Community Spotlight – Woodlands, MB
- Elijah Raji
- June 6, 2019October 02, 2018
Welcome to Woodlands
The Interlake region of Manitoba, nestled between two of the most dominating features the province offers in the forms of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba, is home to sandy beaches, boardwalks, and boreal forests. Near the Twin Lakes Beach of Lake Manitoba, in the southernmost part of the Interlake, is the rural municipality of Woodlands. Woodlands, itself composed of 4 individual communities, is an idyllic setting chosen by many new families to live and raise their children in. It’s proximity to Winnipeg (only a 15-minute drive) means it isn’t only an option for rural lifestyles – many residents commute to employment in the city, and that number is expected to increase in the future.
The Challenge
With a population largely composed of couples and families, and a local average household income above the national average, Woodlands presents a unique opportunity for investment from internal and external parties alike. The challenge, however, was communicating the depth of opportunity to external parties less familiar with the makeup of the community. How could somebody outside of the municipality be informed of Woodland’s demographics, of its high average income and potential for multi-unit families? These are just a few metrics potentially of interest to outside investors.
The Strategy
For Woodlands, the solution came in the form of Townfolio’s integrated Website Profile Embed. This automated solution is a self-updating tool that offers a wealth of information on many different aspects of a client community. Because of this wealth of information, the Website Embed often drives increased traffic to the community website – traffic specifically interested in data valuable for new business opportunities.
The Outcome
In Woodlands’ case, the Website Embed proved successful at increasing engagement on the website – over 1000 views per month have been directly attributed to the Embed on RM Woodland’s website. This level of interaction is significant for the Woodlands municipality. It isn’t just volume of interest shown by the Embed – Townfolio’s analytics provide data on deeper insights, such as where traffic interacting with business info originates from.
For Woodlands, the application of this new data is just as important as its accumulation and analysis. Using data acquired from the Website Embed platform, the team at Woodlands is better informed and organized for identifying and pursuing new economic development opportunities. With recent levels of interest trending upwards, Woodlands has been able to use Townfolio-based data to justify the expansion of their economic development efforts. They’re in the process of hiring a dedicated economic developer, to help focus on securing more investment based on opportunities identified by the Website Embed.
Beyond the expansion of the economic development team, Woodlands is considering additional technology adoption after the success of the Townfolio Website Embed. Chiefly, the implementation of GIS mapping software would further facilitate website interaction and the sharing of important information. By providing more readily accessible information on municipality and regional zones, the RM would be able to help developers in a scalable and automated fashion.
In all, the Townfolio is a great tool to help your municipality to ease into the areas of government technology and data collection. If your RM is already involved in government technology, the Website Embed is a strong addition to your strategy – without the hassle of a complex installation.
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There are so many different methods to implement GovTech into communities across North America, and every situation is different. At Townfolio, we’re passionate about each and every one. We’re constantly striving to make our platform the leader in GovTech, because we care about our communities. It’s our future too.
If you’d like to learn more about how Townfolio can improve your municipality’s economic profile, please explore our website. If you’d like to learn more about our offerings, check out our Platform Features. You can set up a quick demo with me, and I’ll be happy to answer any and all questions you might have. Or, if you’d prefer to email – you can reach me at shawn@jointownfolio.com.