While the business mix and total employment of Pekin, Illinois has been steady and vibrant over the past decade, the number of people living within the city limits has declined. Taking action, the City of Pekin Economic Development Advisory Committee set their sights on a marketing effort to showcase the great opportunities and incentives to persuade new residents and businesses to choose Pekin. With its central location in Illinois, skilled workforce, robust industrial park and extensive transportation infrastructure, Pekin is primed for expansive economic growth. Add in its beautiful parks, low cost of living and a warm, welcoming community, Pekin has all the makings of the ideal hometown for incoming workforces.
The road to driving growth was littered with signifi cant hurdles — a shortage of available housing, the need for comprehensive city planning and a negative public image. The task was bigger than positioning Pekin as a boon for economic growth. We had to shift outdated perceptions of the city too.
To sell a city’s strengths, you need to know it like a local while understanding the place marketing industry. That’s why McDaniels Marketing was chosen. We conducted a stakeholder survey with an array of community leaders, representing business, government, religious and non-profit entities, education and the fine arts. These insights helped us plot a 3-year marketing roadmap and led to a full rebrand of the city, including a new logo with the tagline, “Your place to grow.”
A tagline that tantalizing needed the content to back it up. We photographed city assets, amenities and industrial corridors, pairing that robust catalog with sweeping drone footage for use online and in advertising. Video interviews with local business owners and entrepreneurs proved the city’s prowess in being a great place to make dreams of growing a business a reality. We developed a robust community guide that showcased Pekin’s vibrant, thriving community. A series of social media ads promoted the city to markets where cost of the living and doing business is much higher. These ads repositioned Pekin as an ideal place to live, work and invest and drove people to the newly updated city website live/work section. The results have been encouraging. In two months, our ads received over 1,400 reactions, over 65 post shares, over 8,600 link clicks and positive comments on posts from past visitors and industry experts alike. The launch is off to a great start, but the work is far from done. Our multi-year marketing plan includes the development of additional tactics such as strategic placement in site selector publications and a comprehensive business blueprint brochure to fully promote the city’s assets.
