Business Development
Attracting business to a city takes a good deal of networking and salesmanship, which is why so many city officials rely on digital marketing agencies and SEO firms to help promote their city as a good location for business. If your city economy is booming, you want to capitalize on that.
Whatever advantages your town can offer to business owners, promoting those advantages is not easy. It takes a mix of market research, persuasive writing, digital marketing, and SEO knowledge to present the town in the best possible way. A dash of creative thinking and some good visuals help too.
If your city and suburbs are full of opportunities for the self-employed or the IT entrepreneur, you want to make sure that is obvious. If the economy is weak or the market is small, you can overcome those weaknesses with good promotion. Read on to learn more about digital marketing and business development for Texas towns.
Localities usually pursue two economic development strategies at the same time. Attracting new businesses to the area is an ongoing activity. Attracting workers to the town is another approach. These two aspects of economic development are probably obvious, but how to execute each? That can be a difficult question to answer. But knowing what to do is easier than carrying out all of the economic activities.
Do you know which environmental, cultural, economic, and demographic factors are important to business owners? Once you know what to emphasize in your messaging, you can decide how to reach out online and “sell” your town.
Do you know how best to position your town to attract workers, solopreneurs, gig workers, and remote workers? Have you evaluated the economic environment to ensure those individuals get the right marketing messages, and the right amount of attention.
Your city probably has a few advantages at least, pleasant climate, parks, educational opportunities, low crime, and affordable housing, excellent schools. Those features all influence business in various direct and indirect ways. Business owners want access to customers who can buy their goods and services. For many businesses, a relatively well-educated and well-paid population is a must. For some businesses, a high quality of life will help their recruiting. People are more willing to relocate for work if they feel like the town will be a pleasant place to live.
Business development work relies to some degree on being able to find and promote all of those quality factors. If you need some expert help marketing your town and its advantages to business owners, contact us to find out how we can help.
A strong economic base is what every business owner needs, but what that term means can vary greatly. Aside from things like taxes and cost of living, prospective business owners want to know about regulations, employment trends, and wages.
Emphasize the nature of your population if you can. Is the population growing, shrinking, or staying about the same? Is it old or young, well-educated or just average? These variables matter in attracting and retaining businesses in a general way. Learn how to present your locale in the best possible way by writing about the workforce.
The business climate in any locale improves if there are training resources readily available. While online education is popular enough, in-person educational opportunities remain important.
Higher education always makes a location look more attractive to some business owners. Technical and vocational schools may be of most interest to some business owners. Colleges and universities that turn out engineers, computer scientists, or finance and accounting students may be of interest to others. The educational courses of study alone are only the most obvious opportunities to promote. If there is a college or university in the county or otherwise close by, this fact needs to be promoted widely.
Is there a business development center affiliated with a local school or the Small Business Administration? Business development organizations that focus on helping business owners from disadvantaged groups may be helpful. Many women, Black, and veteran entrepreneurs have benefited from coaching and funding from various government and volunteer programs.
The real secret to promoting your town is just a systematic digital marketing approach. We specialize in helping city managers and tourism managers make their city and county as attractive as possible for companies and for entrepreneurs. Get in touch to see how we can support your locale’s business development efforts.