Four Simple Steps for Developing a More Effective Marketing and Attraction Program

Make the most of your website to attract private investment to your community.

While the days of walking industry trade show floors and cold calling businesses to inquire about their plans for expansion and interest in specific locations aren’t over; targeted digital marketing, website business visitation identification, landing page attraction, and direct outreach to develop an investment lead generation pipeline are growing quickly. Over the last nine months, Camoin has been tracking and comparing traditional lead generation (cold calling a list of targeted companies) with a newly developed process. This process combines targeted digital marketing, business website visitor identification, and direct outreach to these visitors. Based on our data, utilizing your website as part of a “warm” lead generation campaign is 70% more effective than a traditional cold calling campaign!

For years, DCI, through its annual survey findings presentation has been telling us that a growing number of businesses and site selectors are using EDO websites to gather information for initiating a site selection process. In most cases, communities aren’t even aware they are being considered unless they eventually made the shortlist. But what if you were aware of those inquiries far earlier in the selection process and what if you could reach out to their decision makers the moment they began gathering information about your community/region?

This is the question that a growing number of EDOs are asking, and here is the four-step marketing process we have seen emerge over the last year:

1. Drive Target Industry Businesses to Your Website – Our data seems clear (and logical) that there is a direct correlation between how many outside businesses visit our client’s (EDO’s) website and their ability to attract new private investment. So, your ability to create awareness and drive the right traffic to your website is the first step. To do that effectively you need to know the industries you want to target. When using email lists, LinkedIn, and other social media and digital marketing tools; you want to use a rifle, not a shotgun, approach. That is, you want to direct your limited marketing resources to the businesses that are most likely to find your community/region a competitive location. See a prior Navigator article that explains how to use LinkedIn to create a digital marketing campaign to drive traffic to your website. And if you already experienced a pattern of businesses inquiring from specific geographies, tailoring a campaign that is industry and geographically targeted allows you an even greater focus.
2. Create Website Landing Pages – Depending on need, your website visitors are looking for different information. Those using your website as part of a site selection process are looking for available space, workforce, and incentive information to name a few. Create pages specific to these topics and tailored to their needs, making them easy to find and navigate. These pages are the key to step 3.
3. Utilize Website Business Identification Software – Examining statistics about your website traffic is one thing. Knowing what companies are paying you a visit is another. You need to know the companies that are biting on your marketing initiatives, and if they are in your target industry, target geography, and have spent time on your landing pages. These are the companies you want to zero in on. A rule of caution though; company, industry and contact information provided by website visitor identification software such as Lead Forensics, Kickfire, etc. are not particularly accurate. But wait!! If you can read through to the end of this article, we have a self-promoting solution for addressing those shortfalls!!
4. Call the C-suite decision-makers of your top website visitor prospects – While these individuals may not have been the actual visitor, they will be aware of corporate expansion plans. Again, due to accuracy and availability, researching C-suite contact names, numbers, and email addresses and then making calls can be very time consuming. But the idea is that you are investing that time on “warm” leads verse “cold calling”. Emailing them can be efficient if you have a lot of companies you are pursuing, but calling is more effective at reaching decision makers. Furthermore, it takes the right approach to get through gatekeepers and through to a busy corporate leader. Stay tuned for a future Navigator article on effective calling techniques.

Identifying and reaching out to your website visitors that are indicating interest through their behavior on your website has proven to be a more effective lead generation approach. If you don’t already have a marketing program in place to drive target businesses to your website, consider using LinkedIn or other methods to create awareness and to identify potential “warm” leads through website business ID software. Once you do, be prepared to spend time gathering more accurate company and contact information, as well as sending emails and/or making calls.

Now for some shameless self promotion

For those who want to explore our self-prospecting tool (ProspectEngage) which combines website business identification, visitation behavior, and lead strength scoring, as well as more accurate company and contact information of your business visitors, please visit https://www.camoinassociates.com/services/business-attraction-retention/prospect-engage/.

ProspectEngage tailors a dashboard to identify “warm” leads based on your marketing strategy and provides the intelligence you need to better measure your marketing initiative results.

Image Source: Unsplash, Andrew Neel, https://unsplash.com/photos/QLqNalPe0RA