Insights
Economic Development Website Underperformance By Dennis J. Donovan Economic development (ED) websites comprise an indispensible tool for the corporate site selector as well as the most cost-effective marketing medium for economic development organizations. This is especially true for smaller communities with limited business recruitment budgets. Yet despite the criticality of ED websites in the site selection process, most fall far short of customer expectations. The biggest shortfall is lack of important information necessary to develop a basic understanding of a particular location’s fit for the project in question. From experience, I would rate at least 2/3 of economic development websites as sub par. Developing meaningful websites should be accorded highest priority by economic development organizations (EDOs). The Challenge The essence of the challenge involves lack of knowledge as to what information is most important. It appears that most economic development websites are designed... more....