Integrated Marketing Strategy Helps Elk Grove Village Maintain Low Business Vacancy Rates

Elk Grove Village is consistently recognized for its ability to adapt and improve. Real Estate Journals Magazine named Elk Grove the 2022 Municipality of the Year for its unprecedented growth and continued demand as a leading business destination in the Midwest. Business Facilities Magazine also crowned Elk Grove the nation’s #1 Business Park.

The Challenge 

The Business Development Team provides economic development for the Village, and aims to pay off on being Beyond Business Friendly (the Village’s trademark slogan) for all its companies and data centers. This means promoting new growth opportunities, offering business incentives, providing resources to support the businesses, and maintaining strong relationships with the business leaders in the community.  

The team’s primary goal is to maintain a low business vacancy rate by supporting local companies’ success and attracting new companies to move there. In order to live out its commitment to local businesses, Elk Grove Village needed an integrated marketing strategy that leverages face-to-face relationships and events as well as its websites, email, and social media.

The RC Solution

A core tenant of the integrated marketing plan and the EGVBizHub website, the Elk Grove Village Block Party is a monthly series of feature articles with input from the leaders of the highlighted businesses. Block Party highlights company history, industry expertise, company culture, and new project initiatives. This strong online presence provides PR opportunities for its local businesses by allowing them to showcase their services and provide a network for business professionals to discover each other. 

The Block Party articles each also highlight what attracted the businesses to Elk Grove Village – the roadblocks faced and overcome with help from the Village. In doing so, company leaders openly credit Elk Grove Village with being more supportive of their growth and easier to work with than anywhere else their business was located previously. These testimonies help to articulate how the Village is Beyond Business Friendly. 

Block Party, which is delivered via email to more than 2,000 Elk Grove Village businesses, also allows local leaders to learn more about their neighbors, connecting them to resources in the area. That monthly email newsletter consistently generates a 22% average open rate and a 3.32% average click-through rate. 

As much as any other touchpoint, Block Party exemplifies Elk Grove Village’s approach to forging strong business relationships as the foundation for long-term support and growth. In addition to the feature article, Block Party also welcomes its new businesses by introducing them to the community and linking readers to their company website to learn more.

The Highlights 

• The business vacancy rate in Elk Grove Village reached an all-time low (1.5%) in 2022, with the Village welcoming more than 100 new businesses. 
• Block Party and the Beyond Business Friendly slogan have improved brand awareness and reinforced Elk Grove Village’s value propositions while providing mutually beneficial PR opportunities for local businesses and the village.
• There have been 102 published Block Party articles focusing on the business community.