After the Retail Pitch

You've made the Retail Pitch. Now What?

Have you recently met with a specific retailer, restaurant or developer? Was the meeting decent, but no "signed deal" yet? Follow-up is king. Without follow-up your prospect will soon forget you and the attributes of your community. This is the most difficult sales stage. Other looming priorities cause you to lose focus on the lead, and sometimes it’s just hard to continue to hear "no" or "not right now". So, how do you keep your community top of mind?

1. Get Organized! Establish a system where you enter all your business card leads, notes, follow-up dates and your conversations (phone and/or email). This can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or Word document. This sets the stage for staying on top of your leads and also allows for you to hand this off to other staff members focused on retail/recruitment and attraction.
2. Immediate Response. Everyone you met (either in one meeting or multiple meetings) needs follow-up. Even the professionals that told you they would never consider your community. You never know what can change in the course of time. Suggested follow-up ideas:
   1. Send a letter on city letterhead thanking the prospect for the meeting, providing your contact information.
   2. Within 2 days, send an email to include any testimonials you might have from existing regional/national businesses as to their success. For example, if the local Applebee’s has done exceedingly well, ask the manager to provide you a short quote about how their business has succeeded in your community. Be sure you give your location reminders (i.e. 1 hour north of Sioux Falls on Interstate 29).
   3. Pitch a story to your local newspaper about your community’s retail focus and suggest store managers to interview (prep your store managers in advance). Don’t get into specific conversations you might have had with prospect retailers – instead what you need is a story that you can use to have another reason to follow-up.
   4. If a newspaper story doesn’t work for your town, write a press release about the latest retailer to select your community. Build your story around your retail strengths – i.e. other retailers that have chosen your town, fastest permitting processes in the state, ability to find quality employees, etc.

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Economic Impact of College Towns

This article from the May issue of Governing highlights the impact that the University of Alabama at Birmingham has on the City of Birmingham. All college and university towns should tout the economic impact that schools place on their city. For example, Oxford, Mississippi has a population of approximately 19,000. The University of Mississippi is located in Oxford, with a total enrollment for all campuses of 17,323. This obviously has a huge impact on the local economy. Ole Miss is also the largest employer in the county.

Retailers realize that campus populations create profitable opportunities. It is important to remember to include student populations when marketing your community.

Read the article