Williamstown Chamber of Commerce Touts Online Successes
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — More than ever, the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce's website is reaching its target audience: people for whom the Village Beautiful is a destination.
On Wednesday, Laura Christenson told chamber members that the DestinationWilliamstown.com, a formerly independent site that the chamber has administered since 2021, is reaching more out-of-towners than ever before.
"In 2018, most users were from Williamstown, New York City, North Adams, Boston and Pittsfield," Briggs said at the chamber's annual meeting, showing a slide that gave the site's visitors by hometown in order. "And that has changed thanks to all the outreach that has happened.
"Now, the most users are in New York City … followed by Boston, then Williamstown, North Adams and Pittsfield."
In fact, nearly twice as many visitors to the site come from the New York City and Boston areas than from Williamstown itself, according to numbers presented at the meeting.
Christensen and Williamstown Chamber Executive Director Susan Briggs explained how DestinationWilliamstown.com, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, promotes the town and local businesses to visitors and potential visitors.
While the homepage of the calendar-heavy website is its most popular page, the pages with the second and third most visitors, in order, are those with information about the town's July 4 celebration and December Holiday Walk weekend, which returns this year Dec. 6-8.
"What Sue [Briggs] does for making big town events happen also drives people to DestinationWilliamstown, which in turn drives them to all the businesses in the town through all the links that go directly to the venue, host venues or businesses or whatever," Christensen said.
In terms of raw numbers, the chamber's digital footprint has grown in the last five years with a 29 percent increase in visitors to the website, twice as many followers on Instagram and Facebook and a three-fold increase in the number of subscribers to the chamber's weekly newsletters, Christensen and Briggs reported.
Christensen, the website's editor, told the chamber members gathered in the ballroom of the Williams Inn that the page recently added two new features: "Celebrate Williamstown," which highlights caterers, florists, photographers and venues that people can choose when planning an event in town, and "Williamstown Cultural District," which gives resources for local artists, including information on how to go about showing their work.
While much of the talk this fall has been about the struggles faced by small businesses in Williamstown, Wednesday's annual meeting was an opportunity for the local Chamber of Commerce to celebrate what it is doing to promote those businesses — in particular those that cater to the important tourism sector.
Online marketing is an increasing part of those efforts, but Briggs, who has served as executive director since 2017, said there is still a place for low-tech marketing in the chamber's strategy.
"When I came in, we were doing 5,000 copies of the [printed] visitor's guide," Briggs said. "I said, 'Print is dead.' … Today, we're doing 20,000."
The chamber also purchases advertisements in publications like the Mohawk Trail Association's Visitor's Guide and the Connecticut Post newspaper in Bridgeport.
"We found during the pandemic that Connecticut travelers on the shore have a similar vibe [to Williamstown's]," Briggs said.
The Williamstown Chamber also produces a regular show on the town's community access television station, Willinet, to promote local events and operates an information booth at the south end of Spring Street, next to Tunnel City Coffee.
Then there are those events, the two signature chamber activities each year: a July 4 celebration that starts with yoga in the morning, includes a parade and community cookout at the bottom of Spring Street and ends with fireworks at Taconic Golf Club; and Holiday Walk, a three-day extravaganza highlighted by a Reindog Parade down Spring Street on Saturday afternoon.
Despite a sizable increase in membership — 65 paying members when Briggs started in 2017 and 185 this year — the Williamstown Chamber has operated at a deficit for the last three years, Briggs said.
Nearly half of its $114,163 revenues in 2024 came from a $55,000 expenditure of taxpayer money awarded at town meeting, a number that fluctuates year to year.
The largest share of its $118,328 expenditures in 2024, $49,278, goes to marketing.
"We are very well supported by the town — Town Hall and community members," Briggs said. "We appreciate this. We couldn't do it without them. They do charge us with Holiday Walk and Fourth of July. They also charge us with marketing. … We do go out and get sponsorships and grants anytime we can.
"We know we're running at a deficit. We do have a rainy day fund. We're very careful with our rainy day fund, and we're watching it very closely. This will be the third year we're running at a deficit, but we're OK. We just need to know what we do, and we're confident with this, and we're aware. And we're looking at alternatives, options and ideas."
Tags: annual meeting, chamber of commerce,
