2017 – A Year in Review (and a great year it was!)
It is hard to believe that a year has gone by so quickly. This time last year we were still struggling with some concept, coding and the finances to get the History Check app out the door. This year we are working towards collaborative content creation and marketing campaigns.
Our first goal was to launch in February and have a “We love Northern Alberta” campaign to coincide with the launch. Then we were shooting for June to give everyone the summer to explore with Canada 150. We missed both goals but on September 24th, we did soft-launched at the Prince of Wales Armoury in Edmonton, followed by the official launch on October 4th – in less than 1000 days.
Still pretty good for a team of 3 primary people getting the app coding done and the data we launched with in so everyone could see what we were up to.
We are quietly going about our business of adding content – if you could say we ever do anything quietly. Between presentations, brochures, data entry, and other behind the scenes action History Check continues to grow so we can do a full fledged marketing campaign for app users staring in early spring.
Recent activity includes:
- In-App-Ads have been streamlined for businesses to sponsor the History Check project with well defined recognition of sponsorships. ($350 annually)
- A manual is being created for a sales team to come on board. They will not only be promoting sponsorships but creating awareness of the project as a whole.
- Brochures and other printed materials are being readied for distribution. They include a variety of information depending on the target markets.
- Social media posts are being pre-scheduled.
- Kalyna Country is working with us to steam line the process of content creation with collaborators.
- Search functions include keywords “Help Us” Help Us Photos” and Help Us Information” for the History Check files were we are able to identify a historical point of interest and are asking for help in gathering more information.
That is the tip of the iceberg. 2018 is a promising year with several sponsorships in the works from multiple location businesses. When it comes down to it the only thing holding us back if adequate funding to hire dedicated people for specific project requirements. With the advertising sponsorship campaigns about to begin that should rectify itself shortly.
And just to see how far we have come here are some of our concept ideas to the finished project:
Community Category Menus – the concept and the end result
The original Community Category Menu
The End Result on History Check.
Primary Icon – to mark communities or regions.
The Idea
The End Result
The Point of Interest (also known as site listing)
Those are but a few of the examples of what we started with compared to the finished product. There are also the search functions, the articles, social media sharing, comments and selfies.
I can’t wait to do this again in another year to see how far we have progressed. And just for the record so we can compare:
As of the morning of December 30:
338 downloads
4,772 site visits to this page (and many History Check pages lead here)
553 followers on our History Check Facebook Page
404 Followers of @HistoryCheckApp on Twitter
685 Followers of @FHNAS2015 on Twitter.
