When you lose something, learn something.

This is the third in a group of five economic development marketing misses, one for each decade I’ve been in this business.

When I first started in economic development in the late 1950s there was no such thing as economic development targeting.  Every competing county or community – and there weren’t that many – considered and described themselves as a combination Nirvana or Utopia; letter perfect for any kind of economic activity from anywhere.

About three decades ago targeting began to take over often with two characteristics focusing on investment opportunities:  A. where you had a demonstrated economic advantage; B. where the right target was of special value to the community’s sustainable future.

Targeting is a sizeable step forward, but it brings with it its own set of problems including:

• If everybody picks the same target you lose the advantage of any competitive leadership, and targeting itself proves counter- productive
• If you don’t have effective follow up you lose all the advantages of targeting because in the end nothing happens

Unfortunately for many development groups both conditions hold sway.

For example, experts agree that only a handful of places will have viable life science centers, but it is a relatively rare community that doesn’t list biotechnology or an analogous title among its prime targets.

Also, literally hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars are poured into target advertising or “cluster marketing” programs in which there is little or no follow-up should a potential investor actually show interest.

Ergo, here is a list of common sense guidelines for the now universal business of targeting:

First, as they say in baseball, hit the ball where the fielders aren’t; if you must select a common target, lay claim to a special piece of it.  For instance, Buffalo-Niagara Enterprise has set its site not on biotechnology generally but rather on the limited but important province of bio-econometrics, the place where bioscience intersects with computer science.

Second, look at unusual targets where you have less competition.  A medium-sized Southern city and DCI client was we believe the first place to target non-profit organizational headquarters.  As a result they arranged a luncheon meeting of non-profit executive directors in Washington, DC where they hoped to attract 30-40 participants.  Instead they did welcome 161 top people simply because nobody else had done that before.

Third, have a follow-up organization and process firmly in place before you start marketing.  What’s best here, we’ve found, are follow-up teams led by local/regional private business people in analogous industries who can honestly say to prospects: “This has worked for us; it could also work for you.”

How do you target?  Does it work?  Tell us about it.  Scroll to the comments section below and give us your thoughts!