Marketing &
Communications
The Alliance’s Marketing & Communications department continues to use best practices in social media and digital marketing to support the Alliance’s strategic goals, promote the region, provide business resources, and share information with the community.
In 2023, the Alliance’s content creation efforts and social media activity focused heavily on Linkedin, as it continues to show the best ROI of all social media channels. These efforts resulted in 305,000+ IMPRESSIONS, a 21% INCREASE IN FOLLOWERS, and AN ENGAGEMENT RATE OF 12% that included 10,100+ post reactions, 27,400+ page clicks and nearly 500 post shares. On Facebook, the Alliance saw an 11% INCREASE IN FOLLOWERS and 230,000+ IMPRESSIONS.
Social Media
Digital Marketing
The Alliance continued its digital marketing efforts by expanding its “Every Business Needs an Ally” campaign, adding more specific industry targeting and geo-targeting to optimize visibility with key stakeholders and prospects. Throughout the year, nearly 3.5 MILLION IMPRESSIONS were delivered across Display, SEM and Social platforms, leading to 8,478 CLICKS and a strong 0.24% cumulative click-through rate (CTR). 2,298 TOTAL WEB CONVERSIONS were generated for an efficient $22.06 CPA for the campaign. SEM was the top performing tactic generating 3,069 clicks for a 9.38% CTR and 1,903 conversions for a campaign low $11.36 CPA. Display, LinkedIn and Facebook have effectively created awareness while boosting site traffic and engagement with an additional 5,409 clicks and 395 conversions generated.
In 2023, the Alliance’s Marketing department discovered a new way to support the local business community through “marketing assists.” Utilizing its experience and expertise in event management and creative development, Alliance staff has supported public and private investors by assisting in a variety of special events and creating various marketing collateral.
EVENT MANAGEMENT
In June, the Alliance supported Dominion Energy by working alongside the City of Norfolk and the Miller Group to host a groundbreaking for their nearly 48,500-square foot Monitoring and Coordination Center (MCC) to be built on 7.5 acres at Fairwinds Landing. The event welcomed more than 100 guests and garnered significant media attention as it is just the first step towards fulfilling Fairwinds’ vision is to transform the property into a world-class maritime operations and logistics center that supports the offshore wind, defense, and transportation industries. In September, the Alliance supported Amazon and the City of Virginia Beach with an special event to announce a new, state-of-the-art, multi-story robotics fulfillment center and delivery station, which will bring more than 1,000 new full-time jobs to the region. The event included an apperance by Governor Glenn Youngkin. Additional special events that the Alliance assisted with in 2023 included a ribbon cutting for Fairbanks Morse Defense, a Ride & Drive event for Lion Electric, a grand opening for Fugro, an expansion announcement for Lyons Shipyard, and a grand opening for Booze Allen Hamilton. Each assist is tailored to fit the company and locality’s needs, but can include a variety of services from the Alliance to include invitation and collateral design, RSVP management, emcee services, vendor and rental coordination (tent, tables/chairs, A/V, etc), refreshments, press release support, photography and day of logistics.
CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT
The Alliance has also supported its public localities by offering creative development services to support regional economic development. These services include helping to create print advertisements, custom map graphics, jointly branded presentations and customized marketing collateral. Alliance staff met with several localities this year to discuss marketing efforts and find innovate new ways to collaborate and support regional economic growth.
Marketing Assists
Another avenue of notable growth for the Alliance Marketing team in 2023 was their focus on strategic public relations. Utilizing best-in-class social and media monitoring and intelligence software, the Alliance can track the reach of news stories and potential editorial value, allowing the team to quantify public relations efforts. With this new tool in hand, the Alliance was proactive in writing and issuing press releases this year, with a goal of increasing its earned media exposure and requests for interviews. This resulted in nearly two dozen news articles in which the Alliance was directly mentioned or quoted. Additional metrics on the reach and value are found below.
Public Relations
900M
TOTAL REACH
$850M
POTENTIAL
EDITORIAL VALUE
1,040
TOTAL MENTIONS
ON SOCIAL
2.01M
POTENTIAL
SOCIAL REACH
3,190
TOTAL SOCIAL
ECHO