Using Automated Marketing to stand out in Economic Development

For some reason, most Economic Development organizations tend to do what everyone else is doing. It seems like they look around to see who's landing deals and then try to do the same thing.

Same website, same ads, same everything. Even same target sectors. Ugh.

If you're doing the same thing as everyone else, what makes you stand out?

There are wonderful communities all across the US but everyone has land, people, and incentives (though, granted, some have way more). You need a way to stand out from the crowd, not blend in.

If you want to stop playing it safe and operating like all of your competitors you need to behave like a for-profit business.

The successful ones aren't mimicking everyone else, they're working hard to do things differently.

Relocating a business is a big, scary decision and prospects are almost always going to go the route of less perceived risk (who wouldn't?). You need to lessen that perceived risk.

There's no better way to stand out than for your prospects to feel like they have a more personal relationship with you – that you understand them, are communicating with them instead of talking at them, and know that their best interests are in your best interests.

That's where marketing automation comes in. Many have the mistaken impression that automated marketing is like stalking, or that it makes your interactions less personal and more robotic. Nothing can be further from the truth - unless you're doing it wrong.

Marketing automation systems actually allow you to have more personal communications with your prospects, and therefore develop a more personal connection.

How, you ask? A few examples include:

• You're able to customize your website content to the visitor.
• Because you understand where prospects are in the sales cycle, you know what information they need and can deliver it at the right time.
• Your understanding of the prospect allows you to better reach out personally in old school ways. Old school is so rare now that it seems revolutionary.
• You can be alerted if an important prospect returns to your website or even visits a certain page. Knowing that they're still interested helps cue you to keep communicating. If they don't return, that can also be a cue to back off a bit.

If you still think it's creepy, think about it in relation to shopping. Many large department stores offer personal shoppers for their customers. Busy customers love it because the personal shopper knows what they like and don't like, which saves them time because they're not having to find things themselves. They don't feel stalked, they feel helped.

Do they know that the store is trying to sell them something? Of course! Do they care? No. Because they're being helped.

Putting it in online terms, do you feel stalked when you visit Amazon and recommendations display based on what you bought previously? I doubt it. That's how you find interesting things you may not have known about earlier.

So, stop think about automated marketing as stalking and start thinking about it as personalizing communications to help people find what they need when they need it.

They'll appreciate it and they'll remember you. And you may just land the deal.