Background

In 1998 the Municipality of Blagoevgrad joined the "Technical Twinning between Bulgarian and American Cities" Program implemented by FLGR/ICMA by signing an agreement for cooperation and work on joint projects with the City of Auburn, State of Alabama, USA. The main project developed under this program during the first stage of its realization (1998 - 2000) was Drawing up a Strategic Plan for the Development of the Municipality of Blagoevgrad to 2015 in the areas of: urbanization and infrastructure, economic development, environment and waste management . In its vision of the municipal economic environment the Economics work group specified as a task of major importance the creation of conditions, favorable for attracting foreign investment. As a necessary condition and a first step towards the solution of that problem the creation of an informative material about the municipality was specified, which would summarize the existing diverse and heterogeneous information and would arrange it purposefully, so that it would not emphasize the municipality s advantages and favorable opportunities separately, but with a view to the prospective interest on the part of potential business partners and investors, i.e. developing a Marketing profile of the Municipality of Blagoevgrad .

Practice

The first and most substantial stage was the development of the draft project of a marketing profile. The idea of changing the philosophy of the municipality s presentation and adjusting the information to the point of view of the potential foreign investor s interest was inspired by the marketing profile of Blagoevgrad s partners from the City of Auburn and the practices of a number of other US cities as models of such kind of electronic documents.

The second step was working out the structure of the marketing profile, which was realized with the expert in Economic Planning of the City of Auburn, Mr. Ed Gardner. A work group comprising municipal experts in all major areas of the marketing profile, with the participation of the information technology specialist, discussed the initial project and approved the final version of the structure.

The third stage was gathering the necessary information to fill in the structure of the marketing profile already created. Each of the experts collected and processed the information in his/her area.

The fourth step was editing the information submitted by the various experts and shaping a uniform integral style of the document s wording. The concise, brief and clear style of expression was of great functional significance. An important element at that stage was translating the document into English language.

The fifth and last stage was uploading the file containing the marketing profile into the web site and designing it as an electronic document by the municipal information technology specialists.

The future development of the electronic marketing profile is directed towards creating an appropriate graphic design and linking to the rest of the information existing on the municipal web site, as well as periodically updating the information in it.

In contrast to the existing advertising brochures and other materials existing widely used in practice, the Marketing profile of the Municipality of Blagoevgrad bears the following innovative characteristics:
The content of the profile was selected from the point of view of the foreign investor s interest. Most detailed information was given in respect of the economic characteristics work force, work force qualification, taxation, legislative requirements for environmental protection, etc. The information on the infrastructure transport links, telecommunications, power- and water-supply, included only the facts necessary for a potential consumer existing services, ways of getting connected and/or using the respective service, useful contacts. The general information and the information on the quality of life are concomitant and selected mainly from the point of view of the opportunities for spending a quality leisure-time in the case of short stay or for ensuring a quality family life in the case of permanent stay of foreign citizens. Links and contacts are ensured for more detailed information on culture, art and history.

Results

The marketing profile increased the capacity of attracting foreign investment. Interest was shown in it by almost all municipalities in Bulgaria. The project has already been successfully replicated in the Municipality of Sliven, where on the basis of trilateral partnership between the City of Auburn and the two Bulgarian municipalities the whole process was repeated and a marketing profile of Sliven was developed.

The marketing profile of Blagoevgrad is the first material of its kind in Bulgaria developed as an electronic document. The electronic version has the following advantages compared to traditional brochures:
- Direct access at any time for every user, irrespective of his/her location;
- Practically unlimited number of people who can use the information;
- Possibility for a periodic and permanent update of the information (the economic information in the traditional brochures becomes out of date before the amount of printed materials available runs out);
- Possibility to include a volume of information much bigger than the traditional brochure, through references and links to other addresses.
- Practically insignificant costs of creation and update of the web site, compared to the rather expensive printing of advertising brochures.