ROI on ED

“We spend $220 million marketing Wisconsin for economic development. There are over 895 ED groups in the state trying to do this. What do you think the return on this investment is?” Frank Borg, Marketing/PR Manager at the Northwest Wisconsin Manufacturing Outreach Center; asked me last week. If any of you have the answer or how you would calculate it, would you mind emailing either Frank at borgf@uwstout.edu or me at jschultz@agracel.com?

Megan Beeler, Agracel’s researcher, emailed me that there are 35,000 ED organizations in the USA, more than the 25,375 cities and towns in the country. That is a lot of overlap and duplication of effort. It’s also why one of the emerging trends that I see is the movement toward more regionalism in economic development.