FAIRMONT — With its unique chain of lakes, quality public and parochial schools, abundance of beautiful parks, health care options, arts venues and so many other amenities, Fairmont residents already know what a special place this community is. The goal of a local group is to make sure others know this too.

Fairmont Area Life, a partnership between the Fairmont Area Chamber of Commerce and the Fairmont Economic Development Authority, will be making people aware of what the city has to offer through a unique new digital campaign using geofencing. Geofencing uses the GPS on cell phones to define a geographic boundary and trigger a text, email or advertisement when the phone or mobile device enters a certain area.

If the user clicks on the message, they will be directed to the Fairmont Area Life website.

“That will show them all the great things we have here, things like our lakes, our parks, our schools. The list goes on and on and on,” said Ned Koppen, president of the Fairmont Chamber.

The idea for the geofencing campaign, which will target the seven-county Twin Cities metro area, blossomed from a conversation between Chamber members.

“We were talking about everything going on with COVID and the unrest in the metro area, and somebody asked, ‘Doesn’t that make Fairmont seem like a great place to live?’ It seems so much more obvious now,” Koppen said.

Living through a pandemic also brought the realization that people can work from home or just about anywhere.

“Many people can and are working remotely so if you want a different lifestyle and a great quality of life, Fairmont is the ideal place,” Koppen said. “If people in the Twin Cities are looking around for some place else, let’s make sure they come to Fairmont or at least know about Fairmont.”

The Fairmont Area Life committee is developing messaging for the geofencing campaign and working with a company to handle the technical aspect of the project.

“We can create the demographic that we want by specifying things like gender, age and geographic location. Based on that demographic, our digital ads will appear on the 200 most often visited websites of the people that fit the demographic we have established,” Koppen said.

The committee is working on fundraising right now, with a goal of $15,000.

“We’ve had a great response so far. That will kick off our effort, and if the money runs out, we’ll raise more. We’re hoping to have the kind of success that we can continue to do this,” Koppen said.

He anticipates the initial budget to last two months, with the results of the campaign being monitored during that time.

“We can see how many ‘clicks’ we get, how many views we get so we know how many people actually visit the website,” he said. “We’ll be able to adjust our demographic to get more traffic, more views.”

Attracting even a couple of families to Fairmont would quickly offset the campaign costs, Koppen says. These families would buy or rent a home, eat at local restaurants, shop at local stores buying clothing, furniture, vehicles and appliances, enroll their children in school and inject money into the local economy.

And enjoy everything Fairmont has to offer.

“We are so different from any other small town,” Koppen said. “The cost of living in a metro area compared to here is very substantial. Not only would they get all the great things Fairmont has to offer, it would cost them a lot less as well.”

For more information, contact Koppen at (507) 235-5547.