State and Regional Roles in Promotion and Messaging

State Role in Promoting Sector Strategies

The roles that the state plays in promoting its sector strategies are critical to the success of the state and regional initiatives. These roles include:

Developing and communicating the message

State partners should collaborate to develop and communicate a succinct message to promote their sector strategies. Consider developing an “elevator speech” – a short description that explains the “what, why and how” of the strategy to various constituents and stakeholders. Avoid government and education jargon, as well as “policy wonk” words. Use straight-forward language that appeals to the broader business community and citizens. While longer than an elevator speech, this 2-page example from Wisconsin is an attractive and concise description of the state's sector strategy and how it connects to the state's career pathway initiative.

Branding the sector strategy

Numerous states have “branded” their sector strategy, either by itself or as part of a broader competitiveness strategy. Examples of state branding initiatives include Georgia Work Ready and Michigan’s Regional Skills Alliances.

Assist in leveraging and maximizing local/regional marketing resources

Regional sector initiatives generally have limited resources for messaging campaigns and promotional materials. States can assist regions by developing state level materials that can then be used or customized by regional initiatives. Pennsylvania has developed several brochures – one describes their industry partnerships (sector) strategy and the other highlights several of its regional partnership initiatives in “Snapshots of Success.”

Regional Role in Self-Promotion

Regional initiatives play several roles in promoting their sector initiative, such as:

• Developing and communicating the message in alignment with state level promotional or branding campaigns
• Using the sector partnership members to promote the initiative with their respective constituents through a variety of methods including:
  • “Word of mouth”
  • Newsletters
  • Meetings and conferences
• Differentiating or customizing the messages based on stakeholder group (such as employers, educators, jobseekers, city council members)
• Developing a messaging “toolkit” to promote the sector initiative, including materials such as a PowerPoint presentation, case studies, and brochures.