by Dr. Balazs Csorjan, investment promotion specialist

2015 edition

The ultimate guide to FDI project acquisition

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There are a tons of competing locationsYou would never think: all cities and communities on the Planet are hunting for new investors and new jobs. Foreign direct investors can deliver prosperity and wealth for a community, even for decades.

The only question: how to make your location visible on investors’ map?

Don’t kill the forestDid you know that members of site selection teams also search for information on the Web? Instead of producing fancy paper brochures and other offline place branding materials, try to support site selectors online.

The online support of site selection makes you

different, interesting,

you can highlight your location,

and site selection teams will appreciate your help.

Remember: site selectors are corporate professionals, they know nothing about your investment destination and probably do site selection once and last in their lifetime.

This short presentation show you how to support site selection process online and acquire FDI projects at the same time.

Websites are dead.

Long live digital presence!

Thinking about the online promotion of your location, the first thing you probably start is your website. What a mistake.Your fancy website is probably about YOU (about your location). The bad news: investors (foreigners and domestic) don’t care about you. They care about themselves: they have to collect information about the potential new sites of the company. So, instead talking about yourself, develop ‘information channels’ focusing on site selectors’ information needs:

>> economic development blog>> ‘instant’ presentations on SlideShare>> and YouTube channel

In other words: I recommend to apply social media marketing in FDI project acquisition. The next short video is a general summary of the topic.

Economic development bloggingA type of pull marketing: provide useful content for site selectors about your business destination.

How to start?Create destination-related content, based on your location expertise. The good news: you know much more about your location, than your investors. Build on it: talk about the different aspects of a new manufacturing site, involving local labour market and industrial properties, local regulations etc. On site selection questionnaire, there are empty fields for these information, and site selectors will love your help.

Don’t forget to highlight your location in blog post, as an option for investors.

For those who are more interested in economic development blogging, I created a detailed SlideShare presentation.

‘Instant’ presentations on SlideShare?Site selectors have to present their results to their board. Help them: collect and organize data about your destination, and provide copiable slides. Provide interesting and useful information about your destination - if you are a region in France, talk about the French (target industry related) labour market, infrastructure and regulations.

Why does it help to promote your location? You can highlight yourself: involve your city’s or region’s strengths into your analysis, and your location can be listed among potential sites.

A good site selection supporting presentation● has an industry focus: electronics, automotive,

pharma, business services - choose one of your target industries,

● gathers information about infrastructure, labor market, regulations

● involve all the potential locations and sites - you have to talk honestly about your hardest competitors, not just yourself

In my experiences, these kind of ‘instant slideshare presentations’ generate the largest interests from investors.

About economic development slidesharing I created another presentation (on SlideShare.net, of course).

Industry focus

Make short, focused videos about your location. Internet users don’t like to read novels, and short videos provide easy-to-use insights for site selectors. Data driven storytelling is the key in social media marketing, and videos can deliver great short stories about your location.

For best practices of economic development YouTube channel management, read my blog post about the topic.

Your location’s YouTube Channel?

… and when you produced site selection supporting content, don’t forget to share it on the target industry groups of LinkedIn.com

If you liked to be visible on search engines like Google, read my SEO for place branding presentation.

What if your team misses some skills in social media marketing? Ask some help. I would love to answer your questions. My help can involve Quick Wins for Free (when I provide some quickly adaptable improvements) and Social Media Marketing Coaching for your team (internal and continual consulting to improve your investment project acquisition).

I’m dealing with investment promotion since 2002, as a colleague of the Hungarian national investment promotion agency and later as an independent investment promotion specialist, taking part in 300+ site selection projects. In my focus there are investment promotion related blogging, slidesharing and YouTube channel developments.

Dr. Balazs Csorjaninvestment promotion specialistcsorjan @ businessparkinstitute.com

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