Effective marketing doesn't happen by accident.
Every community has a real story. The ones that find it — and tell it honestly, — are the ones that compete. The ones that don't end up looking like everywhere else: stock photos, borrowed taglines, and messaging that could belong to any market in the country.
The difference isn't budget. It’s clarity. And confidence.
Branding + Positioning
A brand isn't a logo. It's what people believe about you before you walk in the room.
The communities and organizations that get this right don't just look better — they perform better. Site selectors remember them. Prospects take their calls. Talent considers their pitches. And when a major announcement happens, the brand is ready to carry it.
Getting there requires more than a creative refresh. It requires honest internal work: figuring out what you actually stand for, what makes you genuinely different, and what you're willing to commit to over time. The rollout is the easy part. The alignment is where it gets hard — and where most rebrands either stick or fall apart.
Marketing Strategy
Most EDO marketing programs don't fail because of bad creative. They fail because the strategy underneath is fuzzy — unclear audiences, inconsistent messages, and tactics that were inherited rather than chosen.
Good strategy starts with honest questions: Who are you actually trying to reach? What do you want them to do? What's the truest, most compelling thing you can say to move them? The answers to those questions should drive everything else — your channels, your content, your budget, your calendar.
Place Marketing
Talent attraction and business recruitment look similar on the surface. They're fundamentally different challenges — but they can't tell radically different stories.
Business recruitment is about proof. Decision-makers want data, specificity, and evidence that your community can deliver. Talent attraction is about aspiration and belonging — not just "can I get a job there?" but "is that somewhere I want to build a life?" Here’s the twist—sometimes the corporate decision makers are also the talent being attracted.
At face value, the audiences are different. The messages are tailored. But the underlying story has to be coherent. The ethos of a place has to come through in everything — or the credibility of both messages suffers.
Striking that balance matters.
Let’s face it. Location decisions are often driven by the numbers—you either have them or you don’t. But I’ve seen over and over again how the intangibles can make the difference—and how the way that your leadership and organization show up can influence the process once you’ve made the short-ish list.
Site selectors don't discover communities at trade show booths. They remember the ones that have shown up consistently, communicated clearly, and made their job easier over time.
Building that kind of relationship takes a real program — not just a conference presence, but a strategy that includes the right publications, the right events, direct outreach, and PR that puts your community in front of the right consultants before you need them.
Site Selector Outreach
Fractional Leadership + Team Development
Marketing leadership can be your EDO’s secret weapon. The job requires someone who understands economic development, knows how to manage agencies and vendors, can operate strategically and tactically, and communicate credibly with a board.
Fractional leadership is one answer — senior expertise embedded in your organization on a part-time basis, attending leadership meetings, managing the program, keeping things moving. It's not a placeholder. It's a deliberate choice that gives smaller organizations access to a level of expertise they might not otherwise afford.
For organizations with marketing staff already in place, the need is often different: not more leadership, but better systems, sharper creative direction, and access to someone who can help the team grow. That's a different engagement — and equally valuable.
Communities naturally want to hire hometown talent. And local agencies bring real value — not the least of which are community knowledge and existing relationships. What they often don't bring is fluency in economic development.
The result is marketing that misses the mark — tourism-adjacent content that resonates with residents but doesn't move a decision-maker. The strategy and the execution aren't speaking the same language.
Bridging that gap — helping your agency understand what economic development audiences actually respond to, and making sure your goals are reflected in the work — is a specific kind of expertise. It keeps the local relationship intact while making the marketing actually work.