For more than three decades, they have been known as MVEDC. But they were not known by many and even fewer knew what services they offered. That’s a shame because they do important work.

The Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corporation is a partnership of public and private interests focused on helping businesses grow, and to create and retain jobs.

It’s a valuable resource for businesses. It’s important to make sure businesses know this resource is available to them. And we needed to make their services easier to access.

Business loans are 75% of MVEDC’s work, yet not many business owners don’t realize they offer loans for businesses. MVEDC wanted to change this situation most of all. And they retained Farris Marketing to help them change it.

Farris Marketing created a new marketing and branding campaign that included —

• A new tag line that repositions MVEDC as “The Growth People”
• MVEDC’s loan services were branded as “The Grow Biz Fund.”
• A new user-friendly website was developed for MVEDC (www.MVEDC.com)
• A micro-marketing website was developed for loan services ( www.GrowBizFund.com).
• Advertising banners on local news websites to send prospects the websites.
• Loan prospects are prompted to use the “Quick Loan Qualifier” — a special feature built into the GrowBizFund.com website.

The new websites were launched in mid-March and the rest of the campaign will follow. MVEDC is very happy with the initial results. “I want to recommend Farris Marketing to anyone who needs some assistance.” said Mike Conway, Executive Director of MVEDC “They did an outstanding job for us.”