BOYLE – The craze around working remotely has died down since its COVID-19-era peak, but in a time where an 8 a.m. meeting can be done in person or from a coffee shop on the other side of the world, smart municipalities can attract workers better than they ever could before.
That’s the message Luke Panek, a co-founder of the marketing company YOLO Nomads, was trying to sell to the Village of Boyle during a Jan. 15 council meeting.
“We’re all about small communities, its our entire brand,” said Panek. “You gotta get the name Boyle out there; put it on peoples radars and get them interested in your community. They’re not just going to magically google your community and move there.”
Fittingly, Panek was appearing at the meeting through Microsoft Teams, and he was pitching a new way to attract the skilled workers Boyle needs; targeting professions, including nurses, teachers, or tradespeople, through Facebook ads.
“Right now, nurses are something that’s important to us. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a big one,” said Derko. “It excites me that we could get some marketing that would target that demographic that we want.”
Panek is living proof of what his company is looking to sell — having moved from the big city, he now jokes about traffic and the inanity of a 30-minute daily commute as part of his sales pitch.
“Canadians are struggling in the big cities,” said Panek. “I would even say suffering, and there’s a way out for a lot of Canadians and it just involves changing the mindset and moving to a smaller community.”
Panek’s company also helps smaller municipalities identify grant funding — while they won’t fill the application out themselves, but they do work with their client municipalities to help coordinate joint applications.
“We’re not grant writers, we like to get our communities together and we believe that there’s a stronger change of getting noticed if they go in with 10 or 15 other communities,” said Panek.
“We know how to get the word out about you to those big cities, without you having to do that legwork. Give it to us, and we can run with it. We’re the professionals, we know what we’re doing.”
Cautious optimism
Councillors agreed to go back to the company with some questions, including who owns the promotional material and how they avoid getting washed out amongst the other small municipalities.
In total, the program would cost the village $2,000 a year; while councillors agreed it wasn’t a crazy cost, concerns arose about who owned the product once the subscription ends.
“If we go with them for a year, once that’s over, is there nothing to show for it?” asked Derko.
He also cautioned that marketing campaigns like this one tend to only give out as much as gets put in. Speaking from experience with his own business, Derko stressed that it wouldn’t be a one-time job, and would require constant support from the village.
“If we don’t use it, if you don’t update it or do your work with it, it’s useless, just a waste of money,” said Derko.
Coun. Barb Smith pointed out an obvious point in Boyle’s benefit; people are looking for different communities, and Boyle’s relatively isolated location distances itself from a town like Devon or Westlock.
“Some people are looking for a northern landscape. If they’re moving somewhere like Devon, that’s because they still want that urban area,” said Smith.
