There’s a lot of competition for your attention these days, and the pitchmen are getting a lot more aggressive.

Forget about simply window shopping at the mall; the kiosk dwellers have now been instructed to hustle you for sales, and you’ll find yourself saying “no thanks” a dozen times before you even reach the Cinnabon. If you’re like me, you don’t like being hustled on an empty stomach.

Professional marketing agencies have expanded their playbook to include “multi-channel strategies”, which means they’re going to simultaneously pester you by mail, e-mail, print ads, radio, television and billboards.

If you try to hide out online, they’ll get to you through banner ads, pop-up windows, tracking cookies, Facebook profiling, user communities, fake product reviews, ad-supported entertainment, newsletter subscriptions and by over-saturating the shopping comparison sites, among other tactics.

If that doesn’t work, they’ll get your friends to help with home parties, referral coupons, word-of-mouth incentives, virtual products to “poke” you with, and branded T-shirts.

So with all the billions being spent on getting your attention for a few seconds, how can a little city government hope to catch your eye? Many times, they’re required to, and will write out the sleep-inducing “Public Notices” you’ll find in newspapers like this one. Don’t operate heavy machinery while reading these.

Sometimes they need your input, such as a list of things you’d like to see at the new city park. I went to one of those meetings recently, and was slightly disappointed by all the empty chairs, despite the promise of free ice cream. Oh well; more for me.

Sometimes they need your help to fix things, such as picking up trash, spreading bark, removing graffiti and other beautification efforts that would be overwhelming for a small maintenance department.

But getting the word out is a real challenge for non-marketers and public-notice writers. It’s just not in their nature to build excitement, or inspire feelings of pride and civic duty.

I think our cities need something different if we want to be great. We need a cheerleader, a concierge, a brand ambassador. Someone who has a passion for motivating others, is a great communicator and is everybody’s pal. Someone who truly believes that their city can be the greatest city of its size, and works full-time to help achieve that goal.

Covington has a good start, with a full-time “Community Relations Coordinator”. That’s hardly a title to get excited about, but she’s been given a lot of freedom to help connect the city government to its citizens. They’ve even been active on Facebook since the spring, and will answer lots of general city questions, promote activities and volunteer opportunities.

Maple Valley debuted a new Web site this week (maplevalleywa.gov), and it’s a great improvement over the previous one. So far, they appear to “get it” when it comes to communicating more plainly, and hopefully someone there will keep the Web site content fresh. One of the biggest mistakes new Web site owners often do is treat it like a Showtime Rotisserie (just set it….and forget it).

Both cities still need to put somebody’s face on their communication efforts, rather than their logos. Even if you have a “face for radio” like me, people can relate to a real person rather than to a faceless bureaucracy.

Everybody has to sell themselves; even cities. It’s time to get people on board to work it like the pros do.