Learn about how to promote your location online and how to get more leads from direct investors.

1. by Dr. Balazs Csorjan, investment promotion specialist
2016 edition
The ultimate guide to FDI project acquisition

2. [NOTE]
These slides are
designed not to present
but to read as a
document. Switch to
Fullscreen View, please!

3. There are a tons
of competing
locations
You would never think: all cities and
communities on the Planet are hunting for
new investors and new jobs. Foreign direct
investors can deliver prosperity and wealth
for a community, even for decades.
The only question: how to make your location
visible on investors’ map?

4. Don’t kill the
forest
Did you know that members of site selection
teams also search for information on the
Web? Instead of producing fancy paper
brochures and other offline place branding
materials, try to support site selectors online.
The online support of site selection makes
you
different,
interesting,
you can highlight your location,
and site selection teams will appreciate your
help.
Remember: site selectors are corporate
professionals, they know nothing about your
investment destination and probably do site
selection once and last in their lifetime.

5. This short
presentation shows
you how to
support site
selection process
online
and
acquire FDI
projects at the
same time.

6. Websites are
dead.
Long live digital
presence!
Thinking about the online promotion of your
location, the first thing you probably start is
your website. What a mistake.
Your fancy website is probably about YOU
(about your location). The bad news:
investors (foreigners and domestic) don’t care
about you. They care about themselves: they
have to collect information about the potential
new sites of the company. So, instead talking
about yourself, develop ‘information channels’
focusing on site selectors’ information needs:
>> economic development blog
>> ‘instant’ presentations on SlideShare
>> and YouTube channel

7. In other words: I recommend to apply social media marketing in FDI project
acquisition. The next short video is a general summary of the topic.

8. Economic development blogging
A type of pull marketing: provide useful content for site selectors about your business destination.
How to start?
Create destination-related content, based on your location expertise. The good news: you know much more about your
location, than your investors. Build on it: talk about the different aspects of a new manufacturing site, involving local labour
market and industrial properties, local regulations etc. On site selection questionnaire, there are empty fields for these
information, and site selectors will love your help.
Don’t forget to highlight your location in blog post, as an option for investors.
For those who are more interested in economic development blogging, I created a detailed SlideShare presentation.

9. ‘Instant’ presentations on SlideShare?
Site selectors have to present their results to their board. Help them: collect and organize data about your
destination, and provide copiable slides. Provide interesting and useful information about your destination - if you
are a region in France, talk about the French (target industry related) labour market, infrastructure and regulations.
Why does it help to promote your location? You can highlight yourself: involve your city’s or region’s
strengths into your analysis, and your location can be listed among potential sites.

10. A good site selection supporting presentation
● has an industry focus: electronics, automotive,
pharma, business services - choose one of your
target industries,
● gathers information about infrastructure, labor
market, regulations
● involve all the potential locations and sites - you
have to talk honestly about your hardest
competitors, not just yourself!
In my experiences, these kind of ‘instant slideshare
presentations’ generate the largest interests from
investors.
About economic development slidesharing I created
another presentation (on SlideShare.net, of course).
Industry focus

11. Make short, focused videos about your location. Internet users don’t like to read novels, and short videos provide easy-to-use
insights for site selectors. Data driven storytelling is the key in social media marketing, and videos can deliver great short
stories about your location.
For best practices of economic development YouTube channel management, read my blog post about the topic.
Your location’s YouTube Channel?

12. … and when you produced site selection supporting content, don’t forget to share it on the target industry groups of
LinkedIn.com
If you liked to be visible on search engines like Google, read my SEO for place branding presentation.

13. About
My name is Dr. Balazs Csorjan. I’m dealing with investment promotion
since 2002, as a colleague of the Hungarian national investment
promotion agency and later as an independent investment promotion
specialist, taking part in 350+ site selection projects. On my blog you
can learn about city/regional-level investment promotion, economic
development blogging, slidesharing and YouTube channel practices.

14. Thnx a lot! It may be a general and
short overview of the topic. Email your
focused question to
csorjan @ businessparkinstitute.com
and I try to answer it.