This document discusses community branding and how to leverage branding to attract talent and businesses. It defines what a brand is and explains why branding is important for economic development. It provides tips on how to structure a successful branding process, including gathering input from local stakeholders and site selectors, developing a positioning statement, concepting creative concepts, and leveraging the brand. It also discusses how to engage talent both internally and externally in the branding process.

1. IEDC Marketing & Attraction: Branding Your Community & Engaging Talent

3. 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

4. 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.

5. What is a place (product) brand? The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make a development, city, state, or region unique.

6. What is an organizational (service) brand? The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible, that make an organization, and its service offering, unique.

7. 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.

8. Why the debate is irrelevant Who owns “Educated workforce?”

9. Why the debate is irrelevant “Educated workforce” = Boston, San Francisco

10. Why the debate is irrelevant Who owns “Competitive Business Costs?”

11. Why the debate is irrelevant “Competitive Business Costs” = Alabama, Tennessee, Carolinas, Mumbai

12. Why the debate is irrelevant Who owns “Business Friendly City?”

13. Why the debate is irrelevant “Business Friendly City” = Charlotte, Nashville

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

15. Sample process that companies and site selectors go through

16. How site selectors say they like to experience brands

17. In the Future: Through Social Media It is a channel for people to discover, read, and share information about your community. It can foster “many to many” dialogues about the most important issues and assets in your community. It can transform your board members, community advocates, and ordinary citizens into marketers (or critics) It facilitates relationships around information, issues, and assets in your community quickly, transparently, and flexibly.

18. How to structure a successful branding effort Input from local stakeholders Interviews with national site selectors/companies Positioning your community Creative concepting Execution Leveraging the brand

19. Input from stakeholders 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?

20. Test findings with site selectors 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?

21. Writing a positioning statement for ED 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)

22. Three keys to outstanding positioning Relevant True Different

23. Omaha positioning Cost effective location Heritage of business success: 5 Fortune 500 Company HQ A city on the rise: $2 billion invested in downtown

24. Concepting

25. Concepting

26. Concepting

27. Concepting

28. Tucson, AZ positioning Cost effective, multilingual workforce Specific strengths in aerospace, optics, and light manufacturing Moderate 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.

29. Tucson concepting

30. Tucson concepting

31. Tucson concepting

32. Tucson web

33. Tucson results 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

34. Recap 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.

35. How to Engage Talent in Community Branding

38. Long term view

40. Local freelancers

41. National agencies

43. 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: #iedcand #usvworld By Tuesday at 6:00 PM

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