FOCUS ON eFLORIDA.COM
This case study highlights the elements of best practice in the use of an IPI website to promote a location, service investors and coordinate other regional entities with similar competencies.
Source: Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)
Copyright 2009 Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the copyright holder. Requests for permission to reproduce should be sent to the Director, Operations, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), World Bank Group at [email protected]
© MIGA Copyright Focus on E-Florida.com
FOCUS ON eFLORIDA.COM
Best practices demonstrated by Enterprise Florida on eFlorida.com: Globalization of Web content and marketing messages
Utilization of IT tools to increase the Website’s lead-generation capacity Provision of detailed site selection information to potential investors Multiple avenues of access to finding information
Creation of map portals to regional investment promotion intermediaries and companies Development of partnerships to facilitate content development and collaboration
Background
In July 1996, the state of Florida replaced its Department of Commerce with Enterprise Florida Incorporated (EFI), a public-private partnership responsible for leading Florida’s statewide economic development, international trade and statewide business marketing efforts. This model, which was the first of its kind in the United States, requires EFI to employ an efficient and market-oriented approach to doing business and to emphasize partnerships with other public and private sector organizations.
EFI works collaboratively with a statewide network of regional and local economic
development organizations (‘partners’) to improve Florida’s business climate and ensure its global competitiveness. A Board of Directors—comprised of leaders from Florida's business, economic development, educational and government communities—provides broad-based policy direction. The Governor of Florida serves as the chair of the Board. EFI’s mission is to diversify Florida's economy and create better paying jobs for its citizens by supporting, attracting and helping to create businesses in innovative, high growth industries. To support this mission, EFI developed a positioning statement – “Florida. Innovation Hub of the Americas®” – which concisely defines a diverse and dynamic state as a location for investment, trade, and entrepreneurship in a host of high value sectors such as; clean energy, life sciences, information technology, aviation and aerospace, homeland security/defense, financial/professional services, manufacturing and emerging technologies. By all accounts, over the past twelve years EFI has helped shape economic development in Florida into a market-oriented and well-coordinated enterprise. The website eFlorida.com is an example of EFI’s transformative success in presenting a unified face on a diverse and dynamic state. The website echoes EFI’s market-oriented approach to doing business and puts into action its partnership philosophy.
eFlorida.com
In 2003, EFI completely revamped its brochure-ware web pages and launched eFlorida.com, an easy-to-use, content rich, interactive website. According to EFI
management, the rationale behind investing in a state-of-the art website was simple; an up-front investment would enable EFI to achieve the broadest possible reach at the lowest cost. EFI staff would also benefit since much of the information and analysis they needed to share would be accessible online.
eFlorida.com is one of a small number of websites of U.S. investment promotion intermediaries (IPIs) that stands out in terms of information architecture and quality of navigation, website design and ease of use, and breadth and depth of content provided. The site provides all of the standard features of a high-quality IPI website including sector profiles; lists of major investors in the region; background statistics; information on the available workforce, transport and infrastructure; interactive maps; news and
announcements; and property information. It is also consistent in its marketing messages. Everything on the website reinforces the position of Florida as a global location and as an innovation center.
More importantly however, eFlorida.com demonstrates best practices in online investment promotion in areas that are not readily apparent while browsing through the website. By adopting a web-centric approach to doing business where possible, EFI has created in eFlorida.com a rich repository of data and analysis about Florida, a vehicle for sending out marketing and branding messages, a lead generation tool for further customizing
communication with users, and an investor servicing mechanism. In short, eFlorida is a dynamic and flexible vehicle through which EFI can reach its various audiences and implement its overall organizational strategies. Following is a review of these best practices:
Detailed description of sector resources: All of the 15 sectors described on the website provide an overview as well as descriptions of the industries within those sectors, each of which contain further details pertaining to those particular industries. Screenshot 1 provides an introductory description of the clean energy sector, with industry-specific links listed in the left-hand toolbar. Each of the industry categories provide an overview of the value Florida’s resources bring to those industries, including links to university programs and research institutes involved in those areas. The depth of information allows users to quickly drill down from general overviews to specific types of information.
The ‘industry spotlight’ available on each industry page also provides access to a range of general information on the sector, enabling users to source more in-depth reports, find out latest news, search for sector-specific companies, or access audio-visual material.
Screenshot 1: sector descriptions provide industry details and access to reports/media
“I want to…” Customized information search: Almost all investment promotion websites use relatively similar categorizations of information – ranging around items such as sector strengths or location specifics – on the logic that this is how investors want to find
information. EFI provides an additional means of access by predicting the questions investors are looking to answer by coming to the website, and providing information and services tailored to answer those. The left-hand toolbar in screenshot 2 lists the five general questions EFI understands investors ask the most, which lead on to pages and resources targeted to answer those questions. In this example a local business looking to expand either locally or internationally can find information. Additionally, each of the response pages predict more specific questions such as ‘Need site location assistance?’ and the option to then submit a question. Providing these multiple means of access to information allows greater user flexibility, and tailors more to specific preferences.
Screenshot 2: Customized information search
Globalization of the website: Perhaps the greatest strength of the eFlorida.com website is content that is customized to 15 countries. Not only does the site feature all of its major content in the official language of each country, but it also has current content geared toward the interests of the investors from these countries. Providing this kind of targeted content facilitates use of the site by international investors. Since EFI currently does not have a physical presence in France, the French version of eFlorida.com serves as a virtual office in the country (see screenshot 3). EFI is able to communicate directly with French investors through website messages that are tailored to their interests. One cautionary note to other IPIs is that such customization courts inquiries in multiple languages. Globalization of the website necessitates the ability of IPI staff to handle such inquiries in a timely and comprehensive manner.
Screenshot 3: Section of eFlorida website in French
Utilization of IT tools to increase the website’s lead-generation capacity:
EFI’s multi-channel marketing program employs state-of-the-art techniques to save time and resources, to customize messages, to attract appropriate audiences, and to identify users who either need EFI services or have viable projects to bring to EFI. All of these activities are ultimately geared towards generating leads on projects that support the organization’s mission. Following are some examples of how the utilization of IT tools on eFlorida.com has increased the lead-generation capacity of the website:
• EFI has linked eFlorida.com to a customized e-marketing automation software package. Application of this product helped EFI establish a database for sending e-mail blasts and quarterly eNewsletters. The database is linked to the website registration process and is also used to send out customized messages for events and create forms for requests for project assistance and other purposes. The single window into information on investor sector preferences and effectiveness of
customized messages following any single e-marketing campaign helps marketing staff send out information that is as desirable as possible to the investors receiving the messages. This, in turn, improves the overall effectiveness of EFI’s marketing and lead-generation activities.
• In order to better monitor the results of marketing campaigns, EFI has created landing pages linked to both print and electronic marketing materials. These landing pages feature a number of links that lead respondents to information designed to match a very specific set of interests. The click-through rate for these links helps EFI analyze the effectiveness of the campaign.
• EFI has worked to ensure that its websites perform well on search engines. EFI led a pilot program to use Google AdWords that successfully boosted traffic to one of its websites and has since expanded the strategy to its other sites. EFI has also been consistently tailoring its content to ensure search engine optimization.
• EFI has hosted a seminar via the web as a means to promote Florida as a global innovation hub of life sciences as well as to inform audiences about Florida’s existing life sciences cluster. Presenters included representatives of a private company, a
non-profit research institute, Florida's university system, life sciences businesses and the venture capital community. This online seminar, or webinar, supplemented an already rich set of content offerings about the sector that includes a list of current players in Florida; information on Florida’s research and development advantages; the business climate and infrastructure; state laws and regulations; recent EFI missions to promote overseas partnerships among businesses; upcoming sector events; and other reports and analyses of the sector.
• Potential investors can complete a web-based project assistance form that is linked to the e-marketing automation system (mentioned above) and generates an e-mail to the appropriate EF staff member. This helps EFI staff respond more efficiently and accurately to requests for location, expansion, exporting, or start-up needs in Florida. The online form captures information on the individual and company making the inquiry; a narrative description of the project as well as information on the nature, sector and size of the project; the investor’s timeline; and detailed information about the type and number of jobs the project may create. In addition to alerting the
appropriate EFI staff, this tool helps EFI identify serious inquiries and enables staff to tailor the response to meet the investor’s needs.
In interviews with Enterprise Florida staff, the heads of marketing and research both emphasized the necessity of human resources with flexible and fungible skills as central to the success of the organization’s application of IT tools and online
investment promotion initiatives. In an office where only eight permanent staff work on all aspects of the website in addition to performing their usual research,
marketing and technology-related tasks, human resources flexibility is paramount. All staff members working on the website sit in the marketing and information unit and report to the senior vice president of marketing and information. They are all tech-savvy and work on a variety of tasks in multidisciplinary teams. A successfully running example of this flexibility is the management of the CAFTA Intelligence Center (www.caftaintelligencecenter.com). The site, although developed by an outside firm, was planned, designed and implemented in two months. Its goals are to inform constituents about the benefits and opportunities under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which is viewed by EFI as a potential vehicle for both inward and outward trade and investment. The site was launched in 2006 and is being promoted via Adwords on Google.com.
Provision of detailed site selection information to external and internal audiences: A cornerstone of eFlorida.com is the Knowledge Center, a repository of investor-oriented information where external audiences can view economic indicators, community profiles and other information on Florida’s regions, foreign trade and investment information,
research reports and links to related resources. News, project assistance request forms and a database for tech entrepreneurs are also available. Registration – which collects a
person’s name, organization, role, sector, and research interests – is required. Registrants are added to emailing lists for quarterly eNewsletters and other e-publications, such as customized e-mail blasts (and importantly, they are provided with a means to opt-out of such mailings). For staff and partners, this portion of eFlorida.com also provides access to numerous resources designed to assist them in preparing for investor visits or responding to
investor inquiries. The space functions as a kind of supplemental intranet, housing links to a database of Florida companies, updated information on incentives, state-by-state
comparisons of economic indicators, a library of images, video and audio, results of the periodic capital investment and jobs survey, as well as corporate resources such as a brand book and staff directory.
Portal mapping: Like many IPI sites, eFlorida provides visual geographical tools to
familiarize users with the state. Additionally however, users can use the map to search for information by region, metropolitan statistical area, county, rural area and enterprise zone (screenshot 4a provides an overview of Florida broken down by region). By providing both navigation and content that help users zero in on regions and counties, EFI serves
audiences that are unfamiliar with the state’s geography or that want extremely targeted information. A clickable map helps users navigate the links to partner sites, which are primarily those of economic development bodies, chambers of commerce, and city governments. Many sites have maps that include locality (e.g., county) names or region names, but international investors are unlikely to be familiar with these. eFlorida.com therefore provides a visual indicator for where counties are and then overlays the locations of the largest cities. Links are also available to detailed county profiles that include contact information, economic indicators, tax information, major employers and more.
Screenshot 4a: Florida mapped by region Screenshot 4b: F EFI has more recently also made use of embedded, dynamic maps, which allow users a
much broader range of navigation options than static maps. The embedded google map, as show in screenshot 4b, allows the user to search for featured companies by industry (as listed by the colored pointers at the bottom of the map) or individually, as listed in the overlaid list with scrollbar. By clicking on an individual pointer or company name, a paragraph of information is displayed about that specific company. Using an interactive map such as google map has two particular values; it allows users to find a lot of detailed information easily, and as a user-friendly platform it encourages companies to pro-actively supply information about themselves, saving the IPI considerable time in labor.
Development of partnerships to facilitate content development and collaboration: EFI maintains over a hundred formal and informal partnerships with a variety of local economic development organizations, universities, the private sector, non-profits, industry
associations, bi-national chambers of commerce, consular and trade promotion offices and the Federal government. Partnerships with smaller county and regional IPIs are among the most synergistic and formal of the relationships. EFI provides these partners with access to resources, keeps track of local data inputs to the capital investment and jobs survey, and coordinates the updating of the community profile sheets. Another key partnership is with a private sector information provider that sees it as beneficial to provide data for free in
exchange for exposure to EFI constituents. EFI’s partnerships all have built-in mechanisms for communication and feedback, and key partners meet with EFI regularly to provide additional feedback on local and regional trends as well as voice any need for access to new resources. EFI uses the web to facilitate communication with and feedback from
partners on specific issues. For example, in the development of Florida’s strategic plan, EFI developed web pages to inform partners about regional meetings and to obtain feedback on the strategic plan. Visitors to the website were able to register online to attend meetings, to download versions of the strategic plan, and provide feedback online if they could not attend the meetings. This approach provided partners with immediate access to changes in the plan, saved on printing and mailing costs, and encouraged feedback from all partners.
Glossary:
Click-through rate – This term is used in Internet marketing to describe the percentage of users who click on a link or advertisement. The click-through rate is used as a measure to determine the effectiveness of a link or advertisement on a particular web page that is associated with a marketing campaign.
E-marketing automation package – A software solution that can be used to: gather information on potential customers; store this information in a database format; customize message to subgroups of these customers according to pre-defined characteristics of these customers; email these messages to these customers; and track responses from customers to these messages. Most e-marketing automation packages can interface with a websites to help an IPI create forms and other methods for servicing potential investors.
Landing page – This is a web page that is linked to, or landed on, directly from a hyperlink in an e-mail campaign or other advertising campaign. For example, the reader might find more information, register for an event, fill out a survey or download a publication on a landing page. Landing pages are built to support an e-mail or online advertising campaign or can be links referred to in hard copy direct mail campaigns. An IPI can track usage statistics on landing pages to measure the impact of the campaigns with which these pages are associated.
Lead generation capacity of the website – A lead is the name and contact information and areas of interest of an individual or company that is potentially interested in your location as a destination for a potential investment. IPIs can utilize the website as a tool for generating such investment leads by gathering information on website users, storing this information in a database and using the database as a foundation for targeting and direct marketing activities.
Multi-channel marketing – This term refers to selling a firm’s products or services through a number of locations or outlets. For IPIs, multi-channel marketing means disseminating information and/or implementing investment promotion activities online through the website, in face-to-face meetings, at conferences or seminars, via email and through hard copy mailings of brochures or other materials.
Opt-out - Opting out is the process by which a subscriber to your e-mail list chooses to no longer receive e-mail information and/or advertisements from your organization. Often this is accomplished by the subscriber clicking on a hyperlink to unsubscribe, or by replying to the e-mail campaign with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
Search engine optimization – This term refers to a process aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings. The process involves rewriting body copy, altering Title or Meta tags, removal of Frames or Flash content, and the seeking of incoming links, and ensuring that the website coding validates.
Webinar – This term is short for web-based seminar, a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the web. A key feature of a webinar is its interactive elements -- the ability to give, receive and discuss information. In order to conduct a
webinar, organizations usually contract with one of a number of webinar service providers to assist with audio and/or video recordings of content and registration of and delivery to users.
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Case study questions:
These questions are intended to help you reflect on the various tools and strategies EFI has implemented to design and develop the eFlorida website. Please use the space to answer the questions and note down any additional ideas you’d like to bring up in tomorrow
morning’s discussion.
Which of the aspects of the eFlorida website do you consider most valuable as a tool for investment promotion?
……… ……… ……… ……… Reflecting on your own agency’s website, which of the lessons-learned from the eFlorida site would you like to implement?
……… ……… ……… ……… Reflecting on your own professional experience, which of eFlorida’s initiatives are
applicable to your own, and which are not? Please indicate why not.
……… ……… ……… ……… EFI makes extensive use of partners to ensure the website’s information remains up-to-date and vibrant. How do you interact with the business community, knowledge centers, and national and local government to source information?
……… ……… ……… ……… One of the underlying strengths of the eFlorida site is that its staff are relatively flexible in their skill-sets, given the size of their team. How do you ensure the staff in your own agency remain aware of one another’s tasks, responsibilities and goals?
……… ……… ……… ………
