The most important element of your economic development website – Part 1

New research identifies what economic developers should prioritize when promoting their location to investors and site selectors, and it might not be what you think.

In the first of our 5-part series discussing the most important element of your economic development website, we dig into a white paper recently released by Lead Monitor titled The impact of Covid-19 on foreign direct investment: How do you attract investors in 2021?

To better understand the current pain points and obstacles in foreign direct investment (FDI), Lead Monitor interviewed 24 people from investment attraction organizations representing countries, regions and cities across the world. A key question Lead Monitor asked was What do you find most difficult about promoting your particular location?

Interestingly, 3 of the top 5 responses related to marketing, and more specifically, the failure to successfully promote a location’s strengths, assets and opportunities to the world:

1. Not a well-known location
2. Negative or out-of-date image associated with the location
3. Not a clear unique selling proposition (USP) or compelling message

If your economic development organization has a FDI or business attraction focus and these challenges resonate with you, then keep reading as these items can be addressed by improved marketing. But what does this require? What are the essential steps in successfully marketing your location advantages? Let's dig into it and get some answers.

Start with the basics. 

The 2020 edition of Development Counsellors International’s (DCI) renowned Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing identified the internet and websites as the most-effective marketing channel when targeting location advisors and corporate executives with site selection responsibilities.

Furthermore, DCI found the importance of having a well-designed online presence is increasing with 77% of location advisors and corporate executives likely to visit an economic development organization’s website during their next site-location search. Put simply, this makes your economic development website the foundation for marketing your location effectively to the world.

"More than ever, given the rise in remote work and previous restrictions on travel, an economic development organization’s website is the first introduction to a location being considered for investment."

Development Counsellors International’s Winning Strategies 2020 Edition

A site selector lands on your website. What’s next? 

Research has found that the internet is catering to shorter attention spans and you typically only have 8 seconds to engage a person and keep them from leaving your website. When a corporate executive or location advisor lands on your website, the immediate priority is to build their awareness of your location by presenting a positive image and a clear USP in the “Why Us” or “Our Advantages” section of your website.

Hint: An upcoming article in this series will explain how to create a best-practice “Why Us” section in your website.

Nail the basics first. The details come later.

At this point I want to stress the importance of sparking curiosity and encouraging engagement as soon as people land on your website. Fail to achieve this and there's a good chance the visitor will quickly lose interest and leave without reviewing the all the amazing information and data you’ve gone to so much effort and expense to include in your website. This will also result in your website having a poor return on investment (ROI).

So, the message here is to nail your elevator pitch and make it the first thing people see on your economic development website. As best practice, you should also leverage the pitch in other forms of digital and print advertising to build awareness about your location and drive people to your website. These are the basic first steps in promoting your location, nurturing leads and closing more job-generating deals.

What happens next?

Once you have attracted the attention of a corporate executive or location advisor and your location is on their short list, the focus then shifts to nurturing the relationship and assisting them with increasingly detailed data about incentives, demographics, workforce, available sites and so on.

Part 2 of the series

In part 2 of this series, we introduce the Marketing & Business Development Funnel which is a valuable model for economic developers to build awareness about their location, nurture engagement with location advisors and corporate executives and close more deals.

I hope you found this article interesting. Please reach out to me directly at dave@localintel.co if you would like to discuss it further. 

References

Development Counsellors International, Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing 2020 Edition.

Lead Monitor, The impact of Covid-19 on foreign direct investment: How do you attract investors in 2021?