Share Your Iowa Story

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Iowa Economic Development has started on a new marketing-related campaign that is a relatively interesting twist from what I’ve seen elsewhere.

Iowa Economic Development Authority logoThey’ve started up a website entitled, “Share Your Iowa Story“. Quite obviously, they are trying to gather content for their “This Is Iowa” campaign. What better way to gather content for a campaign than to have others provide it? Their goal is to grab content that “….highlights inspiring and unexpected stories of real Iowans who live and work across the state. To uncover even more narratives of the people who make our state great,…”

Yes, this is a fun exercise for Iowa, but how does this relate to your community?

Think about why you want your small town to survive, to remain relevant for coming generations. There’s an emotional tie back to it. You want your community to succeed because you care about it. Those marketing Iowa are tugging at heart strings. They want to have people talk about what they like about Iowa. To spark the fire within that may have idled down over the years. But it doesn’t stop there, they want other Iowans to read those stories and reminisce. To remember their own stories why they love their state. Alternatively, they want those outside the state to read up as well, to read the stories and be drawn in like hot wings and a big screen TV to a football junkie.

Emotions play a strong roll in many of life’s decisions. Quite often they carry more clout than logic when making decisions. Using emotions to market your community is an effective, yet underutilized method. Too often we are wrapped up in providing basic community information and statistics. We are not tapping into the emotional ties that can really sell a community. Remember “Share your Iowa Story” the next time you are working on any marketing-related activities for your community and use emotion effectively.