Christmas Town Trail in Kendal
Everyone just loved the Kendal Summer Trails, so it made perfect sense for Kendal BID to get in touch again and ask Felltarn Friends to create some festive fun for the town with a Christmas Town Trail.
This time we used all 8 Felltarn Friends, dressed up as Angels and Elves as the theme for the trail, and gave kids the task of finding as many symbols placed in shop windows as possible.
Businesses offered their Trail Treats again to entice youngsters through their doors and engage with their families – completing the trail really is quite a social occasion!
Each symbol in the window represented something to do with that particular business, just to subtly reinforce the product or service on offer while giving children something fun to look out for on their way around town.
With so much happening in Kendal over the festive season from the Lights Switch-On to the Christmas Tree Festival, Letter Posting to Santa and Christmas Crafting, the Christmas Town Trail maps offered a great opportunity to promote everything for families in Kendal on the run-up to Christmas.
We designed flyers and social media banners to promote the Christmas Town Trail, and provided the distribution service to primary schools and local businesses’ counter tops. Again, these flyers didn’t just promote the trail, but all the family events happing in and around the town.
We have seen website visits up by almost 500% for our town trails – this makes them a proven boost to your BID zone, getting kids and their families exploring different areas, shops, restaurants, service providers and having great fun in the process.
Below is a summary of the Kendal BID Christmas Town Trail process.
Initial Brief from Kendal BID:
First, we need a simple brief from you regarding the theme or objective you want to focus on. Has there been some recent regeneration of an area or a new feature to promote, or you want to create a wonderful family day out in your town?
Plan and design a Christmas Town Trail for children around the BID Zone in Kendal.
To run throughout the Christmas holidays.
To feature Felltarn Friends characters and symbols representing the goods and services offered by each business.
Trail maps to be FREE to participants.
8 weeks to complete the design and print.
Design a series of marketing flyers, banners and adverts.
Phase 1: Information Gathering and Planning.
Next, we liaise with businesses within the BID area to give each one the opportunity to take part – asking them if they’d be happy popping something in the window to look out for on the town trail, place an advert on the trail map, or provide a special offer for trail participants. Felltarn Friends provide information gathering and planning as part of the project management process.
Contact BID members to gather numbers for participation.
Plan routes to include all interested businesses.
Gather data and communicate with BID members regarding the trail process.
Phase 2: Design.
Then it’s time to get creative and design your town trail! The Felltarn Friends style is quite distinctive and instantly recognisable, yet we produce something bespoke and unique with each project.
Kendal BID Christmas Trail to be in a recognisable ‘Felltarn Friends’ style.
To feature fun symbols to represent each businsess, and Felltarn Friends characters as Angels and Elves.
Approx 70 symbols to find in windows and fill in the blanks on the map.
Flyers to print and social media banners and headers to be designed.
Phase 3: Print and Distribution.
Once you’ve approved your town trail design, we send it to print, or send you the artwork to print yourselves, the choice is yours. We’ll design and print your flyers to be distributed to local schools, cafés and community hubs.
You can choose to include print and distribution in the package we provide for the town trails, and it doesn’t matter where you are! We can simply provide the artwork for you to use, or we’ll happily organise the print run of the trail maps and all associated paraphernalia, then distribute the maps, leaflets and flyers to wherever they need to go.
Phase 4: PR and Marketing.
We will organise your social media marketing too by designing the graphics for an advertising campaign for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and website.
Advertise the trails prior to launch across the South Lakes/Furness region via social media.
Advertise in local publications.
Press release written by Felltarn Friends for local news outlets.
Ongoing social media event shares.
Top-up of flyers on countertops.
Also – include a selection of adverts on the trail map to promote additional services, projects and incentives in your town to get people into the BID area.
Get in touch!
Contact Amy amy@felltarn.co.uk or 07846805602 and have a chat about how we can help you achieve a higher footfall and an increase in business awareness around your BID zone.