Enterprise Florida Organizes Campaign To Market State To Hightech Industry

By Frank Norton
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Enterprise Florida Inc. announced a $1.45 million international marketing campaign Tuesday to position Florida as a high-tech global business destination.

With $1 million from the state and $450,000 from other agencies, Florida’s economic development organization will immediately phase in a multimedia advertising campaign targeting business decision-makers. The effort will also use direct marketing and specials event campaigns.

This year’s nearly $1.5 million business technology budget is the agency’s largest ever and a dramatic increase above the roughly $300,000 budgets of years past, said Sena Black, senior vice president of marketing for Enterprise Florida.

She said the marketing strategy is to position Florida as both the innovation and geographic hub of the Americas by promoting its biomedical, aerospace and telecommunications sectors.

"Florida is known for tourism and citrus and now we’re trying to promote it as a business brand," said Ms. Black.

Starting in November print ads will run in New York, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta editions of "Business Week," "Fast Company," "Fortune" and "Money and Mutual Funds" as well as some editions of "Time," "Newsweek" and "U.S. News & World Report."

"This is the first time we’ve been able to market the state on a global level," said Darrell Kelley, president and CEO of Enterprise Florida during Tuesday’s teleconference.

Starting this October Enterprise Florida sponsorship messages will air during National Public Radio’s "Morning Edition," "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered" programs.

"We want to be very aggressive to get out there and ride the waves and change people’s minds," Ms. Black said.

The agency also redesigned its website, www.eflorida.com, and this week launched three new international sites for Spain, Germany and the U.K.

Ms. Black said web-based media are critical since 40% of corporate site selectors say the Internet is their first stop in researching locations.

The agency plans to measure the campaign’s success by tracking market leads, conversion rates, high-value job creation and its ability to leverage additional funds regionally.

While the new project sets the stage for growth in business technology, "it will be two to three years down the road before you see bottom line impacts," Ms Black said, adding that Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York all have similar multimillion dollar technology ad campaigns.