By Bonnie Stephensmith, Associate Director and Head of Place Marketing at White Label

Are you hoping to secure investment for your building, town or city in 2021? I can tell you now which places will be the first to see new investment – it will be the ones you’ve heard about.

To drive investment into a place you need to tell people about it.

But how do people hear about place investment opportunities during lockdown?

At White Label, lockdown meant we had to look to different ways for our place marketing to reach investors and target audiences. It was a chance to try something new, and in some ways – as we found with our virtual events – the results were better.

Our electronic communications via social media and to our self-compiled databases were already virtual and therefore robust.

However, we were denied those valuable in-person meetings, tradeshows and conferences – a major part of our inward-investment package – which meant we needed to innovate, quickly, to get the message out. With printed publications gathering dust in empty offices, we turned to interactive digital documents to showcase places we were promoting, for example our Capital West London Infrastructure Investment round table, and virtual investor tours. Our Croydon Investor Tour has been hosted twice online with live commentary, and now incorporates interactive content that is also available on the new Develop Croydon website.

We were delighted to see we were ahead of the curve when an OECD study detailed how inward-investment agencies were building digital strategies using AI-based marketing, e-meetings, webinars, videoconferencing and virtual site-visit facilities. We had these in place, with speed, after the first lockdown was announced last March.

In moving forward with these innovative platforms for place promotion, we also returned to the basics. There are two categories of marketing we recommend to promote places – awareness raising and targeting. Each works best on different platforms, and we advise doing both:

Raising awareness involves a broad-brush approach to lead generation and can create incredible, market-driven opportunities. In the new world, its outputs include email marketing, social media, video content and virtual events. It can range from activities broadcast directly by a place promotion vehicle or a local authority, to brand awareness delivered via third-party platforms. It could also involve speaking at a virtual event to hundreds of delegates, such as Real Estate Live UK – one of our major placemaking conferences, which returns again in virtual format on February 22 and will also take place in June and October this year. You can read more about our panels and speakers here.

With targeting, you share your message directly, to the ‘right people’ at the right time, and in the right place, ensuring they feel privileged to be among the first to discover your opportunity. You need to think about the investors you want, and contact them. Invite them to a round table – something we have been working on successfully with Scottish Government – send them a personal email, ask them to speak on a panel discussion you are hosting, or give them access to information not yet in the public domain. Make them feel special – let them know you want them to listen.

Of course, grabbing the attention of potential investors is only the first step. You need some easy-to-access evidence and a strong narrative to back up your pitch. The accompanying website and marketing materials detailing your messaging and key statistics will take them to the next stage, whether that be getting in touch to have a conversation, or making the decision to invest.

When creating your narrative, start with the fundamentals: connectivity, demographics, rates and values. If you have them, shout about them.

Next, you’ll need to differentiate. If there are ten places within a 15-minute radius of central London with an attractive value proposition, why should I choose yours?

You need to be different, relevant and dynamic. You need a stellar story to draw people in. In the recent London Real Estate Forum’s ‘Opportunity London’ session Laura Citron, of London & Partners, did a great job of promoting the fundamentals and USPs of London – already one of the greatest global investment opportunities – to secure further investment and push the Capital’s tech sector ahead of the US and China.

And, in 2021, green investment should be central to your pitch. It is a theme that now runs through all our programmes. Indeed, COVID-19 aside, it is the key issue, with The Financial Times reporting how 2020 “proved to be a landmark year for investor action on climate change.”

So, keep shouting about your places – promoting and sharing positive opportunities for investment, despite the challenges that lockdowns have thrown.

If your target investor hears your message at all, you are already one step ahead because you’re the one talking to them, and you can never underestimate the importance of an open door.

We are proud of how White Label has evolved to provide innovative platforms for spotlighting places throughout the pandemic. We have no doubt that as lockdown restrictions begin to ease, both here and globally, opportunities for place promotion and growth will diversify, and we look forward to the opportunities that will bring later in 2021.