Area cities plan $50,000 marketing effort to promote census

Cape Girardeau, Jackson and four other Southeast Missouri cities have joined forces to hire a marketing firm to promote next year’s federal census in an effort to have every resident counted.

Besides the two Cape Girardeau County cities, the coalition includes the cities of Farmington, Poplar Bluff, Sikeston and Perryville.

They plan to spend $50,000 on the marketing effort, according to Cape Girardeau deputy city manager Molly Mehner.

“We all had planned on spending something to get the word out about the census next year and this is a mechanism where we can make our dollars go farther by combining them,” she said.

Both Mehner and Rodney Bollinger, director of administrative services for Jackson, said the census affects communities in terms of funding and congressional districts.

The census is required by the U.S. Constitution, which has called for an “actual enumeration” once a decade since 1790.

Mehner said the census “impacts how much state and federal funding we have access to, so it is critical that every single person is counted.”

Every person missed in the census means “we are missing out on an opportunity to get access to federal funding,” Mehner said.

The census determines how many representatives each state will have in Congress and can result in redrawing of congressional district boundaries, according to Bollinger.

“Census data is also used as the basis for distributing more than $675 billion to states, counties and communities to support resources such as schools, hospitals and fire departments,” he wrote in an Oct. 17 memorandum to the Jackson Board of Aldermen.

The coalition is seeking marketing proposals, which must be submitted to the City of Cape Girardeau by 5 p.m. Friday.

The group intends to select a firm by the end of November, Bollinger wrote.

The regional marketing effort will identify target audiences and involve such items as printed materials, direct mail, and social media, radio, television and newspaper ads, according to Bollinger.

Mehner said each city also will promote the census through “our own platforms,” such as social media.

Much of the regional advertising effort likely won’t take place until the spring, closer to the April 1 Census Day, Mehner said.

But she said it is important to get started now.

“The census is right around the corner,” she said.

“We really want to get the word out,” Mehner said. “We want people to understand how the process works.”

The U.S. Census Bureau is slated to send letters with instructions to households around mid-March.

“This is the first census where you can complete your form online,” Mehner said.

But people still will be able to fill out paper forms if they prefer. They also may respond by phone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website, census.gov.

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