Insights from INBOUND24

INBOUND & Georgia Power Economic Development Marketing

ICYDK, Georgia Power’s economic development team provides marketing consulting services for state and local partners called, “Marketing Chats.” That’s why I approached INBOUND24 with a consultant-mindset, asking, “Which tips and tools can have the greatest impact for our economic development partners?”.

INBOUND is a conference where business, marketing, and sales leaders connect and network with a diverse and inclusive community in Boston. Annually, the event is hosted by HubSpot, a cloud-based platform that helps businesses manage their marketing, sales, and customer service.

Many of the economic development organizations (EDOs) we speak with feel overwhelmed by marketing. Don't worry, we understand. With countless specializations, software, and constant algorithm updates, it can be hard to keep up if "SEO" or "Social Media Management" is not your full-time job.

In this recap, I'm keeping it simple, with three focus areas that can have a significant impact on your EDO and community growth:

1. Digital Ads
2. Email
3. Market of 1

Digital Ads

LinkedIn, Meta, and Google all depend on advertising revenue to exist. What that means for the economic development marketer, is that just posting without paying, isn’t enough. Ads are the best chance you have of getting your message in front of your target audience.

Speakers from Google, LinkedIn to keynote speaker, Ryan Reynolds (yup, the actor, but did you know he's the Chief Creative Officer of the advertising-tech company, MNTN?) all highlighted these important tips when creating ads.

Persistent branding is essential.

If you have a brand, use it often. Using your organization’s brand colors, fonts, logos, brand voice, characters/mascots, are all brand tools available to you. Ads that have clear brand recognition perform better than ads that make viewers guess. When putting your brand forward, don’t rely on your colors alone - the logo should be visible within first two seconds on video or GIFS and consistent on static ads.

You can “color outside the lines” of your brand for a campaign but keep the values and promise true. Think of it like this, if you’re an Atlanta United soccer fan, your value and belief in the team is persistent, but how you show your support in the office (ATLUTD logoed polo) may be different than how you present it in the stadium for a game (ATLUTD jersey).

Ads should look like ads.

Some readers are not going to like this, but according to Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Atlassian, there are not strong ties between authenticity and revenue in B2B marketing. Even when people say that they feel better about a brand when it’s authentic, it was difficult to show a correlation between authenticity and transactions/revenue.

Storytelling and Thought Leadership are advertising tools.

Just because it looks like an ad, doesn’t mean it can’t include a story or feature the experts

in your organization. LinkedIn Carousel Ads are a great way to tell a story using a series of images that encouraging swiping to the end.

If you have a team member who is already sharing posts on LinkedIn and doing it well, consider promoting them through Thought Leader Ads. This may be an opportunity to build brand trust and engagement (not revenue) by positioning your organization as a category leader.

Email Marketing

When we are asked if an economic development organization needs to be on TikTok, I always reply with a question, “How is your email strategy working?” While new channels and platforms have their place in our space, one of the most effective strategies is email marketing. Most of the teams we work with are small, and rarely do they have a dedicated social media manager. When you have fewer resources (i.e., time, talent, and money) it’s better to invest those resources where the ROI is greatest. According to HubSpot's 2024 State of Marketing Report email ROI is an impressive $36 for every $1 spent.

Already sending email or newsletters? Here are three tips I picked up from INBOUND24 that I am applying in our next newsletter:

Make your email the destination.

If you spend the time creating it, why would you want people to click away before they read it? Unless you are hoping for an instant transaction, then limit your links to the end.

Energize your newsletter.

Alex Lieberman, co-founder of Morning Brew Daily (MBD), a daily email newsletter that’s grown to over 4M subscribers and $13M in revenue gave attendees a 4-step process his brand used to launch and grow MBD.

1. Audience: Really, truly get to know your audience and write for them alone.
2. Problem/Solution: What problem do you solve for your audience better than your competitors? Alex encouraged brands to, “Be the no.1 solution to a real problem. If you can’t be no.1 solution, then niche down until you can be.”
3. Content: What content helps inform, delight, and connect your readers to solutions to their problem?
4. Resources: Allocate appropriate resources (weekly emails require one FT staff and daily emails require two) and execute consistently.

Spend time on the subject line.

With changes to how inboxes are organized, you need to have a snappy and effective subject line if you want your audience to open your email. Jay Schwedelson, founder of Guru Media Hub, showed that open rates increase dramatically when you include relevant, trendy slang. Yes, even in economic development you can say, “Our new sites are Chef’s Kiss.”

The “1” thing I hope to work on in 2025.

One lesson that I can’t stop thinking about was Alex Lieberman’s focus on audience. During a session he continued to ask, who is your market of 1?

“Your market of 1 is the one person you create content for. The person should be real, and you should literally bookmark their LinkedIn URL to gut-check your posts,” he recently posted.

It sounds simple, but how does an economic developer pick just one person? We want students to know about manufacturing careers, existing industry to know about us, site selectors to know about sites, state partners… see, it’s hard!

What’s harder though, is spending time on creating messages, emails, and social posts, for everyone, but that no one reads.

So, who is the market of 1 for economic development in Georgia?

Summary

Marketing is the growth engine of every organization, but many economic development organizations are under resourced in marketing talent and budget. Focusing on the two or three things you can do well, for the right market/audience, is the best path forward for effective marketing and subsequent community growth.

Not sure what you can do well? Try new things! Jay Schwedelson decided to host his first conference- something he never had done before. He prefaced the announcement that it could fail by stating, “Growth happens by doing the things you are unqualified to do.”

You don’t have to grow alone either. Most Fridays, Georgia Power Economic Development sets aside an hour for a marketing chat. Schedule yours below and begin to tackle the most important communication and marketing solutions for your team.

Brainstorm marketing challenges >