When you get done signing the online petitions against South Dakota's ALEC subsidies, buzz over the Madison Chamber of Commerce and give them your two cents about shopping in Madison. The Madison Downtown and Beyond Taskforce is surveying local shoppers "to discover ways to improve your shopping experience and find ways to increase local purchases."
The survey is here; it remains open through May 18.
It's a pretty simple survey—two pages, fifteen questions—but apparently Madison needed to hire an outside group, Solution Mountain, to help tally the results. Really, folks? You couldn't just dump the data into a spreadsheet and count?
Survey Question #8 asks "Would you participate in a program if it was easy to use and helped shoppers and businesses buy goods and services from local companies?" I hope the downtown committee doesn't work too hard coming up with another consumer-targeting marketing program. Madison doesn't need to reinvent the Chamber Bucks program or exert itself further to tell locals about the shopping they already know is available in town. Madison needs to retain and recruit retailers who offer goods and services that people want to buy. It needs to restore and fill downtown storefronts to create an attractive and busy shopping environment. And it needs to support downtown events that bring people to town to spend money. Create real value, and downtown will market itself.
Every year it seems Madison does this survey, yet nothing changes. If a business wanted to possibly recruit to Madison and find properties for sale or rent its nearly impossible to do online without having to call the chamber. Just a quick online search is not available. With all the empty buildings and spaces downtown all you're able to find online is the bars and the old Book store.
Build a website promoting spaces for rent or buy downtown Madison. Square footage, pictures, and any other details. Include the options that the Chamber, Heartland, etc offer when moving to Madison. Would not take any time to do.
Just a thought, when I was in Madison I always wondered what the empty places were selling or renting for downtown. Being a college town has opportunity for small retail businesses.
Funny,
It goes to show you people will pay good money to acquire the veneer of authority on something they could do themselves and that they already know the answer to. Good BS is impressive especially when it comes from someone far away. I wonder how much the Chamber is paying for it. You would think with a University in the middle of town they could have found a homie with a statistical bent.
My daughter and her family live in Madison and her biggest complaint about Madison shopping is the grocery store.
There's an opened ended question so use it to express yourself.
I've gone to most of the meetings and I remember the survey costs as being reasonable, especially so since a regional business stepped forward to defray the cost.
I believe this survey was put on by a group of volunteers looking to help, not specifically the chamber. I highly suggest getting involved if you want to be critical. They are open to more people willing to help. There really isn't a lot open on main street. There are a few locations, but I believe everything online is what is currently available. I think the 2nd grocery store will be the biggest request.