By Elizabeth Johnson
EDCUtah Marketing & Events Manager

One of our favorite sayings here at EDCUtah is R&D meaning "Rip off and Deploy.” We’re always learning from other organizations and implementing what works for us.

R&D is a two-way street and we are happy to share our successes and lessons learned with others. In this context, I recently had an opportunity to broker some R&D opportunities of our marketing program with others in our industry.  

The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) is a professional membership organization serving economic developers across the globe. IEDC provides training, webinars, publications, and conferences for economic developers to further develop their skills and learn from each other.

I was asked to present at one of IEDC’s webinars this week –“Extreme Makeover, #EconDev Edition.” The webinar focused on marketing and storytelling best practices. I was one of three presenters who shared our marketing journey and the lessons we have learned along the way. While I was there to highlight our approach, I learned from others in the process.

A couple of key takeaways from the webinar:

1.    Be authentic to your community when building your brand through web sites, social media, brochures, and presentations. Your brand is how you represent yourself to potential clients, so it should be reflective of what you are selling and true to your community’s assets.

2.    Be consistent. While you may need to make minor changes to how you use and implement your brand, the overall feel and tone needs to remain the same.

3.    You don’t have to do everything overnight; in fact, you shouldn’t try to. Start by building the brand and crafting the narrative. Then you can strategically implement based on your budget, bandwidth, and capabilities. Think through what matters most to you and your mission.

4.    Find what works for you and run with it. All the panelists have a formula for what works for their team and mission. At EDCUtah, it’s informative original content and sharing stories from our investors. For the other panelists, it was community-specific videos. We all found what works and we are focus on doing that to the best of our abilities.

To recap, one of the most important principles of the branding process is Socratic in nature: “Know thyself.” EDCUtah’s Development Ready Communities training program is a structured approach that starts with a community assessment. Knowing your community’s strengths and weaknesses is a critical first step in conveying in an effective manner why companies should consider your community for future expansion. More here.

And full disclosure: We may have borrowed the “Rip off and Deploy” phrase from the Dallas Regional Chamber.

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