Region’s business potential to be touted internationally

Executives and property managers the world over are about to get familiar with Northeast Pennsylvania.

Site Selection, a trade magazine geared toward growing corporations, is bundling a special Northeast Pennsylvania Intelligence Report with its September issue.

The magazine, with an international subscription roster of 47,000 mostly executive-level readers, boasts that its subscribers collectively spend $23 billion on new projects and create an average 30,000 new jobs every month.

The report will be packaged with the regular magazine and promote the perks of locating or expanding in the northeast — things like a stable workforce, access to cities like New York, Boston and Baltimore, and lower taxes and utility rates.

It’s a revenue tool for Site Selection and its parent company, consultant and publishing group Conway Inc., based near Atlanta.

However, regional marketing director Mike Glennon said Site Selection’s custom publication typically targets entire states or large cities, not so much connected geographic areas.

Glennon said a 2015-16 reader survey found that 72 percent of those who responded planned to expand in the next three years — and local economic development firms are hoping to catch their eye.

“It’s just another way for Northeastern Pennsylvania to be marketed to the rest of the world,” said John Cognetti, a board member for Penn’s Northeast, the area economic development consortium that pitched this region to Site Selection.

In March, Pennsylvania ranked ninth in Site Selection’s highly watched Governor’s Cups, an annual survey that scores states and metro areas on corporate projects that involve a capital investment of at least $1 million, create at least 20 new jobs and add at least 20,000 square feet of new building space.

After the Governor’s Cups came out, Penn’s Northeast President John Augustine asked Glennon about featuring the region in a custom publication.

“We certainly believe this is a great opportunity to showcase all that Northeastern Pennsylvania has to offer companies and the decision makers that are looking to locate their facilities,” Augustine said. “It’s certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and this publication reaches exactly the target audience that we’re trying to go after.”

Since the publication is ad-driven, the amount of original content by Conway writers is linked to the number of advertisements, and Augustine and Penn’s Northeast board members are hoping to squeeze in a few more before deadline.

“This is a very unique opportunity for all of the businesses in the region to get some very unique exposure to the outside world,” said Bill Sordoni, president of Sordoni Construction Services Inc. and a Penn’s Northeast board member.

The deadline to be included in the publication is Wednesday, Glennon said. For more information contact him at mike.glennon@conway.com.

Contact the writer:

joconnell@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9131; @jon_oc on Twitter

 

Learn More:

https://siteselection.com/