You can go home again, group told

2/11/10
By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK Register Reporter

HUMBOLDT — Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation’s Eric Ferrell noted that all of the 13 counties he works in throughout southeast Kansas face population loss. To combat that trend, K-TEC came up with the “Home Again” program to encourage former residents to return to their home towns.
Humboldt’s Rebuilding the Public Square Business Action Team took in his ideas Wednesday evening.
Ferrell described “Home Again” as a “structured program that identifies, communicates, educates and provides former residents opportunity to return home.”
The idea, funded by the Southeast Kansas Regional Prosperity Foundation, basically markets community amenities to what should be a vested market.
Former residents, Ferrell noted, still want to know about the place they called “home.” Few, however, still receive their home town newspaper, the primary means of information dissemination in such communities, he noted.
Say a town has builds a new school, or upgrades their existing facilities, Ferrell noted.
“How do you communicate that,” he asked. Local sports, too, are a great hook to interest former residents, but again, how to do you let someone who moved away know about happenings in their home town?
“Home Again” focuses on Web presence and direct mail to former residents to re-ignite that latent interest.
Ferrell said “Home Again” will use branding, much like Tree City USA, to identify communities throughout the country that are actively encouraging former residents’ return.
“Why come hope again?” he pondered. “Cost of living, a reasonable pace of life, friends and relatives, low crime rates and Internet — if available” — are all draws to people who have become disillusioned with a faster pace of life elsewhere, Ferrell said.
“I’m hoping it would be like dream vacation,” Ferrell said of moving back.
Our country’s current economic woes can actually help places like Humboldt recruit population, Ferrell said, by focussing on its comparatively less pricey cost of living.
In addition, Ferrell said, the bulk of America’s population — the baby boomers — are in or entering retirement age. Now is the time to capture that population, Humboldt City Administrator Larry Tucker said he learned at a recent economic conference.
Those people come with skill sets and their own bank accounts, Ferrell noted, and are more likely to start small businesses that might employ others than seek out employment in their former home.
“They become the angel investors,” Ferrell said. “That’s why you don’t want to criticize people for having left.”
Instead, Ferrell said, “Home Again” provides an organized system for welcoming back such ex-pats.
“Home Again” provides a common Web base and uses Internet, press releases, promotional materials and direct mail to target potential residents.
“This isn’t some magic bunny I’m pulling out of a hat,” he said.
Instead, simple things like a magnetic business card with the Home Again or municipality’s Web link printed on it become marketing tools, he noted.
“I don’t know about you, Ferrell told the group, “but my wife and I just bought a new fridge. We had an opportunity to buy some new magnets. The old ones had been on there 20 years.”
Eventually, Ferrell said, people use the ads on those magnets.
“You’re up at 3 a.m. to get a snack, and you see the Home Alone address. You go to your computer an check it out and there,” he said, “is a link to your home town.”
Through a score of photographs provide by the community, new development or historic features of the town are highlighted.
“Home Again” targets communities with populations under 15,000 and is free to municipalities in southeast Kansas. Elsewhere, the idea will be sold for $99, Ferrell said.
The fee covers a community’s Web presence on the Home Again site.
One a town is enrolled, Ferrell’s team scours the Web for all live links to that community and organizes a directory page. That page offers links to local business, government, schools, housing opportunities, you name it, Ferrell said.
The links must be live, Ferrell explained, noting some Web pages simply offer text information. Ferrell’s group focuses on links that are regularly updated and have a live presence behind them so that potential residents can actually contact someone to get more information.
“If you’re in Chicago, you don’t want some dumb links” that lead to a dead Web presence, Ferrell said. “You want links that actually go someplace.”
To that end, a designated “Home Again” facilitator will be selected within each community to monitor all communications that originate through the “Home Again” site.
“It’s not going to work if the whole community is not behind it,” Ferrell said.
No action was taken.