Community seminar looks at marketing the Bootheel

Christopher Chung, C.E.O. and President of MissourI Partnership gave a presentation at the community seminar on Friday. Staff photo by Joshua Payne [Click to enlarge]

A community seminar was hosted on Friday at the Ely Walker Apartments with guest speaker Missouri Partnership, President and C.E.O. Christopher Chung.

Chung became involved in the Bootheel's development in November of 2007. He has been helpful in including the Bootheel area in marketing activities and advertising.

In terms of plans for 2009, Chung said that Missouri had two key areas of promotion and these two areas are marketing and sales. Marketing and sales are important because they promote economic growth by attracting new businesses and helping established businesses grow.

"Missouri Partnership was created to develop consistency and continuity from the perspective of the market of new businesses," said Chung.

Most smaller areas rely on their local government to provide marketing for their region.

According to Chung, local government is not able to effectively market their region because when the economy becomes slow, marketing is the first thing to receive cut backs on funding.

"Relying on public sectors to do marketing makes the area inconsistent, which is not an effective message in the face of target audiences," said Chung.

The recruitment side of the program is the sales. This consists of talking with decision makers about the placement of new businesses. Public sectors in charge of this program lose the ability to have a consistent contact due to constant change of positions in the sector, according to Chung. These prospects do not want to have to hunt individuals in the state to create a project, instead they prefer a familiar and consistent relationship.

"Missouri is not the first state to begin using this approach to marketing it is the tenth or eleventh behind states such as; Florida, Utah, Alabama, and Virginia," Chung said.

The Challenges to the program are the product, the people, and the process.

The product that the marketing will focus upon is the state of Missouri. The approach will focus on Missouri's strong points like the workforce, the tax rate, the transportation, the climate, and the education, according to Chung. Without a strong product new businesses will not consider the state. Leaders of the community can contribute in this aspect by developing a strong community and becoming as competitive as possible with other states.

Staffing a new organization can become difficult because individuals do not need to be stolen from other businesses currently striving in Missouri. Instead, Chung stated, people need to be recruited into the state of Missouri to fill needed jobs in the new businesses.

"We hired people on the outside of the state to recruit and bring new people to work as staff in the new businesses being created in Missouri," said Chung.

The process will be to attack areas of difficulty to correct and make a difference in order to continue to sale the state of Missouri.

An 80 to 90 percent of created jobs come from existing business in the state, while 10 to 20 percent of the created jobs are the result of new industries being developed. Although the new industries make up the low end of the amount of jobs becoming available the perception is very impactful.

New businesses and industries view the new businesses created jobs as a successful attraction to the community, according to Chung.

Missouri has developed a new business brand, which is a unique and identifiable symbol, association, name, or trademark. Several states use these brands examples are Texas, "Wide Open for Business," Utah, "Life Elevated," and Ohio, "State of Perfect Balance." The new brand for Missouri will be Missouri, "Real People, Real Opportunity," according to Chung.

This business brand is the opposite of "The Show Me State," because "Show me" is the opposite of what message the state wants new industries and businesses to receive and associate with Missouri, said Chung.

The 2009 approach will be a two pronged approach consisting of an air campaign and a ground campaign, according to Chung. The air campaign will be the image advertising and this is important because the state of Missouri suffers from having no existing perception to outside business owners and industries. The ground campaign is a face to face approach with the decision makers at trade shows and conferences. The state of Missouri lacks representation at these different shows and meetings which causes the state to miss opportunities to grow new business and new opportunity.

According to Chung, Missouri will develop economic activity by marketing and focusing on high growth potential of industries.

Government can affect the amount of growth by creating incentives and adjusting tax policies for these new industries being developed in the state.

"State, regional, and local levels must all have people involved in the marketing to ensure the success of the program and of the state in collecting these industries," said Chung.