There's no doubt that regional or 'place' Investment Prospectuses are currently seen as essential promotional assets by many economic development and investment promotion agencies. In principle, I agree. But, there's a but...
Because while they often contain well-researched, valuable location data, Investment Prospectuses are, from an inward investment marketing perspective, often missed opportunities. To explain why, and so we can consider how to make them more effective, we'll begin with an overview of what they are, and the information they typically present.
What is an Investment Prospectus for a region or place?
Regional or place Investment Prospectuses are typically single documents (e.g. PDFs or printed brochures) of around 30 to 40 pages. They're intended to position individual investment opportunities within a strategic regional context, which makes sense. They're also typically a compendium of all the region's major investment opportunities - a 'single, unified prospectus', to quote one of them - the rationale for which, I will argue, is less convincing.
What information do regional or place Investment Prospectuses usually contain?
As 'single, unified' documents, regional Investment Prospectuses often include, well, everything: the region's vision for development and growth; its distinctive contribution to the national economy; an inventory of the area's infrastructure assets; profiles of multiple, often diverse industry sectors (e.g. ranging from creative to defence); multiple property investment and development opportunities (e.g. ranging from city centre regeneration to housing and industrial sites); and site / property solutions for investing 'end user' businesses in various sectors. Which raises the question: Who, exactly, are they for?
How can regional Investment Prospectuses respond to the needs of specific investor audiences?
Effective, strategic inward investment marketing starts with an understanding of the needs of specific types of investors - i.e. segments - and how a regional or site proposition can satisfy them. This enables targeted (segmented) marketing activities - providing investors with the information they need, and not bothering them with information they don't want.
Regional Investment Prospectuses achieve this with varying degrees of success. Some focus solely on property investment and development opportunities, targeting related and generally relevant audiences including institutional investors, property developers, and supporting government bodies (i.e. potential sources of public sector support and funding).
From an audience targeting perspective, it's much worse when a 'single, unified' Investment Prospectus also includes sector propositions, site and property solutions for 'end user' investors - i.e. companies in priority sectors. When this happens, investors of all types are presented with endless pages of 'investment opportunities' that are of no relevance to them. For example, an advanced manufacturing company seeking evidence of sector-specific benefits (workforce, R&D, etc.), and a suitable industrial unit, might be presented with page after page of regeneration and housing development 'opportunities'.
But even if the document is limited to property investment and development, the case for 'a single, unified prospectus' is far from clear. Property investors and developers often specialise in particular asset classes (e.g. residential, office, or industrial), and less 'unified' marketing materials make it much easier to target them with relevant information and data. The same applies to 'end-user' businesses in unrelated sectors - creative businesses won't want to wade through pages of industrial site profiles.
How can economic development and investment promotion agencies create more useful, investor-focused Investment Prospectuses?
Here are a few ideas for consideration:
1. A single repository of 'Investment Opportunity' profiles (and supporting regional data) can be a highly valuable asset for your economic development or investment promotion agency. However, this doesn't mean that any specific investor, or investor segment (property-related or 'end-user'), should be presented with all of them in the same place, at the same time.
2. More flexible, adaptable formats - for example, a Master Slide Deck of investment opportunities, segmented and selectable for specific target audiences (as well as supporting regional information for use where relevant), can support more targeted inward investment marketing, and enable you to engage both property and end-user investors with the information they really want.
3. Segmenting the investment opportunities you present in your marketing content and materials is also great for SEO, AI-SEO and inbound marketing (i.e. attracting investors online). There is no prospective investor out there who's searching for both an industrial business location and a housing development opportunity, so a 'single, unified' document plays havoc with your SEO and AI-SEO.
4. Flexible slide-deck formats such as Canva, instead of 'locked' PDF documents (as typically supplied by creative marketing agencies) can now combine high-quality design with editability and versatility - which we think is important, because location information and data is constantly changing. This puts you - rather than the supplier of your marketing materials - in control, enables agile marketing, and saves you money.
To conclude, the idea of a 'single, unified' Investment Prospectus might sound like a great idea. But if we put our investor audiences first, there's a clear case for developing a resource that's more flexible and adaptable to their very diverse needs.
Contact Clarity to talk about developing a versatile, editable Investment Prospectus for your region or place.
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