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Economic Development Tips - Interview New Businesses
To promote expansion by attracting new businesses, this exercise is a must. When a new enterprise locates in town, the chamber of commerce or the city/town council should have a member visit the newcomers to welcome them to the community. If your group is not doing this already, you are missing an opportunity to pick up some valuable marketing information, as well as a chance to help the newcomers feel at home. In this initial contact, no effort should be made to solicit membership in civic organizations. This will detract from the interview.
This interview should be designed to gather pertinent information on why the business person moved to your town. The interview should determine:
1) How the business person found out about the town; and
2) Why they decided to move to town.
If you find through these interviews that certain promotional channels have been effective in bringing in new businesses, then you may want to expand your efforts
through these channels. For example, if a business person found out about the community in a newspaper article published in Calgary, then the town should try even harder to get similar newspaper publicity run in newspapers in other towns, and even rerun in Calgary. These interviews can uncover marketing strategies that have already been proven to work for your town.
Little preparation is required for these interviews; the interviewer is only interested in the answers to two questions. The first question should be asked after the interviewer has visited with the newcomer for awhile to break the ice. Before asking any questions, assure the respondent that all information received will be treated confidentially, and that you are merely trying to get a general idea of how to improve the town’s marketing strategies. A straightforward “How did you first come to learn about our town?” will do nicely, As the subject stops talking, follow up with some probing questions, like “Had you ever heard about our town anywhere else?” and “Why did you decide to read (listen to, etc.) this
particular source?”
When you are satisfied that the first basic question has been answered thoroughly, ask the second question: “What made you decide to move your business here, rather than somewhere else?” This can also be followed up until you are satisfied with the detail of the answer. The entire interview should take only about 15 minutes.
Ideally, the interviews should be tape-recorded and transcribed later. The tape recorder should be introduced casually so that your respondent will not become
flustered or apprehensive. Respondents talk much faster than you can probably write. The thoughts you miss while writing may turn out to be important later on, even it they seemed to be trivial during the interview. If the interview cannot be recorded, it is essential to take notes while the subject is talking, Notes will be sketchy at best; details should be fleshed in as soon as possible after the interview, while the information is still fresh in your mind. After a few such interviews, the results should be compared to find similarities. If certain
statements show up repeatedly, community leaders will be armed with some valuable information that will help make your town’s marketing strategy even more effective.