organizers are using the main hall of the Civic Center to accommodate an anticipated increase in attendance. The event will also feature display tables from each of the education entities. “They will have students here and we have left it up to each district to be creative. They may want to have award winners or technolo-gy innovations to show what they are doing in the classroom,” Hinton said. She said the displays are an effec-tive tool for the business community to visual-ize their investment in education. “It’s great for them to see that when they make an investment in the schools and their students, they are, indeed, investing in the economic future of Northeast Texas,” she said. “That’s what these kids are.” The keynote speaker this year is Dr. Emily Cutrer, President of Texas A&M Texar-kana. She also serves on the state’s Advisory

Board of Economic Development Stakehold-ers, which works in conjunction with Gov. Rick Perry’s office of Economic Development and Tourism by coordinating with businesses and skills training to ensure that programs are meeting current needs At the State of Education luncheon, Cutrer will address education in Texas and a trend known as the student skills gap. “There is a real concern among school systems about this trend. Students are graduating with their diplomas and degrees and they do not have all of the skills needed to move into the workforce,” said Chamber CEO Faustine Curry. Curry said the link between educa-tion and business is vital to the success of the local economy. “The kids that come through the edu-cational system are the future. Without need-ed education, it will be hard for businesses to fill their workforce needs. Because of that vital connection, we feel it is important to show-case the future of education for the coming year to the business community,” Curry said. Hinton said there is excitement build-ing around the event. “It’s always fun and exciting. You can feel it in the air. There’s a buzz, just like with the New Teacher Breakfast,” she said. “The community loves to hear what these kids and our schools are doing and about the hope and promise of what’s to come.” She said both the superintendents and the businesses see the importance of the event. “When the two come together, it equals success for the Chamber and the com-munity,” she said. The event begins at 11:30 a.m. Lunch will be served. Tickets are $20 per per-son RSVP by calling the Chamber at 903.572.8567.

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In October, Mount Pleasant turns into a place for everything frightful with the annual Fright-tober events. This year, the events list is being changed up a bit, with brand new events and Fright-tober favorites. “Fright-tober is all about promoting Mount Pleasant and bringing new people to the area,” said Cham-ber CEO Faustine Curry. The month kicks off with the fun-seeker favorite Dia-mond Dash, a treasure hunt through Mount Pleasant set for Saturday, Oct. 4. Diamond Dash teams fan out across the city following clues on their cell phones for a chance to win dia-monds from Hamilton Jewelers. On Oct. 11, the Cham-ber will host an exciting new event, the Everything Texas Uncorked Ranch Run and Wine Festival. The event features 15K, 5K and 1K runs and a wine festival featuring Texas wines, arts and crafts vendors, food and live entertainment. The event will be held at Priefert Ranch. The following weekend, the focus switches to agriculture with the two-day Focused: Agriculture conference at Northeast Texas Community College on Oct. 17-18. The conference kicks off with a special day focused on women in agriculture with breakout sessions and keynote speaker Carrie a.k.a. “Dairy Car-rie” Mess, a dairy farmer, blogger and speaker. The second day is

tailored toward a wider audience focusing on sustainable agricul-ture with breakout sessions, farm tours and keynote speaker Sheri Salitin, a champion of clean food who oversees metropoli-

tan buying clubs and shares the best ways for individual farms to market to top chefs, retail outlets and restau-rants. As the month gets closer to Halloween, the spooky fun begins. On October 24, Fright-tober fans will gather at the Historic Masonic Ceme-tery for the Twilight History Tours. There’s a slight twist this year, with multiple tours scheduled on one night rather than spread out throughout the month. Capping the month off is the

City of Mount Pleasant’s annual Halloween Carnival at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center on October 31. “The month is full of activities, some fun, some spooky, some athletic and some just fun for the entire family,” Curry said. For a full schedule of Fright-tober events, visit the Chamber office at 1604 North Jefferson Ave., go to the Fright-tober Facebook page or call 903-572-8567.

In

“The month is full of

activities, some fun, some

spooky, some athletic and

some just fun for the entire

family.”

Pleasant Mount

mtpleasanttx.com 9

Remembers

9 01

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The Chamber is serving up a new event that will satisfy the avid runner and whet the palates of Texas

wine connoisseurs. The Everything Texas Uncorked Ranch Run & Wine Festi-val debuts October 11 at Priefert Ranch. Chamber CEO Faustine Curry said the goal of the new festival is to promote the Everything Texas brand and promote Texas ranch life in general. “We’re excited about the opportunities that this new event brings to Mount Pleasant and for visitors to explore Everything Texas,” Curry said. The Ranch Run, which kicks off the day at 8 a.m., includes a 15K run, which is a little over nine miles for the serious runner. It also includes a 5K run for the fitness runner and a 1K run for kids that will be led off by horses. The run is being managed by Run Time, a professional race company based in Dallas.

“It won’t be your typical run. They will be running on hard-packed manicured ranch roads, so it’s good for the pavement runner as well as the trail runner,” Curry said. “The runners will get the full ranch experience.” The run will last until around 10:30 a.m. followed by an awards and medal ceremony. The Wine Festival gets underway at 11 a.m., featuring wines from 8 wineries from all over Texas as well as arts and crafts vendors, food and live entertainment until 7 p.m. “It’s a Go Texan event promoting Texas-made, Texas-grown products,” Curry said. For more information on the event, visit the Chamber at 1604 North Jefferson Ave., the Visit Mount Pleasant Facebook page or call 903.572.8567.

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YOUR TEXAS EVENTS

OCTOBER 17 & 18 | PRE $75 | DAY OF $80

OCTOBER 17 | PRE $35 | DAY $40

OCTOBER 18 | PRE $45 | DAY OF $60

FARM TOUR $10 CEU ONLY $25

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The Chamber and Northeast Texas Community College will be focused on agriculture in October. The two are partnering on a newly-titled conference called Focused: Agriculture, which has evolved from the college’s Living from the Ground Up series. “That series began three years ago, so this will be the fourth year for an event of this kind, but with a twist,” said Rene McCracken, NTCC’s Agriculture director and chair of the Cham-ber Ag Committee. “We’re focused on some different categories, so that’s where the name came from and it ties into NTCC’s new “Focused” marketing campaign.” The two-day conference Oct. 17-18 begins with the Fo-cused on Women in Agriculture event on Friday, which features agriculture information for women farmers. The second day on Saturday is called Focused on Sustainable Agriculture, which will target a broader, mixed audience. “Men are more than welcome to attend the women’s event. It’s just that the focus is from a woman’s perspective on what she deals with,” McCracken said. The keynote speaker for the women’s event is Carrie Mess, a dairy farmer, blogger and speaker from Lake Mills, WI. In her blog, The Adventures of Dairy Carrie, she shares candid stories of her life on the farm and tackling tough subjects. “She’s going to talk about what it’s like running a dairy and finding her role on the farm,” McCracken said. “It is different for us as women. In fact, we have to be super women in order to do everything we do.” McCracken said the day will also include breakout ses-sions with information and classes on estate planning, insurance and government programs and grants available specifically for women in agriculture. The keynote speaker for Saturday’s event is Sheri Salitin, the marketing director for Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA and a stay-at-home mom. Salitin, who is passionate about clean

food, was influential in launching metropolitan buying clubs throughout Virginia and Maryland. She shares the best ways for individual farms to market to top chefs, retail outlets and restau-rants. She also launched the Website Eager Farmer, a help want-ed site for farmers to find interns, apprentices, land, employees and farm managers. Both days’ events begin at 8:30 a.m. and end around 5 p.m. The Saturday event also includes tours of local farming op-erations, Efurd Orchards and Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards. With that partnership, she expects the event to draw a wider audience. McCracken said the events will be spread out over the whole NTCC campus this year, with the luncheon held at the Eliz-abeth Hoggatt Whatley Agriculture Complex. “This is third time I’ve coordinated this event and the first time we’ve partnered with the Chamber Ag Committee to help organize it. Prior to this year, it was really considered a college event and more localized,” she said. “I really wanted to show this year that we are reaching outside of the Mount Pleasant audience and bringing in people from out of town and I knew the Chamber would be able to help us to do that.” She said they are expecting at least 50 women to attend the Friday seminar and expect attendance at the Saturday event to be triple that, which is why they’ve spread the events across the entire campus. “When we get beyond 100 to 150 people at the Ag Com-plex, we’re pretty crowded,” she said. “I’m optimistic that we’ll see the numbers increase and I think that’s what we need to do for this event to have stable growth for the future.” For more information and to register call 903.434.8267 or go to bit.ly/focusedagriculture2014. Also check out the facebook event for Focused: Agriculture at facebook.com/VisitMountPleasantTexas.

Carrie “Dairy Carrie” Mess Sheri Salitin

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October 17 & 18, 2014 | Mount Pleasant, TX

Hamilton Jeweler’s

O c to ber 4 , 2 0 1 4

10.11.14

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If you’ve looked around Mount Pleasant lately, you may have noticed several companies expanding their operations. That’s good news for the local economy and another card in the marketing deck for the Mount Pleasant Economic Development Corporation. Among the companies working on expansion efforts is Priefert Manufacturing, which recently completed an expansion to its steel warehousing area to add more warehouse space, accord-ing to Priefert Marketing Director Courtney Dyer. “We are also nearing completion of our large product Automated Storage and Retrieval System, which will improve our storage capabilities for our large products before they are painted/powder coated,” Dyer said. The company also has another expansion in the works to increase its steel processing capabilities. “Priefert is almost always under some form of construc-tion or expansion in order to keep up with demand for our product

and to remain on the leading edge of quality and innovation in our industry,” she said. Charlie Smith, executive director of the MPEDC, said, “Priefert just continues to grow and grow and I think that’s a com-bination of a good marketing team and an excellent product that meets the needs of its customers really well.” Expansion projects this year at Big Tex Trailers included reconstruction of the Mount Pleasant facility after a fire destroyed it in December of 2013 as well as new construction and expan-sion of facilities across the country. Tammy Foster, Big Tex mar-keting director, said the company is constructing a new HD Gooseneck facility in Wills Point, TX, expanding a Big Tex Dump Trailer facility in Madill, OK and completing a manufacturing plant in Cordele, GA. Diamond C Trailers and Best Fender have also been expanding their operations. “These expansion projects show that our industries are

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doing better, especially the trailer industry,” Smith said. “That industry has particularly made a significant comeback since the housing slump. With housing picking up, I think their businesses are going to pick up,” Smith said. Collectively, the expansion prod-ucts mean good news for the MPEDC, Smith said, because it shows community growth and community pro-gress, which helps them market Mount Pleasant to indus-tries that might look at locating their op-erations here. A company that is considering relocating or expanding always looks first at available property, available workforce and available buildings, he said.

“Aside from that, they look at community and whether there is an economic turn and a positive outlook. For those rea-sons, I think the growth in these industries is a good thing for us,” Smith said.

He said it helps his marketing efforts by giving industry representa-tives that he talks with a sense of con-fidence in the local economy. “A commu-nity that looks strong and healthy has a second tier impact on the MPEDC,” he said.

The MPEDC has its own construction project under-way that will have what Smith calls a first tier impact on attract-ing new industry. “We got our spec building underway and that will di-rectly impact our marketing ability,” he said. The MPEDC broke ground on a 40,000 square-foot concrete tilt wall building in the Mount Pleasant Industrial Park in August. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

“It’s a shell building that’s built to be very versatile so a company can finish it out on the interior in a fashion that meets their needs,” Smith said. Smith said the construction project is the MPEDC’s first spec building and will be the first available building of any significant size in Mount Pleasant in nearly six years. “This is a good opportunity for us to build on,” he said. “We’re really looking forward to this being a positive thing.”

“These expansion projects show that our in-

dustries are doing better, especially the trail-

er industry...With housing picking up, I

think their businesses are going to pick up.”

-Charlie Smith, MPEDC Exec. Dir.

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Titus County Ducks Unlimited has become

Delta Waterfowl of Mount Pleasant

Our reasons are simple: We now get to keep 25% locally to

give back to the community that gives to the preserva-

tion of wildlife

A couple of new Changes: Event will be on Veteran’s Day Tues-

day Night 11/11/14 at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center.

Doors open at 5:30pm. Veterans get in free and can enter into

a special gun drawing with valid ID.

Call Jey Yancey 903-380-0842 for

ticket or sponsorship information.

Like us on Facebook! Facebook.com/

deltawaterfowlofmountpleasant

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In a perfect world, small business owners could rely on word-of-mouth and basic marketing techniques to accomplish their revenue goals. However, in the past few years, as consumer intelligence has grown and with the constant availability of infor-mation by searching online, SEO has become the base compo-nent by which to be found by potential customers. So, how can small business owners effectively and crea-tively make use of the benefits of SEO in their marketing? By uti-lizing Content Marketing techniques. Here are 10 Awesome Content Marketing Tips for Small Business The first four tips for content marketing happen before you actually publish. To get your content marketing moving in the right direction, first you need to: 1. Make A Schedule Want to have a successful content marketing run? Get organized. First, create a calendar (I like to use Google Docs); you should create an outline of what each month of your year looks like as far as seasonality, industry events, holidays, and company-specific happenings, then add them to your calendar. Allot time each week for filling in content ideas, developing strate-gy, researching, and actually creating your content. This could

take between 2-4 hours per week (depending on how in-depth your content is and/or if you outsource any portion of this). The more successful marketing campaigns are the ones that were well thought out and planned properly. 2. Research Content marketing for small business owners can only be successful if you know what has worked in the past for other small businesses. Take some time to do some research and look at other small business websites and social media channels. Also, you don’t have to limit your research to small businesses, some-time you can take an idea from a Big Brand, and replicate it on a usable scale. By no means are you going to copy what is on those other websites but just perusing other sites will give you an idea of what type of content will help you further your marketing potential. Pay attention to popular keywords, web tools and stats for the most successful small business sites on the web. There are some online services available you can subscribe to that will give you a closer look at a competitors site traffic and ranking. 3. Survey Surveys are a great way to get inside consumer’s minds and see what they like. You can use surveys to improve your

By Susan Tucker , Business2Community.com Contributor

mtpleasanttx.com 19

website, improve your product, learn about what type of content they want to see and more. Consider incentivizing for responses; a $5 iTunes gift card to all participants, one “grand prize” drawing or several smaller prizes. Team up with like-minded businesses for list exchange, sponsored prizes and other co-marketing efforts to cast a wider net for survey respondents. Some popular survey sites are: SurveyMonkey, SurveyGizmo and Google Survey Forms. 4. Understand Current Trends In order to market to the masses you need to know what some of the current newsworthy trends are. Check out social me-dia sites to see what is trending and use those items to create popular content. You can use those trends as leads and do your own research to further dive into the topic; drawing people in. 5. Use Images While there is tremendous value in text-based posts, you must still integrate imagery into your content creation. Visual con-tent is a fast and easy way to get your point across. You might want to take a longer piece of content and replace a paragraph with an image you have created instead. Making it visually ap-pealing and easy to understand. Some ideas for imagery include using infographics, bold photos with text on top, 6. Use Video Videos are a great way to get your content out while also helping to build trust with your prospects. When folks connect with information through the sights and sounds of a video, they can make a deeper connection to you and your brand. You don’t need to get fancy with video production – sometimes creative editing with mobile phone footage or your computer’s built-in camera is all it takes. Another way to get video is via micro-video as used on Vine or Instagram or by outsourcing it to a vendor on Fiverr. 7. Publish Case Studies Chances are you’ve been in business for a while and chances are you’ve done some really amazing work during that time. Gather your information and publish a few case studies on your site. Not only will this serve as proof to your potential cus-tomers, it can also be great fodder for your content strategy. This post on Kissmetrics gives some great tips for creating case stud-ies. 8. Create an Encyclopedia One of the most underused ideas for content creation is for companies to create an online encyclopedia of terms related to the industry. Chances are many prospects are not going to under-stand some of the terminology used, make it easy for them by providing the information on your website, you can then link to it in

various blog posts. This is a great way to help build up your in-dexed keywords for online searching, as well. SEO benefits, too? Yes! 9. Curation Any easy way to create content is by simply curating posts. That could be your own posts that fall in a specific category or posts from other industry leaders with your comments about why you chose them. 10. Reuse Your Content Sometimes a simple repackage of content can attract a whole slew of new leads. Take common topics of old blog posts and turn them into an eBook, take the transcript of a webinar and turn it into a white paper, grab all your tidbits and convert them into visuals for a short SlideShare presentation. If you’re simply not inspired to create new content, just think about ways in which you can reuse old content.

Susan Tucker is a self-proclaimed inbound market-ing geek who uses her passion to help small business own-ers through her marketing company, Get Susan Marketing LLC. Susan has helped solopreneurs, start-ups, digital media companies, service providers, non-profits, e-commerce com-panies, and many others navigate the changing digital land-scape by successfully setting them up with inbound tech-niques - such as social media, blogging, content offers and email marketing. Clients have raved about Susan's persona-ble approach and easy-to-understand method. Susan lives with her husband, two young sons, and super-cute puppy in the start-up mecca of Boulder, Colorado. When she’s not helping small business owners with social media and online marketing, she's chasing her boys on the ski slopes or watching them on the sidelines of the soccer fields. Susan is social media junkie and you can often find her live tweeting from just about everywhere she goes.

Author Bio:

Mount Pleasant/ Titus County Chamber of Commerce 1604 North Jefferson Avenue Mount Pleasant, TX 75455

www.mtpleasanttx.com info@mtpleasanttx.com

(p) 903.572.8567 (f) 903.572.0613

on Social Media

MOUNT PLEASANT BUSINESS REPORT

An official publication of the Mount Pleasant/Titus County Chamber of Commerce

and Visitors Council 1604 North Jefferson | Mount Pleasant Texas 75455

903.572.8567 | mtpleasanttx.com

Mount Pleasant/Titus County Chamber Publisher Faustine Curry Editor in Chief

Mandy Stringer Creative Director Mandy Stringer Graphic Design, Layout

Lynda Stringer Contributing Writer Echo Publishing Co. Printing