Forward-thinking Ocean Beach MainStreet Association’s annual breakfast Feb. 4 focused on promoting successful marketing strategies with a “Vision 2020” theme.
“It was a fun and informative event,” noted OBMA executive director Denny Knox, adding marketing packets from the event are available at the OBMA office for any members who couldn’t make the breakfast.
Of this year’s theme Knox said, “It dealt with all the platforms where people derive their information and disseminate their marketing efforts.” 
The event was hosted by Dirty Birds OB with food by Nico’s and OB Smoothie and coffee supplied by OB Beans.
Brown Marketing Strategies handled most of the presentation, breaking VISION down into its various components: Vision, Impressions, Social Media, Incentives, Organic efforts, and Networking.
“The message we were conveying was a demonstration of all different types of marketing tactics, and all the opportunities available to OBMA members regarding marketing and promotion to make their goals in 2020,” said Julia Woods of Brown Marketing, who also distributed a calendar worksheet for members to use to track their marketing efforts.
Woods gave a tutorial on how to design letterheads, ads, designs, postcards, etc. using the helpful website, canva.com. 
Explaining that the V in her acronym stood for Vision, Woods said she intended to show “how business owners can identify their target audience, and how and where they can reach these target audiences, whether it be local ads or social media efforts.”
The I in vision represented impressions, which Woods noted concerns “how far their current marketing reach goes, and what they could do to expand it.”
Woods described the S as representing “sharing and caring of posts, videos, and photos from the community that are newsworthy and an easy way to add content to your webpages.”
The marketing strategist said incentive is the second I in the vision acronym, which she noted connotes “the importance of scheduling things ahead of time in creating content and calendars.” She added incentive also applies to “retaining and gaining customers.”
Woods cited the OB Shop and Dine card as one example of OB merchants employing incentives in their marketing plans.
Continuing, O in Woods’ acronym stands for organic efforts. “Here we talk about word of mouth coming from Facebook pages, referrals and updating your Google searches, making sure your business’s address, phone number and all other data are correct to help people searching for your business,” she said.
The final letter in the acronym, N, represented networking. “I want to remind all members that they have networking through OBMA including monthly sundowners on the last Thursday of every month,” Woods said. “I also wanted to remind members to make sure they’re linked in with other local organizations and chapters of their industries.”
In concluding, Woods said of Vision 2020, “It is all about refreshing our engagement with the customers and the community while focusing on successful strategies.”