Chamber Blog

Tuesday, April 24
Networking 5-6 p.m.
Panels 6-8:30 p.m.

I've come to expect that when Adam Holden-Bache, CEO/managing director of chamber member company Mass Transmit, opens his mouth, I will learn something. Sure enough, when I sat in on a planning session for marketCHARLOTTE earlier this week, Adam shared a few highlights of his upcoming presentation, and I had to take notes. I won't spoil the presentation and share what those where, but if your company has an email marketing program, you'll want to hear it. And probably ask him questions. And maybe hire him to take care of your email program. 

marketCHARLOTTE - Stories of Leadership is an event coming up on April 24 presented by a partnership of Charlotte's professional associations for marketing, including AAF Charlotte, AIGA Charlotte, BMA Carolinas, CAMA, CDMA, IABC, PDMA, SMCLT and SMPS. It's an evolution of their annual marketing forecast event and promises lots of learning and networking.

Other speakers who will join Adam on stage:

Bruce Hensley of Hensley Fontana Public Relations will share inside info on Charlotte Restaurant Week's PR campaign. I heard a bit of Bruce's presentation at the planning meeting and found it fascinating. I haven't figured out how to apply the information to my work yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Doug Lebda of LendingTree. I'm not entirely sure what Doug's topic will be, but he's a great speaker. He could probably talk about his shoes, and we'd be interested.

John Bauersfeld of Roush Fenway Racing will discuss how he increased Google+ followers from 500,000 to 2 million in only two months. Wow. The chamber really needs to get a NASCAR driver on staff ASAP.

Josh Oakhurst of Skookum Digital Works will talk about branding and lead generation. Josh joined the chamber last year for our annual fall retreat and shared his big, hairy, audacious goal to create a virtual Charlotte (like SimCity but 10 billion times awesomer because of the Charlotte part). He's an entertaining and imaginative speaker.

Erinne Kovi Dyer of Carolinas HealthCare System. I'm not sure what Erinne is talking about either, and she's fairly new to Carolinas HealthCare System. She may be sharing some experience from her previous employer. I'll update this post when I find out more.

Desiree Kane of The PPL will talk Twitter. I believe she'll share her experience leading the DNC in CLT Twitter campaign back when the DNC was still deciding between Charlotte and St. Louis. It was fun times. I'll remember it fondly always. And she was the first person I called when Brian Francis told me we needed to launch a Twitter campaign for Chiquita (#bananas4CLT). Also fun times. We should have a Charlotte-centric Twitter campaign running all the time for our entertainment.

Eric Frazier of the Charlotte Observer and Nathan Richie of NR Creative Group will moderate the panels (and provide eye candy for when your ears tune out).

I hope to see you there. I may or may not share my notes afterward because I'm stingy sometimes. Follow on Twitter at #mktclt or @marketclt.

by Melisa LaVergne, Director of Communications

Nathan Richie, Scott Hepburn and Brandon Uttley – a crew otherwise known as The Marketing Squad – visited the chamber on March 7 to share some of their expertise with chamber members. The Marketing Squad presents a biweekly podcast (or as they say #squadcast) that covers social media, marketing and public relations. The visit to the chamber was part of their "Live on Location!" road show that can be found pulling people aside for interviews at local social media events and may soon visit a business near you.

Some of the tips they shared with Charlotte Chamber members include:

• Personal branding is an important networking tool. Make sure your social media presence conveys a consistent message. Buy your own domain name, and use it as a platform to help people find you online and to connect with you in real life. For example, Nathan owns NathanRichie.com and redirects it to a free about.me page. Use tools like Google Alerts, TweetAlarm and HyperAlerts to see when people are talking about you online.
• Blogger relations can be an important part of your public relations and marketing tool kit. They keyword there is "relations." Get to know the bloggers in your industry, what they like to write about, what their hot buttons are, etc., and stay in touch even when you don't necessarily have something you want them to write about. Read their posts and comment when appropriate. Link to your blog from theirs to help promote them. And if you don't have a blog, think hard about starting one to help keep your website content fresh and dynamic. Some resources you should check out from Scott include When Should Brands Pay Bloggers? and Blogger Outreach Confusion Hurts Brands and Bloggers.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps potential customers find you online and should be a high priority in your marketing program. Some of the most important elements of your SEO strategy are your page titles, content, images (or rather the tags you embed in their metadata) and links. Brandon suggests visiting SEMrush and SEObook for additional information and resources. And of course, check out the Command Partners blog for information on everything from SEO to scary clowns (*shudder*).

View their slides here. If you have a marketing rant to share on the squadcast, send a message to @MktgSquad via Twitter or visit them on Facebook.

by Melisa LaVergne, Director of Communications

We all know Charlotte is a fantastic place to live and it seems the stars are headed this way even before the 2012 DNC. Angie Harmon and her husband moved to the Queen City with their family in recent years after falling in love with the place while visiting close friends, the Jimmy Johnson family. In this excerpt from a recent "Live with Kelly" segment on national TV, Harmon does the chamber proud! Go to about three minutes into the interview and you'll see what I mean.

A global headquarters operation employing 417 seeks to locate in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Paying an average wage of $106,800 the firm will initially employ 170, increasing employment to 417 over a three-year period. Based on data provided by the Charlotte Chamber, the tables below provide estimates of the firm’s annual economic impact once its employment reaches its ultimate projected level. The estimates shown below are derived using the IMPLAN model. Below, three sets of estimates are presented: Those associated with the acquisition or building of office space;
the impact of the headquarters operations including their use of contracted consultants; and rough estimates of state and local tax impacts.

Construction

Construction impacts are one-time, short-term impacts that should be expected to occur for the duration of the capital investment only. At this time it is unclear if the firm will remodel/renovate an existing structure or build new space to suit. Renovation of existing space is expected to cost approximately $14 million while new construction is expected to cost $36 million.

 As shown in Table 1, the expenditure of $14 million to lease and remodel existing office space would employ 95 construction workers who collectively will earn about $4.2 million in wages and salaries. Supplying sectors should experience an additional $4.2 million in business sales, employ an additional 32 people who will earn nearly $1.4 in wages. These are listed as indirect effects in Table 1. Economic activity induced by the spending of wages is expected generate an additional $3.3 million in sales throughout the local area, generate 25 more jobs and about $950,000 in wages. In total, through the workings of the multiplier effect, the $14 million investment will ultimately generate about $21.5 million in sales, 151 jobs, and $6.5 million in wages and salaries.

Economic impacts of $36 million in new construction predictably produce larger effects (Table 2). This larger project would directly employ 300 and generate near $13.3 in wages. When all multiplier
effects are taken in to account, building new office space to suit would generate about $54.3 in sales, 434 new jobs and over $19 million in wages and salaries.

All impacts associated with construction/renovation are short-term in nature and would not persist beyond the duration of the construction phase.

Operations

Over time, the global headquarters facility will bring with it 417 jobs paying an average salary of $106,800. Unlike the construction phase, the impacts presented below would recur annually for as long as the firm remains in Mecklenburg County. In addition to the 417 jobs brought to the county by the firm, the firm expects to regularly contract with 50 local consultants beyond that which would be normally expected for such an operation. Further, the firm expects to make heavy use of air travel and local hotels to accommodate its clients in addition to a variety of other expenditures. Most of these expenditures are captured in the firm’s indirect effect on the local economy.

As shown in Table 3, 417 jobs paying an average of $106,800 should be expected to generate nearly $161 million in output. Indirectly, through its impact on supplying sectors and additional $82 million in business sales could be generated, supporting an additional 367 jobs and $44 million in wages. This result is especially important because it indicates the extent to which the headquarters operation is linked to other high-wage sectors in the county. Including induced effects due to the spending of employee wages, the total impact of the global headquarters might reach $285 million annually, supporting 1,100 new jobs and generate as much as $101 million in wages and salaries annually.

While all large administrative units employ consultants from time to time, this firm is expected to regularly utilize a larger-than-normal number of consultants in the accounting, legal and IT fields. They expect to annually employ 50 such consultants and the impact of this expenditure is shown in Table 4. Ultimately, these 50 consultants will support an additional 39 jobs in other sectors of the local economy (89 jobs in total) and collectively, it is estimated that as much as $13 million is sales and $4.8 million in wages will result.

Combined, the data in Tables 3 and 4 suggest that 467 jobs generated by the global headquarters will support an additional 722 jobs in a variety of sectors throughout the county yielding a total employment impact of 1,189. Such large employment impacts are a direct result of relatively high wages paid by the headquarters and higher-than-average wages paid in many of the sectors indirectly linked to it. Consequently, total economic activity might expand by as much as $298 million annually.

Tax Impacts

Given the above economic impacts, the IMPLAN model provides some rough estimates of the tax impacts that might accrue to state and local governments. According to IMPLAN and based on data in Table 3, the total fiscal impact of the global headquarters – direct, indirect and induced – not including the 50 consultants, is expected yield about $9.2 million in revenue to state and local governments annually. Estimating fiscal impacts, however, is a notoriously complicated endeavor so these estimates should be viewed cautiously and considered very rough estimates worthy of further research.

Harrison S. Campbell, Jr.- UNC Charlotte, August 16, 2011

Harrison S. Campbell, Jr. is an Economic Geographer and Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
His research focuses on patterns of regional development, impact assessment and policy evaluation.  He is also the author of Charlotte’s Business Growth Index. Dr. Campbell received his Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

How are we doing? Seriously, we want to know! As the end of 2011 approaches, we at the chamber are busy preparing for what the coming year holds. That's where we could really use your input - and you don't have to be a member to share your thoughts!

Over the past year, the chamber has been conducting a telephone survey to help us monitor our effectiveness, gather some important data to help us serve you better, and plan our priorities for 2012. Now, we hope to expand our reach with an email version of the questionaire. Before you exit this blog know the survey should take no more than five minutes max. If you already spoke with a chamber representative by phone, no need to answer it again. However, we'd love it if you'd share it with a co-worker or friend.

I think of it like voting - if you don't take the time to do it, don't call me to complain that you aren't happy with the results. So, what are you waiting for? Click here to participate: http://research.zarca.com/k/SsYXQsQWYsPsPsP or Click here to share by email or with your social networks.