The new three-year strategic plan unveiled by the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) will help the organization continue to strengthen the Lehigh Valley’s global competitiveness and better market the region for future development.

To that end, the strategic plan defined 22 specific initiatives that fall into four categories: recruitment; marketing & communications; retention, resources & regional strategies; and advocacy and leadership.

Each week, the LVEDC blog and newsletter will highlight a different set of initiatives from the new strategic plan.

Click here to download the LVEDC Strategic Plan 2017-2020.

This week, we share the organization’s marketing & communications initiatives, which will crucial in helping LVEDC execute on its newly-defined mission to “market the economic assets of the Lehigh Valley and to create partnerships to lead the recruitment, growth and retention of employers.”

The initiatives are:

1) Work with other regional entities and stakeholders to develop and market a regional brand identity for the Lehigh Valley, leveraging marketing dollars to chip away at a lack of identity that exists in certain sectors and/or outdated perceptions of the region.

2) Develop a marketing and communications campaign on workforce and the region’s education and training resources that features training programs, degrees conferred, education institutions and the region’s workforce preparedness and skills development.

3 Develop a marketing initiative on the “New Lehigh Valley” with a focus on the retention and attraction of young workers and educated professionals to showcase our ability to attract talent to support growth in the business services and life science research sectors.

4) Continue development of target sector specific marketing aimed at key audiences with a focus on using third party “knowledge partners” and advocates for the region, such as business leaders and industry experts.

5) Continue to improve available research and data on critical factors for business location and retention decisions — such as cost comparisons, wage differentials, availability of real estate and workforce, incentives and financing programs — and increase communication of that information via website features and other strategies.

These initiatives were identified as a result of several consultant studies commissioned by LVEDC to ensure the organization’s strategies are focused on the highest-quality growth and job creation possible for the Lehigh Valley.

Those studies included an economic development analysis by the Atlanta-based Garner Economics; the by New-York based Development Counsellors International; and the global firm Investment Consulting Associates.