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IEDC Marketing & Attraction: Branding Your Community &

Engaging Talent

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Table of contents

What is a brand?

The case for and against community branding

How prospects and site selectors experience brands

• Traditionally• In a Social Media world

How to structure a successful branding process

How to leverage a brand for the largest impact

How to engage talent in branding

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What is a brand?

A trade name: a name given to a product or service A recognizable kind; "there's a new brand of hero in the movies now"; "what make of car is that?" An identification mark on skin, made by burning

The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make something unique.

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What is a place (product) brand?

The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make a development, city, state, or region unique.

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What is an organizational (service) brand?

The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make an organization, and its service offering, unique.

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Why is branding important for economic development?

As the world becomes more competitive at a faster and faster rate, choices for companies get harder. As a result, for one site selector, a brand, or reputation, has become one of “Four Pillars of Community Competitiveness.”

As companies work to locate where workforce is, how your brand attracts and retains workforce is that brand challenge of the next 25 years.

As companies decide who can help them through a site location process, your organization must be seen as a consultative resource to be contacted.

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Why the debate is irrelevant

Who owns “Educated workforce?”

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“Educated workforce” =

Boston, San Francisco

Why the debate is irrelevant

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Who owns “Competitive Business Costs?”

Why the debate is irrelevant

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“Competitive Business Costs” =

Alabama, Tennessee, Carolinas, Mumbai

Why the debate is irrelevant

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Who owns “Business Friendly City?”

Why the debate is irrelevant

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“Business Friendly City” =

Charlotte, Nashville

Why the debate is irrelevant

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How Brands are Experienced by Site Selectors, Prospects, and local companies

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Sample process that companies and site selectors go through

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How site selectors say they like to experience brands

Information Source % Important, 2011

% Important, 2006

Site visits (familiarization tours) 100% 100%Existing relationships with ED officials 95%  88%

Community websites 90% 63%Third party national data sources 90% n/a Past experience with other deals 81% 71%Word of mouth from peers 57% 43%Calls from local officials 48% 29%Existing relationships with local real estate community

38% 29%

National conferences 29% 0%Trade magazines 29% 14%Social Media/Social Networks 24% n/a

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In the Future: Through Social Media 1. It is a channel for people to discover, read, and share

information about your community.

2. It can foster “many to many” dialogues about the most important issues and assets in your community.

3. It can transform your board members, community advocates, and ordinary citizens into marketers (or critics)

4. It facilitates relationships around information, issues, and assets in your community quickly, transparently, and flexibly.

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Input from local stakeholdersInterviews with national site

selectors/companiesPositioning your communityCreative conceptingExecutionLeveraging the brand

How to structure a successful branding effort

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What challenges is your business facing?

What are the key determinants your company used to locate here?

How well does our city meet those criteria today?

If I said that our city was [Insert message] how believable would that be? How appealing?

When you describe the city to other businesses, what do you say?

How well is our organization doing its job?

Input from stakeholders

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What are the key attributes your clients are using to select a location?

What cities do you think of when I mention a certain attribute?

If I said that our city was [Insert message] how believable would that be? How appealing?

Have you ever considered [insert city name] as a location for any of your clients?

When you have had a project that has considered [insert city name], what other cities did you also consider?

Test findings with site selectors

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For (target customers)Who need (primary need)Your city is a (known product category)That provides (key product attributes)Unlike (the alternative)Your city provides (key differentiators)

Writing a positioning statement for ED

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RelevantTrueDifferent

Three keys to outstanding positioning

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Cost effective locationHeritage of business success: 5 Fortune 500 Company HQ

A city on the rise: $2 billion invested in downtown

Omaha positioning

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Concepting

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Concepting

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Concepting

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Concepting

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Cost effective, multilingual workforceSpecific strengths in aerospace, optics, and light manufacturingModerate taxes and business costs, Expedited permitting and incentive process through single economic development entity, with services of city, county, private sector, and incubator all under one roof.

Tucson, AZ positioning

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Tucson concepting

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Tucson concepting

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Tucson concepting

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Tucson web

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Website visits up to 3.5 times the national average

Prospecting activity up significantly= 37 deals totaling 9,200 jobs and $1.4 billion impact over 5 years

Investment in the organization moved from 100% publicly funded to 55% private funding

IEDC Award winning website

Tucson results

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There should be no debate about ED branding – the brands exist and are being used every day.

How to best execute the brand is then the issue

Include your local stakeholders

Learn what you don’t know from a national audience – they will change your campaign remarkably

Concept across a wide swath – places are complex things

Execute in ways that site selectors and prospects value – online and through events.

Recap

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How to Engage Talent in Community Branding

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You must appoint a staff point person who will lead the process

• Internally• With a board or community subcommittee

That person will also become your brand champion after it is developed

Skills needed:• Outstanding communications skills• Long term view• Not necessarily a marketer – but it is a plus.

Engaging Talent – Internal

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Your options for external talent include:• Local agencies• Local freelancers• National agencies• National agencies that specialize in economic development

Engaging Talent – External

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Engaging Talent – External

Pro Con Local Agencies Known quantity, also

often affiliated with boards

Local tax revenue“Buy Local”

May take longer to get up to speed

May feel hamstrung by board relationship

Local freelancers Lower cost, often specialists

Can have limited view or skill set to roll out

campaign

National agencies Larger staff, more capability often, top

talent

May take longer to get up to speed, most costly,

Not in the community

National agencies – ED specialists

Can add value by knowing the industryOften lower cost as

recommendations are more focused

Not in the community

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Put your marketing skills to the test, and serve your country! • Write the best messaging for

the United States for Foreign Direct Investment

• Become our 4th Panelist Tuesday the 20th at 8:00 PM

• Criteria for entry: – Follow @atlasad on Twitter– Be judged as the best by other

panelists– Tweet using the hashtags:

#iedc and #usvworld– By Tuesday at 6:00 PM

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Contact Atlas

Contact information:

2601 Blake Street, Suite 301

Denver, CO 80205

Contact: Ben Wright

t: 303.292.3300 x 210

benw@Atlas-Advertising.com

www.Atlas-Advertising.com

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