The challenge
In 2025, the norfolkbusiness.ca website received a Bronze Award for Excellence in Economic Development from the International Economic Development Council, recognition for its effectiveness as an investment attraction and community engagement tool. The Localintel Dashboards embedded in the Norfolk Advantages section are part of what makes it work for site selectors and investors.
But maintaining a high-performing web presence is only one part of the job. The team is small, requests from council, investors, partners and local businesses arrive frequently and on short timelines, and producing data-backed content the traditional way (navigating Statistics Canada, sourcing and interpreting figures, building something presentable) crowded out other work.
“I haven’t even posted too many stories or news articles on the website with data points because I just don’t even have the time to collect them.”
The approach
The Norfolk Advantages page, the team’s primary investment attraction destination, uses Localintel Dashboards to give site selectors and investors current information on market demographics, economic profile and workforce characteristics. They draw from verified government sources and curated third-party datasets and update automatically as new data releases.
With Studio, the team has ready-to-use stories, charts and reports for Norfolk they can select, edit and publish directly. Blaire used a Platform story and chart to create a news article for the website, content she acknowledged she couldn’t have produced under typical time constraints.
“Going forward, this will be able to allow us to post more content about the county itself… which would be really positive.”
Responding to questions the same day
When council or an investor asks a question, Platform can often supply a credible, structured starting point immediately. Director of Economic Development John Regan described using a relevant story to respond to a real question with minimal editing.
“Essentially I copy and pasted, did very minor edits to it… and sent it off. And I couldn’t do that before.”
The result
John describes the experience as “literally like having an economic development analyst on staff, a virtual one.” Economic Development Coordinator Lindsay Kalliokoski framed it as an “enhanced portfolio,” one that presents facts and data in a way that’s accessible to more audiences without sacrificing credibility.
For economic development teams doing high-quality work with limited capacity, Localintel provides a starting point that’s already sourced, structured and defensible, so staff can focus on applying their local knowledge rather than assembling the underlying content.