Question 3: Should Seal Beach advertise to attract more visitors?
Matt Smith
Remember, not all advertising is traditional media advertising. The most effective and least expensive option would simply be better signage at our town’s entry points. Visitors driving south on PCH or up Seal Beach Boulevard haven’t seen the coast yet. Clear, easy-to-read signs pointing to public beach access — less than a mile away at both 1st Street and Seal Beach Boulevard along PCH — could help pull cars into our lots instead of losing them to Huntington Beach.
Advertising could also come in the form of a more welcoming corner at PCH and Main Street. A now vacant Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf paired with an architecturally outdated bank building across the street isn’t inviting anyone to turn right or left. If new development comes to that corner, or anywhere along PCH, we should insist — before construction is approved — that it reflects what we want portrayed at the entrance to Old Town.
Advertising in the media — something I’m well versed in, since I have a radio show — is a more complicated question when it comes to attracting visitors. What demographics are we targeting? Is this a national or local campaign? Are we driving hotel stays, or just getting people in the area to visit our stores and restaurants? All of that requires research and analysis, and the studies cost money before a dollar is even spent on the ad schedule itself.
Dabbling in traditional advertising won’t move the needle. To do it right takes real money and real time to generate enough impressions to matter.
Fortunately, thanks to the computers everyone carries in their pockets, we can build our own in-house ad agency. Right now, the most effective and widest-reaching approach is social media done well. My daughter has built a following of over a million on each platform, from scratch, right here in Seal Beach. The most cost-effective strategy would be hiring a qualified social media manager to grow our city’s Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — likely for less annually than a single six-week traditional advertising campaign. Maybe we can even convince whoever runs the Seal Beach PD Instagram to take it on 🙂
Vote Matt Smith for Seal Beach City Council on November 3rd, and for more information on all our pressing issues please visit smithforsealbeach.com
Perla Mendoza
A walk down Main Street is very revealing. There are shopkeepers working hard to offer interesting stores for residents and visitors, alongside vacant storefronts that need to be filled. Advertising is only part of the picture, but yes, it is important.
The City Council has already approved the use of social media for advertising, and I’d also like to see our beach, pier, and local shops promoted at Long Beach Airport and the ferry terminals. Advertising usually directs people to the Queen Mary and Disneyland, while our little town gets bypassed. Seal Beach is a hidden gem that deserves to be discovered.
We currently advertise events to draw people into town. The Chamber’s Pop-Ups at the Pier, the Lions Fish Fry, the Chamber’s Car Show, Summer Concerts, and Run Seal Beach are just a few examples. But the question is: Do these events help our local businesses? Which businesses benefit? Which ones see no increase in customers, and why? I will personally talk with our restaurant owners and shopkeepers—from Old Town to Surfside—to learn what will help their businesses succeed.
Currently, one council member is promoting “business open houses” to attract brokers and real estate professionals who can help bring businesses that are well suited to Seal Beach, particularly Main Street. I look forward to working with him.
But advertising Seal Beach to visitors also means committing to the proper maintenance of Main Street. The sidewalks need to be cleaned more often, and the trees and their roots need to be properly maintained. Pruning the trees at the right time can help keep fruit from staining the sidewalks, while proper root maintenance can prevent further damage. Bright, cheerful flowers, flags, and better lighting will make Seal Beach a place where people want to spend the day—and their money—in our laid-back, small town by the sea.
All the advertising in the world won’t help if we invite people to a town that has lost its charm because of inadequate maintenance. Advertise? Yes. But let’s clean up Main Street first and support our local businesses.
Matthew Terry
No to advertising. Yes to attracting.
I think we all have our own definition of a visitor, so for clarity, I’m talking about someone who comes from outside Seal Beach and the surrounding towns.
So many beach town communities avoid their own main streets. We embrace ours. How many other beach town main streets can you buy a 2×4 or a Christmas tree on? Main Street walks a thin line between serving visitors and serving the community. We can’t have a thriving Main Street without visitors, but we need to make sure we don’t drive out the businesses that serve our community while trying to attract more visitors.
The 90s in Seal were different times. Between the AVP playing beach volleyball on our sand, extreme sports taking over the south side parking lot, the kite festival and the sand castle contest, the city used to do more to attract visitors. It would be awesome to have any of those back, and we should still pursue opportunities like this if they fit. But I think we should put more of our effort into attracting people who are closer. We need a Main Street that’s as busy on a Wednesday as it is on a Saturday, and as busy in the winter as it is in the summer. I think we will fall short of that chasing visitors alone, but it is possible with neighbors…
The development going up next door in Long Beach is coming, and everyone’s got an opinion on it. What gets missed in the discussion is that this is a massive opportunity for Main Street. When it’s all built out across the river we’re going to have around 2,500 new neighbors. That also means Main Street is going to have 2,500 new potential customers. Pulling even a fraction of them down here on a daily basis would be a huge shot in the arm for Main Street.
The catch is we have to get them here without a car, but since they’re so close they have other options. I’d work with Long Beach on extending their Circuit shuttle and bike share to Main Street, with docking stations near Main Street to allow our neighbors to bike here while ensuring the bikes end up where they belong and not on the sidewalk. We need to be able to attract more people, but not cars.