The challenge
Wetaskiwin competes for investment against larger centers with larger teams. Its economic development office is small and the expectations are not. Site selectors and investors want current, credible answers across a wide range of questions. How big is the workforce? What does the market look like? How well connected is the location? What is it like to live there? Which industries are already here?
Answering all of that, across a full investor-facing website and in one-to-one conversations, is a lot of content to produce and harder still to keep current. For a lean team without a dedicated data analyst, building and maintaining it from scratch isn’t realistic.
The approach
Wetaskiwin uses Localintel One as the data layer across investwetaskiwin.ca. Interactive dashboards are embedded throughout the website covering the community, workforce, location, livability and quality of life.
Localintel One does double duty beyond the website. On the Site Selection landing page, three interactive profiles covering demographics, economic and community give investors a deeper dive. When an investor asks for more, Raelene Coffey shares detailed reports directly. “I’ve shared reports [from Localintel One] with investors that are looking for more information,” Coffey said. “Sometimes, I share the link to our website landing page that has our profiles on them.”
“I’ve shared reports [from Localintel One] with investors that are looking for more information.”
Two things make this workable for a small team. The data in Localintel One comes from trusted government sources and stays current, so when the next census releases in tranches the profiles, reports and charts update automatically and the team is ready the moment investors ask. And the team stays in control of the message, choosing which profiles and reports to publish and share.
The result
A two-person team communicates a complete, credible investment case across an entire website and in direct investor conversations, backed by sourced, current data, without commissioning a consultant or maintaining spreadsheets by hand. The platform does the production and the upkeep. The team decides what to say and where.
What an investor reads on the website and what Coffey sends them afterward are the same numbers, because they were never assembled separately.