Inward Investment Marketing: Online Lead Generation Strategies for Success

Wednesday 14 February 2024
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It should be uncontroversial to say that effective internet marketing now belongs at the heart of effective inward investment attraction strategies. Recent market research shows that almost all business location searches now involve online research.1 And the great thing about attracting investing businesses online is that investment leads can effectively be 'self-qualifying': they've found you because your location offer aligns with their needs. Compare and contrast this with the practice of chasing businesses because they have the 'right profile' for your location (e.g. industry sector), but otherwise have no strategic fit or even plans to invest!

But the rise of the internet is a challenge as well as an opportunity. While investing companies (or their advisers) are online searching for the best business location, it's also an increasingly crowded environment in which your location offer could easily get lost. 

Since 2012, when we established Clarity to specialise in inward investment marketing, we've worked on numerous, regional inward investment marketing projects, refined our techniques, and monitored the online strategies pursued by investment promotion agencies (IPAs) and site marketers.

So, here are a few key observations concerning what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to online inward investment lead generation:

1. Highly differentiated inward investment value propositions 

Let's start with that crowded online environment. In any highly competitive marketplace, business success requires effective differentiation - to stand out in the crowd. In our field that means distinctive inward investment value propositions that align specific location strengths, or unique combinations of capabilities, with the identified needs of specific types of businesses. It means avoiding generic sector categories and 'us too' lists of location benefits. However, for successful, online inward investment lead generation, this is just the start of it...

2. Highly optimised online content 

To enable online lead generation, those distinctive value proposition messages must be crafted into highly optimised content that can attract businesses online - by aligning with their search queries - but also engage their interest and establish your inward investment agency's credibility and expertise. Yes, that means the keywords, key phrases and content prioritisation that many of us are familiar with as being central to SEO (search engine optimisation). But it also means accessible content that's entirely focused on our target audience's needs - presenting valuable business location solutions, insights and supporting data. When value proposition messages are diluted by inaccurate, inexpert copywriting, the consequences are likely to be ineffective SEO, reduced IPA credibility, and reduced lead generation potential. 

3. Meticulous attention to segmentation 

We talked about the importance of effective segmentation in a recent Clarity article. In summary (and with specific regard to inward investment marketing) segmentation means grouping particular types of prospective inward investors (e.g. in the same industry sector or business function) as a basis for targeting the right location solutions at them. It's closely associated with distinctive inward investment value propositions and effective content optimisation (SEO). 

But it's also a key area in which investment promotion agency marketing often falls down. The problem is that IPA's typically want to present multiple value propositions (e.g. industry sector offers) on the same website, and often combine them with other types of poorly optimised content (e.g. 'News' releases in which organisations too often 'talk about themselves', not their location solutions for investors). All of this creates 'message pollution' that harms SEO, reduces the value of website content to prospective investors, and ultimately makes it much harder to attract and convert inward investment leads online. 

4. Prioritising inward investment lead generation functionality

It sounds obvious, but generating inward investment leads online means putting lead conversion (i.e. identification) at the heart of your online strategy and the functionality of your website. Compelling value propositions, optimised content, and effective segmentation can attract potential inward investors to your website, but won't tell you who they are, or provide a solid basis for your follow up actions (e.g. contacting them). This requires strategies potentially including optimised 'calls to action' (encouraging them to identify themselves), the effective use of incentives (e.g. information-rich Location Data packs) and data-compliant lead recording functionality (potentially linked to a user-friendly CRM system) to enable structured follow-up. 

It's therefore useful for inward investment professionals to ask themselves: 'is our IPA website optimised for lead generation, or is it just an attractive 'online brochure'?' If it's the latter, you'll almost certainly be missing out on opportunities for inward investment lead generation.

5. Managing partner input and expectations 

It's clear that targeted, optimised, well-segmented online content (notably on IPA websites) is key to generating inward investment leads. But why is this focus so difficult for IPAs to achieve?

In our experience, part of the problem is the intrinsic difficulty of managing marketing campaigns involving multiple regional stakeholders and partners. Even when a projects starts out with a focus on the very best, differentiated value propositions (e.g. industry sector offers) and tightly focused messages, pressure from stakeholders can lead to the inclusion of yet another 'key sector' (that isn't really 'key') or another location USP (that isn't really unique). All of this reduces differentiation, dilutes the offer, and makes investor attraction and lead generation harder. 

These can be difficult battles to win, but IPA teams should make the case for doing the right thing from a marketing perspective, rather than trying to please all the partners all the time - an impossible task anyway! 

6. Keep on publishing and sharing your location benefits online

There's a common misconception that a website is 'finished' when the developer hands it over to the client - in our case the investment promotion agency or site marketer. But this is to think of the website as something static and unchanging - the 'online brochure' we referred to above. And it's a way of thinking that fails to recognise the website's true potential for inward investment lead generation. 

Instead, we should think of our websites as dynamic publishing platforms that we can use to continually communicate our location solutions to targeted audiences. Continual website publishing (e.g. via News/Blog feeds) boosts SEO and therefore enables investor attraction. It also enables us to 'nurture' investor and intermediary relationships by sharing that content with (e.g.) targeted LinkedIn connections or email subscribers. And if we attract and engage more of our target audience, it follows that we should be able to convert more inward investment leads too!

Lead generation - the key objective of inward investment marketing

Generating inward investment leads online isn't easy. As well as requiring optimised messages, platforms and communication strategies, it's likely to require the effective management of broad-ranging regional partnerships with diverse interests and objectives. But it's worth the effort, because investing businesses are online, researching locations, and ready to be attracted by IPAs and site marketers with the right location offers for them. And, quite simply, it can mean the difference between achieving what should be the key objective of inward investment marketing - attracting inward investors - or achieving very little at all. 

Contact Clarity to talk about more effective online inward investment lead generation strategies.

Author:


Nick Smillie
Managing Director & Senior Consultant

Sources:

[1] GIS Planning, FT Group


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Inward Investment Value Propositions. What Are They? What Aren't They? And What Makes a Good One?

Tuesday 16 January 2024
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Almost everyone working in the field of inward investment promotion will be familiar with inward investment value propositions. But what are they? And what aren't they? And what makes a good one?

'Value proposition' is a marketing concept that can apply to any kind of 'product' (including a business location). By one definition it's a concise statement presenting an organisation's unique promise of value to its customers. How does this 'product' deliver benefits that others don't?

But for some reason, in the field of inward investment promotion, we repeatedly see marketing messages (e.g. in websites or brochures) that are clearly intended to promise value for investors, but somehow miss the mark.

A recurring example is a certain kind of headline economic statistic. For example:

'Our region has GVA of X billion (£$€)', or 'a workforce of X million'.

(I've just randomly checked two major UK city inward investment websites. Both lead with statistics of this sort).

Messages like these present economic data but not value for investing businesses. Because they fail to answer essential, investor-focused questions:

So what? What's in it for our business?

(Often, they lack the essential context required to make them meaningful at all. Is X billion (£$€) GVA impressive anyway? How does it compare with competitor regions?)

We can understand the problem here by thinking of the prospective inward investor like any other kind of customer - a shopper, say. Which is exactly what they are - shopping around to find the ideal location and site. When I visit Marks and Spencer, I'm really not bothered about the company's turnover. I'm searching for a stylish cardigan that's just right for me!

And when a retailer wants to sell more cardigans they don't tell their customers about their impressive knitwear sales volumes. They identify their target audience segment (let's say 'well-seasoned gentlemen'), identify their needs, and communicate distinctive product benefits that align with them: e.g. 'comfort and style at a great price!'. That's their value proposition.

So why do inward investment marketing messages that try to promise value so often fail?

Here's an attempt at an explanation:

It's generally (and correctly) understood that businesses are likely to make investment decisions (including location and site selection) based on reliable data. So it follows that we should provide them with data about our location. And where do we source those data from? Often the same researchers/analysts who provide us with regional economic data for purposes including local government planning - providing a picture of what our economy looks like.

The problem is that investing business are unlikely to select your location and industry sector because the regional data looks good. They want to know the specific benefits for a business like theirs.

Understanding your region's economic profile is an essential baseline. But this shouldn't be the starting point for inward investment value proposition development. Instead, the starting point should be understanding the customer's (i.e. the prospective investor's) needs and drivers: the current trends influencing investment in their industry sector; the specific combination of factors (and their prioritisation) likely to determine their location choice. Only then can the right location data be identifed and presented to respond to those needs. 

The clue's in the statement at the top of this post: 'value proposition' is a marketing concept. So why would value proposition development be left to data analysts? 

To be absolutely clear: the data analyst's input is essential - they're a vital and highly skilled part of the team. But, in the case of inward investment value proposition development, their skills must be combined with other types of expertise: the industry sector knowledge (commercial, technological, etc.) required to understand business investment drivers, and the marketing (and 'sales') knowledge required to formulate value proposition messages that really hit the mark.

And the problem highlighted here isn't only about over-reliance on data analysts. It's just as bad when the job's left to non-specialist marketers and copywriters. In these cases, everything's 'excellent' and 'world-class', with none of the supporting evidence that a well-directed data analyst can provide!

The takeaway is that inward investment value proposition development requires a specialised combination of expertise: research and analysis; marketing and sales; business, commercial, industry sector, location and site knowledge. Credibility, and therefore effective investor attraction and engagement, depend on it. But fundamentally it's a marketing exercise, and it starts with understanding our 'customers' - targeted investing businesses.

Contact Clarity to talk about developing compelling inward investment value propositions for your location and industry sectors.

Author:


Nick Smillie

Managing Director & Senior Consultant



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Inward Investment Marketing Insights and Key Trends at the End of 2023

Sunday 17 December 2023
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Here’s Clarity’s inward investment marketing wrap up for the end of 2023, in which we take a look at:

  • A ‘hybrid working’ future: the opportunities for inward investment and place marketers
  • AI, technology, and getting the inward investment marketing basics right
  • Attracting inward investment in a tough economic climate
  • Clarity’s Inward Investment Marketing Word of the Year, 2023

A ‘hybrid working’ future: opportunities for inward investment and place marketers

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Online Inward Investment Attraction Has Come of Age. So How Can Business Location Marketers Seize the Opportunity?

Thursday 22 April 2021
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For several years, internet marketing has been part of the inward investment promotion toolkit. But now, through developments in internet technologies, platforms, and marketing techniques, as well as the ways we do business, online inward investment lead generation has truly come of age. Here's why, and how Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) and site marketing teams can seize the opportunity to attract more investing businesses online.
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Place Marketing Isn’t Magic. The Basic Principles of Effective Marketing Still Apply.

Tuesday 26 January 2021
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Place is the word…

In the world of economic development, there’s no doubt that ‘Place’ has been the word of the last few years. It's now quite common for local authorities to have Place directorates, and an entire vocabulary of related words has evolved, like 'placemaking' and even 'placeness'.

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Inward Investment Attraction in Times of Great Uncertainty - Thoughts on What City, Town & Regional Agencies Need To Do...

Wednesday 4 November 2020
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During this period of great economic uncertainty, it's not surprising that those of us working in economic development and inward investment promotion sometimes feel like rabbits caught in the headlights - shocked and unsure of which way to turn.
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Time-Lapsed? Why Industrial & Logistics Sites Need Better Internet Marketing Strategies for the New Online Business Era

Wednesday 14 October 2020
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One major consequence of coronavirus has been the urgent reassessment of well-established business practices. Most obviously, many more activities have moved online, including customer interactions. This has brought about revolutionary change in the ways businesses use technology, with many gaining an edge on their competitors by adapting at impressive speed. On the other hand, companies that don't move with the times are likely to lose out.

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Place Marketing in the New Era of 'Hybrid Working' - Identifying Opportunities for Provincial Towns, Cities and Regions After Coronavirus

Wednesday 23 September 2020
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For a long time now, the big cities have looked like the winners in the economic development stakes - especially those with strengths in service and technology sectors. And an important reason for this has been agglomeration, or industry clustering.
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Data-Driven Inward Investment Marketing (2): How 'Total Cost' Data Can Reveal Your Location's Real Advantages

Wednesday 12 September 2018
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Using data in Inward Investment Marketing is all about providing investing companies with solid evidence of your advantages as a business location (including versus competitors).

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Developing Outstanding Inward Investment Value Propositions: 5 Key Principles for Success...

Tuesday 11 September 2018
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Perhaps the most basic challenge facing Investment Promotion Agencies is this: how to make their business location stand out from all the other locations that investing businesses could choose instead.

That's why effective location differentiation is essential, and why Value Proposition research and development should be the starting point for every Investment Promotion Agency's marketing and sales activities (and all their other activities for that matter!).

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GDPR and Inward Investment / FDI Marketing: A Disaster or an Opportunity?

Thursday 31 May 2018
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Today is GDPR Day +6, and there's little doubt that inward investment marketers across Europe will, by now, be nursing seriously depleted email marketing lists. The problem, of course, is that the new regulation requires contacts actively to opt in to receive emails; the old approach of adding contacts to lists and hoping they won't unsubscribe is no longer OK.

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Data-Driven Inward Investment Marketing (1): Using Labour Market Data to Land Inward Investments

Wednesday 7 February 2018
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As every inward investment professional knows, an effective value proposition - for your location, sector or site - is key to attracting expanding businesses. In turn, that proposition must be supported by high-quality location data, addressing all the factors that influence business location choices - from taxation rates to property costs.

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Why Inward Investment Agencies Need Effective Content Marketing Strategies...

Friday 12 January 2018
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As a specialist Inward Investment Marketing company, we like to keep an eye on how Investment Promotion Agencies are marketing their countries, states or regions to expanding businesses, with a particular focus on their online strategies and activities.


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Inward Investment: Is Your Location Data Up to Date? (And Why It Really Should Be...)

Sunday 7 January 2018
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Inward investment marketing is all about communicating data - facts and statistics - about your location to targeted investing companies, with the aim of attracting them to you. But - you may have noticed that out-of-date data is a common feature of inward investment marketing content. So, here are six key points to consider when updating your location data, starting with why it's so important to keep it current in the first place...


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Inward Investment: On Priority Sectors and Your Location's Economic Development Needs

Tuesday 8 November 2016
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In this blog, we’ve often written about the importance of effective value propositions in inward investment promotion – aligning your location benefits with the identified needs of investing businesses. But there’s another alignment that’s equally important – the one between the priority sectors you promote through your inward investment marketing and your location’s identified economic development needs.

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How to Generate Inward Investment Leads (or: 'Beware Men Bearing Lists')

Tuesday 18 October 2016
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When we discuss inward investment marketing with our clients, we talk about a strategic process. It involves developing value propositions, identifying target audiences, building networks, building location profile, nurturing relationships (with intermediaries and expanding companies) and, of course, generating investment leads.

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Inward Investment in 2017: Generating Leads Online with Applied Value Propositions

Saturday 10 September 2016
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As Inward Investment Marketing specialists, a lot of our time is focused on developing data-supported value propositions for locations and sectors - i.e. researching, identifying and presenting the unique value they offer to investing companies. That's exactly as it should be - effective value propositions are at the heart of effective inward investment attraction.

But once a compelling value proposition has been developed, how should it be used to do what investment promotion agencies and site marketers need to do: generate investment leads and land inward investments? And, specifically, how should it be used online, where investing businesses and consultants are likely to be researching potential business locations?

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Post-Brexit UK Inward Investment: Key Strategies for Challenging Times

Wednesday 7 September 2016
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I had an interesting conversation a couple of weeks ago with a contact at a UK marketing data company. Comparing 'post Brexit-vote' notes, it transpired that we'd both seen an increase in enquiries for economic and demographic data from UK organisations seeking to influence business location and site selection - and attract inward investment.

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Brexit: What UK Inward Investment Agencies Should Do Now

Thursday 30 June 2016
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In the week since the EU referendum result, I've spoken with several UK investment promotion agencies and businesses, and heard the full range of post-Brexit concerns. Extreme economic and political uncertainty is putting business investment plans on hold. Companies are concerned about EU market access, retaining EU national workers (at both the 'knowledge' and lower skilled ends of the scale) and their places in supply chains that cut across EU national borders.

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Inward Investment: Are Your Region's 'Priority Industry Sectors' Really All Your Priorities?

Tuesday 21 June 2016
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It's standard practice for regional Investment Promotion Agencies to focus on priority industry sectors, and with very good reason. In a highly competitive global market for business investment, locations need to focus on their areas of strength and differentiate their offers, to present credible value propositions to investing companies.

But in the case of many (not all) locations, theory and good intentions are as far as this commitment to targeting and differentiation goes. In practice, far too many locations claim - unconvincingly - to specialise in everything, highlighting multiple 'priority sectors' that look much like everywhere else's (the usual sector categories are familiar to all of us: Creative and Digital Industries, Advanced Manufacturing, Biotechnology etc...).

So what's the problem here? And what can regional inward investment agencies do to really differentiate themselves and target their marketing messages?


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