Marketing Your Community for Economic Development

Marke&ng  Your  Community  to  Drive  Economic  Development  

Southeast Community Development Institute April 25, 2013

Download this presentation at www.slideshare.net/ellendid4

What We’ll Cover Today

1.  Defining  Your  Community’s  Brand  

2.  Defining  Your  Audiences  and  Touchpoints  

3.  Do  the  Basics  Well:  Tools  that  Reach  ALL  Audiences  

4.  Adjust  Marke&ng  for  Each  Audience  

What We’ll Cover Today

1.  Defining  Your  Community’s  Brand  

2.  Defining  Your  Audiences  and  Touchpoints  

3.  Do  the  Basics  Well:  Tools  that  Reach  ALL  Audiences  

4.  Adjust  Marke&ng  for  Each  Audience  

We’re Different!

Branding Your Community

  Your community brand captures both tangible and intangible qualities that create a community personality and make your community truly unique

  Your brand is your reputation and your promise of distinct value

What We’ll Cover Today

1.  Defining  Your  Community’s  Brand  

2.  Defining  Your  Audiences  and  Touchpoints  

3.  Do  the  Basics  Well:  Tools  that  Reach  ALL  Audiences  

4.  Adjust  Marke&ng  for  Each  Audience  

Your Primary Target Audiences

- Site Selectors - Industry Reps - Niche Industries

- Retailers - Developers

Stakeholders & Partners: City, County, Utility, Tourism, Chamber, etc.

Existing Industries

Related secondary audiences include residents and tourists

Examples of brand touchpoints inside your community

  Community websites   Local press   Social Media   Wayfinding Signage   Quality of life features for residents (parks,

road quality, education quality, etc. etc.   The scope and quality of a visitor’s

experience of a community

Examples of brand touchpoints outside your community

  Website   Word of Mouth   Press   Social Media   Travel/Meetings   Outside paid marketing   Marketing by local companies

The Importance of Partnerships

Stakeholders & Partners: City, County, Utility, Tourism, Chamber, etc.

You do not operate in a vacuum! Your Community is your PRODUCT. You develop parts of it, and others develop other parts of it. Collaboration will take your community farther!

Related secondary markets include residents and tourists

What We’ll Cover Today

1.  Defining  Your  Community’s  Brand  

2.  Defining  Your  Audiences  and  Touchpoints  

3.  Do  the  Basics  Well:  Tools  that  Reach  ALL  Audiences  

4.  Adjust  Marke&ng  for  Each  Audience  

The Two Tools to Get Right (because they span all audiences)

Your Website Social Media

? Why is having a strong online presence for your

community important?

The vast majority of research to narrow down a list of potential sites is done online.

Showcasing your community with your economic development

website

www.???.org   BaldwinEDA.com   DorchesterForBusiness.com   OzarkAlabama.us   PlatteCountyEDC.com   ChesapeakeVA.biz   BuildWebsterCity.com

At a minimum, spell out your

County name for Search Engine

Optimization and usability

Information you should include on your website:

  Maps   Demographics   Available Property

listings   Quality of life   Staff and contact   Existing Industries   Workforce Information

  Taxes & Incentives   Transportation   Utilities   Business Assistance   News   Social Media links and

feeds

Develop Your Site Map   Plan the pages of your site   Establish a structure that is logical   Keep all content within three clicks   This also establishes your main navigation

button choices – keep consistent!   Look at how other groups have set their

sites up – look at IEDC winning sites or www.communityresults.com

Site Map Example 1

Home   Business  Climate  

Cost  of  Doing  Business  

Tax  Incen6ves  

Exis6ng  Industries  

Transporta6on  

U6li6es  

Workforce  

Demographics  

Workforce  Stats  

Workforce  Training  

Technology  Center  

Job  Seeker  Resources  

Available  Sites  and  Buildings  

Available  Sites  

Available  Buildings  

Maps   Quality  of  Life  

K-­‐12  Educa6on  

Post-­‐Secondary  Educa6on  

Healthcare  

Recrea6on  and  ANrac6ons  

About  Us  

Staff  

Board  

Contact  Us  

Site Map Example 2 Home   Doing  

Business  

Incen6ves  

Taxes  

Licenses  &  Permits  

Transporta6on  

U6li6es  

Area  Industries  

Exis6ng  Industry  Resources  

Workforce  

Workforce  Stats  

Workforce  Training  

Retail  

Retail  Demographics  

Exis6ng  Retail  

Available  Sites  and  Buildings  

Available  Sites  

Available  Buildings  

Industrial  Parks  

Community  Profile  

Demographics  

Maps  

Educa6on  

Healthcare  

Recrea6on  and  

ANrac6ons  

About  Us  

News  

Contact  

Site Map Example 3 Home   About  Us  

Staff  

Board  

Contact  Us  

News   Local  Business  Services  

Workforce  Development  

Incen6ves  &  Financing  

Professional  Development  &  

Training  

Small  Business  &  Entrepreneurs  

Job  Search  Resources  

Site  Selec6on  Services  

Available  Proper6es  

Incen6ves  &  Financing  

Workforce  Development  

Industry  Concentra6ons  

Cost  of  Doing  Business  

Leading  Employers  

Data  &  Demographics  

Demographics  &  Trends  

Transporta6on  

Regulatory  &  Environmental  

Workforce  

Taxa6on  

Government  

U6li6es  

Living  Here  

Housing  

Educa6on  

Cost  of  Living  

Recrea6on  

Climate  

Healthcare  

Designing an Effective Home Page

  Your brand   Your location – with a map   Unique selling points   Recent news   Contact information   Graphics heavy but no flash

How to Write and Program Content

  Economic Development Sites are VERY data heavy

  People don’t read – avoid paragraphs and use bullet lists, tables or charts whenever possible

  Break pages up visually with sub-heads, sections or graphics

What to include in News   New industry announcements   Local industry news   New Hires   Awards   Job creation announcements   Report releases   Either write your own or link to local coverage   Ability to share articles on social media

Provide a wide range of maps

GIS Powered Sites

  More robust searching   More extensive property data fields   Radius-based demographics   Exportable reports   Still pricey for small communities but more

options available

Make your site Mobile friendly Building a site with Responsive Design is now an option - or build a separate mobile website that can detect access by mobile phones

Social Media for Economic Developers

WOW! DID YOU HEAR?

AWESOME!

COOL! It is about engagement

and Top of mind awareness

What are your top options?

What can you talk about?   Industry announcements   New business startups/entrepreneurship   Workforce programs and education   Company profiles   Local business news   Unemployment updates and related reports   Share blogs, videos, photos   Learn from organizations featured in this

presentation

  If nothing else, participate here   Broad reach beyond local market   This is your top business networking

tool, without having to travel to a conference or other networking event at a distance

  Participate daily - or weekly at a minimum

LinkedIn

Make sure all key employees have profiles and actively build connections

Search for and actively participate in industry groups locally, nationally,

internationally

LinkedIn groups are a great way to monitor buzz and trends

Communicate and engage with site selectors online

Make status updates of your own to show up in feeds

  Rapidly growing in importance   Young professionals   Tech Savvy participants   Broad reach beyond local market   Participate daily or multiple times

per day

Twitter

Continue your branding

Share videos, local news and communicate with others

Promote your organization’s tweets with your individual tweets, and vice versa

Using # and @   Use @ to mention an organization or individual

by name – this shows up in their feed (and is very desirable) @RedSageAL

  Use # to highlight topics to show up in searches such as #EconDev #SiteSelection #Branding

  Create your own #hashtag for an event or campaign such as #SEDC2013 or #SageAdvice – use to create buzz at an event

Search for topics to monitor trends (#hashtags)

  Engagement and relationship building with your local market primarily

  More personal, informal and friendly

  Know your goals for using this:

  Top of mind in local market   Sharing local business news, or building

support for a local issue   Cross sharing/SEO opportunity

Facebook

Promote action on community issue

Share local economic development news

  Terrific opportunity to give your take on local news and trends – plus this is the best way to:   create new personalized content to

share across web and all channels

 Drive traffic to your website   Increase the odds you will show up in

search engines – awesome SEO tool

Blogging

  Personal thoughts about current news or situation

  Keep short – 1 paragraph is fine

  Best is at least once a week, but even a well maintained once a month blog is better than most communities

Blogging

  New business announcements   Career tech education locally   Expansions – and why   Entrepreneurship   Local business resources   New regulations   Top jobs locally   Etc.

Blog Topics

  Highly recommend starting to incorporate video into your efforts, if you are not already doing this

YouTube

Greenville, SC http://www.youtube.com/gogadc

  About GADC video   Industry profiles   Testimonial videos from young

professionals

Jacksonville-Onslow, NC

  Follow industry leaders on social media and on their blogs

  Promote those already championing for you   Be an active follower by retweeting, sharing,

and commenting   Actively participate in LinkedIn Groups   Continuously find and add LinkedIn

connections

Growing your audience: Follow to be followed

Choosing How to Participate

  Choose how and where to participate: What do you have time to be consistent with? (Don’t start a blog if you aren’t committed to keeping it going)

  Give it time: You won’t see results overnight, be patient and be consistent

  Devote a realistic amount of time for social media each week – half hour a day? One hour a week?

  Make it a priority and be committed to it   Scale back and focus on one thing if time

is an issue   Don’t forget to take the time to plan in

advance

Carve out time:

  Add an agenda item to a weekly or monthly meeting: what should we blog about this week? What is going on that we want to talk about in social media?

  Decide what topics you’ll cover: use an editorial calendar to keep things organized but make sure you build in flexibility too

Build a process

Schedule ahead: use Hootsuite.com to post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

Monitor all your feeds in one place

Know what is being said   Whether you use social media or not,

people will still be talking about your organization and your community online

  Monitor all social media platforms for comments and respond to comments as quickly as you can

  Offered by Constant Contact   Monitors mentions and activity:

•  Facebook •  Twitter •  LinkedIn •  Foursquare

  Reports are emailed to you   FREE!

Easy monitoring: NutshellMail.com

  Set up alerts for your company name, products, and other identifying keywords

  Set up alerts associated with your competitors

  Set up alerts for terms associated with your industry

www.Google.com/Alerts

What We’ll Cover Today

1.  Defining  Your  Community’s  Brand  

2.  Defining  Your  Audiences  and  Touchpoints  

3.  Do  the  Basics  Well:  Tools  that  Reach  ALL  Audiences  

4.  Adjust  Marke&ng  for  Each  Audience  

The Basic Marketing Equation

DEFINED TARGET

AUDIENCE

TARGETED MESSAGE

EFFECTIVENESS & FREQUENCY OF DELIVERY

RESULTS

Identify & prioritize your target markets

They can look very different and need different marketing approaches and messages to reach effectively. Good marketing is not one size fits all.

Adjust your message for each market – AND how

you deliver the message

Your Primary Target Audiences

- Site Selectors - Industry Reps - Niche Industries

- Retailers - Developers

Stakeholders & Partners: City, County, Utility, Tourism, Chamber, etc.

Existing Industries

Related secondary audiences include residents and tourists

TARGETED MESSAGES   Why your location is the best choice

•  Located in the middle of a regional industry cluster of manufacturers and suppliers (aerospace, automotive, etc.)

•  Available high skilled labor •  Building or site ready for them immediately •  History of existing business expansions

and new industry announcements in your community

•  And any other unique selling propositions

  Letters or quotes of support from key leaders (Mayor, Governor, head of key industry, etc.

- Site Selectors - Industry Reps - Niche Industries

QUALITY AND FREQUENCY OF MESSAGE DELIVERY   Tradeshows, ‘Meet the Consultant’ & other

networking events   LinkedIn Groups & other social media

participation   Direct mail, emails, or sales calls to

suppliers or customers of your existing industries

  YouTube videos of buildings or land   Direct mail – spec buildings, nearby related

industries, etc.   Press releases of industry location or

expansion announcements to related print or online sources

- Site Selectors - Industry Reps - Niche Industries

And  make  sure  your  process  is  smooth  and  materials  are  

ready!!  

TARGETED MESSAGES   We are here to help you succeed and

grow   We want to tell you about programs

and resources available for your business from us, the state, and other sources

  We want to be your main contact and advocate for any issue you are facing that is holding you back from success and either help you resolve it or point you to resources that can help

Existing Industries

QUALITY AND FREQUENCY OF MESSAGE DELIVERY   Regular personal meetings, calls or

emails   Host one or more annual recognition

or social events to build relationships   E-newsletters to share news and

resources   Annual survey and report – their

perception of community, your assistance, local resources such as education, workforce readiness, etc.

  Responsiveness!!

Existing Industries

TARGETED MESSAGES   Population demographics that meet their

targets   Recent boom of development means they

should look at your community   Retail Opportunity Gap data   Outshopping information   Steady or significant increase in incomes

or population over past 5-10 years   Factors that don’t show up in

demographics such as nearby college populations, tourism traffic/spending etc.

Retailers Developers

QUALITY AND FREQUENCY OF MESSAGE DELIVERY   Materials that convey key selling points   Networking at ICSC and other retail

events   Work through your developers   Direct mail, LinkedIn groups, social media   Ensure your process of responding to

inquiries and supporting all phases of retail development is responsive and smooth – this encourages developers to keep choosing your community for development because you are easy to work with (assuming their other developments are successful).

Retailers Developers

TARGETED MESSAGES   What’s new, what are we working on, what

are some recent successes   We are bringing jobs, money, and new

residents to our community which helps us all

  We want to work with you to support your initiatives however we can within our mission

  We need your help and expertise on a specific issue to ensure this project’s success

  We appreciate your partnership with us

Stakeholders & Partners: City, County, Utility, Tourism, Chamber, Legislators etc.

QUALITY AND FREQUENCY OF MESSAGE DELIVERY   Networking   E-newsletters   Annual reports   Show up in support of their key initiatives   Recognize partnerships and assistance

publicly whenever possible   Be trustworthy, responsive, and

appreciative   Regular meetings to update on your

activities and learn about other’s activities   Host one or more annual recognition or

social events to build relationships

Stakeholders & Partners: City, County, Utility, Tourism, Chamber, Legislators etc.

Other Marketing Initiatives and support materials:

  Site or Building Marketing: brochures, binders, microsites, direct mail, online listings, etc.

  Industry Recruitment materials – flyers, rack cards,

  Community Print Ads – Business Alabama, SKY Magazine, Site Selection Magazine

Consider building a separate microsite for key sites or programs

  Smaller website focused on a single topic with more in-depth data and information

  Typically associated with other marketing materials that promote the site

Download this presentation at www.slideshare.net/ellendid4

Please connect with me! www.RedSageOnline.com

twitter.com/ellendidier twitter.com/RedSageAL

facebook.com/redsage linkedin.com/in/ellendidier