Every location has its inherent strengths and those that have developed over a period of time. For example, a particular place may be endowed with a lake, hills, forest, beach etc. while another may have developed an industrial cluster,a university, a theme park etc. On the other hand, its possible that a location may be in the news or may be synonymous with some unpleasant incident, poor infrastructure, local culture etc. Either ways, one relies on word of mouth to pass on the advantages or limitations of a particular place and create an image about the location.
The impact created by the image of a location on its economy, people and its future is tremendous. A well developed and communicated image about a location has a direct benefit in numerous ways and some of the tangible ones may include getting more investment, generating employment, more incoming students, increased tourism, increase in real estate prices. Economic development agencies in developed countries are smart to understand this and are proactive in promoting strengths of the particular location. Like any other marketing exercise, the aim of this activity is to reinforce the positive characteristics of the location and minimize its not so positive features. Its quite likely that not undertaking any location promotion activity will lead to a fragmented message or one that does not truly leverage the distinct advantages that a location can offer. This particularly, is a no win situation and clearly avoidable.
So what are the key ingredients of a successful location promotion plan?
1. Creating a value proposition: Which is the one statement that is distinct and defines your location? It may be about what people already know about or its natural resources or its culture, people or anything else. The key is to develop a proposition which is honest and truly reflects the place. Remember, a location may also have a bit of everything but its important to be crisp and highlight the most appealing features.
2. Communicating: How do you wish to communicate about your location? A simple way to get started is to have a website or a fan page which is regularly maintained and updated. In terms of its look and feel, it should be attractive and not overloaded with tons of information. It should highlight the location and not promote private interests. In terms of the information, it should synergise with the value proposition about the location, contain pictures, videos and be well organised. Social media could be effectively used following these principles and offline avenues could also be used. People play an important role in being ambassadors of a place and should use every opportunity to talk about the place. Again, the message should be uniform, brief and well articulated.
3. Services and people: When one visits the website or a social media group or a fan page, one may need some additional information about the location pertaining to his own self. This could be about realty prices, cost of living, connectivity to the location, best time to visit, weather, business and employment opportunities etc. An organisation dedicated for this purpose is required to handle these queries and its people would need to be trained and aligned to the vision. This is the first contact that a person may have with someone representing the place so its very important that one is prompt, courteous and comprehensive in one's response.
4. Promotion: While one may have inbound inquiries about the location, a proactive approach would result in running this campaign in a more professional and organised fashion. A combination of online and offline efforts would yield the desired results. Online efforts could include contributing to relevant blogs, forums, videos etc. while offline activities, depending on the budget, could include participating in trade and consumer events, investor targeting for attracting investments, organising business visits or trade fairs, sponsorships etc. Conducting these activities consistently would yield results in the medium to long term.
Location marketing is not a new phenomenon and its done in a organised manner in most developed countries. While increased competition and rising expectations of people have led to such activities at the region and city level, this would get more aggressive and fine tuned in the future. Local governments would be under pressure to generate jobs and better quality of life and therefore, developing a location promotion strategy is just a matter of time.
