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Inward Investment Strategy
Inward investment is not some magical tap that can be turned on and off. Nor is it something that can be achieved simply by throwing lots of money at it (although plenty of locations still try ). Whether you are a small market town in an English shire or a major global financial centre, you need a clear strategy and a plan of action.
We passionately believe that no two places are the same and that each location has its own particular solutions for attracting inward investment. Each piece of work is unique and individually tailored to the specific characteristics and nuances of your place.
We pride ourselves on producing strategies that deliver a real and measurable improvement in results. We’ll be happy to share our client success stories with you.
Place Marketing
We help locations avoid the ‘Invest in Anywhere’ syndrome, the condition that results in millions of pounds of wasted marketing every year. Lists of ‘me-too’ location features betray the distinctive character and personality of every place.
We see place marketing, not as an end in itself, but as a tool to win more investment. Whether it is designed to attract more businesses, more students, more shoppers, more house-buyers or more tourists, place marketing is an important aspect of economic development.
Now more than ever, place marketing has to be about return on investment. Understanding your target audiences and being able to demonstrate that your marketing is delivering real value and tangible success is central to our work.
Investor Targeting and Intermediaries
If you could simply buy a list of 'hot leads' off the shelf, why wouldn't you? That’d be nice, but inward investment is not that easy. Lead generation activities are notoriously ineffective and often serve little more purpose than to show questionable outputs such as 'live enquiries' or 'projects in the pipeline'. The reality is that most lead generation work is doomed to failure.
We help clients to create the right message and define the business proposition, which can then be used to target very specific corporate decision-makers within the companies that are most likely to have expansion or relocation plans. We study and track potential inward investors for our clients and identify the best contacts to engage with.
We also believe that a more sustainable and effective way of targeting potential investors is to identify the people that are likely to come into contact with them at an early stage in the decision-making process. Every company has trusted advisors and these are the people that work with potential inward investors on a daily basis. These are your key intermediaries and we help you to identify, contact and cultivate them.
Corporate Site Selection
For any company, choosing the optimum location for your next project is a major decision. We understand the pitfalls of site selection and can help businesses to navigate through the complex maze of conflicting data and marketing hype. We’ve helped some of the world’s biggest companies like Pfizer and Marks & Spencer with site selection and can advise on long-listing and short-listing of locations through to the final deal.
We also do:
- team training, workshops and away-days
- market, sector and company research
- agency evaluations
… and anything else related to the world of inward investment.
Download Our Services Brochure
