Territorial marketing recipients
Referring to the objectives in the context of territorial marketing, this concept can be encountered relatively rarely in the relevant literature. This is due to the fact that territorial marketing is practically handled by local government officials, namely political groups and their departments. These groups do not have measurable benefits for themselves from conducting a campaign from start to finish. Moreover, these actions are long-term, and before one can determine the fruits of such actions, the authorities are often already changed. Another argument that discourages decision-makers from setting clearly defined marketing objectives is the fact that if they are not achieved (and marketing activities are difficult to measure and it is often hard to establish whether specific funds allocated to marketing objectives yield directly defined goals), they may become the target of media criticism, political opponents, or residents. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to set objectives at the beginning of marketing activities and to attempt to describe the return on investment (for example, the ratio of tax revenues to marketing expenses or the ratio of the total number of students at a given academic centre to the costs incurred for marketing activities directed at future students over a multi-year perspective) – from this, one can read the translation of marketing objectives concerning the relevant target group – the objectives of the undertaken territorial marketing activities wholly determine their recipients.
Among the recipients of territorial marketing activities, we can distinguish:
- residents of the promoted location – residents express their opinions about their place, about how they perceive themselves – they also become part of the assessment of the image of a given region (often, residents of a specific territory are attributed various characteristics – for example, hospitality, openness to others, or stinginess). The residents of the promoted territory become the beneficiaries of any actions aimed at improving the image; hence all such activities are in their interest.
- potential investors – investors are a fundamental target of the marketing activities of the region – it can be said that they are a kind of litmus test – if they appear, it means that the activities are being conducted in the right direction and yielding the expected results. The emergence of new investors confirms the quality of a given place – it indicates not only the acceptance of the area for building a factory but also overall satisfaction with the entire region – a broadly understood infrastructure, a supportive policy from the authorities, and seeing prospects for the development of the region. Therefore, it is not surprising that those managing cities compete strongly for attracting investors, luring them with tax exemptions, creating special economic zones, or offering additional discounts and privileges. For the region, new investments mean primarily the creation of new jobs, an increase in revenues to the municipality's budget, improvement of the image and attractiveness of the place, and for the authorities, it is success and confirmation of the correctness of marketing activities as well as the culmination of other efforts and endeavours.
- future students (in the case of academic centres) – current academic centres compete for attracting new students (similarly to localities competing for new investors) – in the face of a demographic decline, every student is important to the institution. Competition among higher education institutions is already significant and is systematically increasing – in new places (usually small towns), new private universities or branches of state universities are emerging. Access to higher education is becoming greater – there is the possibility of studying in part-time and e-learning modes, meaning that most of the time students spend at home in front of a computer at their convenience.
New students are also very important for the academic city – they use local services and products and often later decide to remain in the city where they studied, starting families and settling down – these activities drive the local economy.
- tourists – they are an important but very unstable recipient of the marketing activities of the locality. It should be started from the fact that every place has "something" (a building, an object, a lake, a bathing area, a protected nature site, etc.) to offer and encourage people from outside the region to visit. However, tourists often visit a given site only once, but then many others appear subsequently. Of course, there are regions (mountainous, spa, or coastal) that have already established a brand and enjoy tourists every season, but it is also worth promoting even lesser-known, niche places, as every single tourist can potentially bring significant benefits to that place.
- residents of surrounding areas (as an incentive to move to the promoted location) – in many cases, larger cities and agglomerations attract workers or students from nearby, smaller towns. Recently, suburban areas have often been "absorbed" by larger cities. All these situations present great opportunities for cities to gain benefits, primarily direct financial ones.
- companies and enterprises and others – all smaller players in the local market are also important for the locality and positively influence its budget. Each, even a single purchase-sale operation brings benefits not only to both parties but also to the budget of the given locality. The mentioned examples indicate that it is worthwhile to build a positive image of one's place.
