community systems presents: four ways to market your community's commercial properties

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Smarter Software for Communities

August 27th, 2014

FOUR WAYS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR COMMUNITY’S PROPERTIES

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Your hosts

Ben WrightCEO,

Community SystemsAtlas Advertising

benw@communitysys.comwww.twitter.com/communitysys

Dianne NuñezConsultant

Tennessee Valley Authority

dhnunez@tva.gov

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Presenting From Community Systems’ Denver, COCo-Working Space

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Atlas Advertising’s Software Development Group is Now Community Systems

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Our mission: To powerintelligent location decisions.

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By powering the world’s best economic development websites, GIS, and prospect response systems.

7Community Systems’ Atlas One Software Suite

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Community Systems serves over 4,000 communities in 43 states

Who we work with:

9This includes:

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Data, technology, and agency partners this requires:

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• Continue the Conversation: – Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CommunitySys

• View and share the video with your colleagues: http://communitysys.com/News-Media/Webinars-(1).aspx

Download the slides, listen to the video, continue the dialogue

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• If you currently have a GIS System, we will:– Review your current GIS system relative to the benchmarks presented in this

webinar – Provide suggestions to improve performance and overall system value

• If you don’t currently have a GIS system, we will:– Review your website relative to content and features site selectors commonly

use– Recommend ways to improve your website using various elements of GIS

technology.

To receive an assessment, please chat “Assessment Please” into your chat

window at any time in the presentation. We will follow up with you after the

presentation.

Offer to webinar attendees:

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1. What are the different ways prospects consume information online?

2. What can we learn from Community System’s network of ED websites about the information prospects consume?

3. If property is the information prospective companies need, how can we drive more traffic to our websites and GIS systems to get them key information, without working with a marketing agency, and with no additional marketing investment?

4. What innovative ways can we engage our partners to collaborate with us to keep property data current?

5. How does one of the most influential economic development organizations (TVA) drive traffic to it’s GIS system, and collaborate with partners?

Questions we will answer:

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Do you currently have an online GIS System that is available to prospects directly?

Question

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Introducing the traffic on the Community Systems Network of Websites

2 million user sessions

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Most consumed content on our websites this week, longest engagement on content

this week

Most used pages this week

1. Find Properties2. Find Companies3. About Us4. Contact Us5. News 6. Relocate and

Expand7. Data and

Information 8. Maps of the Area

Longest engagement this week

1. Data downloads (Workforce, demographics)

2. Report builder/My favorites

3. Property search/ Property details

4. Live and work

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Smarter Software for Communities

FOUR WAYS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR COMMUNITY’S PROPERTIES

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• Why to do this?• To have separate sites is to reduce time on site by half.• To have separate sites doubles marketing costs.• Together, you get ¼ the impact with separate sites per marketing/business

development dollar you spend.

• What to do:• Direct your GIS vendor to provide you with a GIS system that integrates

with your website in the following ways:• “Find Properties” link that links directly into the property search

function. • “Find Companies” link that links directly into the companies search

function. If they don’t have a search companies function, try another GIS system.

• “Find Communities” link that links directly into the communities search function.

• If they argue that separate “microsites” are better ask them to show you data that separate sites increase time on site and decrease marketing costs.

TACTIC 1: INTEGRATE YOUR WEBSITE AND GIS SYSTEM INTO ONE WEBSITE

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• Included Property, Company, and Community Search one click integrations

• Added “About Us,” “Site Selection Services,” and other most used content

HOW TVA IMPLEMENTS WEBSITE INTEGRATION

Result: Average Time on Site Increased from

5:00 to 10:00 per session

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• Why to do this?• Your community focuses on particular industries – and particular

industries have particular real estate needs. • For example, data centers, food processors, and life sciences / biotech

have very specific needs that are different from one another. • To do so increases the likelihood a prospect will engage with you.

• What to do:• Develop targeted industries landing pages on your website.• Develop advanced industry fields in your property database, and develop

search tools that accommodate the search and display of certain property types.

TACTIC 2: CREATE SPECIFIC SEARCHABLE PROPERTY TYPES CONNECTED TO TARGET INDUSTRIES

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• Targeted industry landing page for Data Centers

• Data Center Site Certification program with Deloitte

• Added one click data center property search, and custom Data center badging.

HOW TVA IMPLEMENTS TARGETED INDUSTRY PROPERTY SEARCH

Result: Though not directly related, in 2012-2013, the Nashville Region led the nation in capital investment for regions of its size, largely due to Data Center investment.

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• Why to do this?• By offering local versions, your properties will be displayed on more

websites, driving up usage, with $0 additional marketing investment by you.

• What to do:• Educate your communities to understand how extremely affordable the

Local InSite Versions are.

TACTIC 3: OFFER REDUCED COST LOCAL VERSIONS OF YOUR GIS SYSTEM TO PARTNERS

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• Pays for all maintenance and system upgrades annually

• Makes the Local InSite GIS a part of its affordable partner outreach

• To date, 53 communities have participated

HOW TVA IMPLEMENTS A LOCAL GIS PROGRAM WITH ATLAS LOCAL INSITE

Result: Across the network, property searches have grown 33% with no additional investment by TVA.

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• Why to do this?• Some information in economic development is self service, however

prospects appreciate some guidance for other information. Property data is one of those.

• In today’s selling environment, business developers can gain a competitive advantage by using modern tools plus personal touch.

• What to do:• Use a GIS system that is “responsive,” meaning optimized for mobile

devices, such as the iPad.• Train your business development staff to use the system to answer

questions such as:• What properties are available?• What is the average industrial rate I should expect? • Where are the concentrations of companies like mine?• Can you send me this information electronically?

TACTIC 4: USE A MOBILE ENABLED GIS PLATFORM AS A SELLING TOOL FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

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• Train business development staff to use GIS as a one-to-one storytelling tool

• The tools contain more data than any publication they can carry

• It allows personalized experiences and creates dialogue

HOW TVA CAN IMPLEMENT A GIS DRIVEN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

Result: Increased prospect satisfaction, and more business development buy-in to data maintenance

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“In my opinion, choosing to work with Community Systems was easy for a variety of reasons. First, they are the most innovative GIS company in the economic development space and they were willing to customize their technology to best meet our needs and those of our regional partners. Second, they flat out won a competitive selection process over our vendor of 10 years and other vendors due to their ability to understand our goals and provide the technology and the framework to not only meet, but exceed them. Third, their customer service is miles ahead of anything that we have ever experienced.

-Heidi Smith, General Manager of Global Business for The

Tennessee Valley Authority

What our customers say about us: Innovation. Customization. Service. Results.

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Smarter Software for Communities

INNOVATIVE WAYS TO ENGAGE YOUR PARTNERS TO MAINTAIN DATA

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1. Use a system that makes it easy to find, manage, and update properties.

2. Make the property data you maintain essential to property submissions to live prospects, using an integrated prospect response system.

3. Implement and publish data quality standards that govern whether you will submit specific properties to prospects.

4. Automate the process of sending emails to partners whose properties are about to expire and not meet data quality standards for submitted.

BONUS: FOUR WAYS TO ENGAGE PARTNERS IN MAINTAINING PROPERTY DATA

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What other ideas do you have for getting more exposure to your properties, and maintaining the

data, without working with a marketing agency and spending money?

Question

(Enter answers in chat window)

32Schedule an online demo today

• Generate Superior Engagement: Community Systems websites and iPad demos receive more than twice the visits of average community websites, and our customers generate 42% more conversations than average EDO’s.

• Single System: Community Systems provides only integrated solution for all content types (web pages, property records, downloadable files, and prospect records) that are needed for real relationships, all in one system.

• National Reach: More than 2 million page views on 200+ websites, more than 10,000 registered users, in 4,000 communities in 43 states.

• The Largest Staff and Most Partners: 25 staff, 36 data and technology partners, and a platform that enables local agencies and our customers to innovate faster and farther.

(Enter “demo” in chat window)

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Community Systems makes a difference powering the world’s best economic development websites, GIS,

and prospect response systems

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Community Systems’ Atlas One software suite enables EDO’s to publish more information in

less time, and all in one system.

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Q+A

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929 BroadwayDenver, CO 80203Contact: Ben Wright

t: 720.420.3800 x 210

benw@communitysys.com

www.Communitysys.com

Contact: Dianne Nunez

dhnunez@tva.com

www.TVASites.com

t: 615.232.6012

Thank you and stay in touch!

Smarter Software for Communities