Live the Valley
A talent-attraction campaign for Iowa's Cedar Valley, and the project that started my career. I led its rebrand, content, and custom tools.
The challenge
The Cedar Valley needed to attract and keep talent in a competitive national market. Live the Valley was the initiative to do it, and it needed a brand, a message, and tools that made people picture a life here.
What I did
Over three years I led the rebrand and the growth of the campaign:
- Built a multi-channel strategy across social, email, and print that grew brand presence and engagement.
- Raised recognition of “Cedar Valley” as a regional identifier by over 7% through content marketing.
- Created custom relocation tools, including a Cost of Living calculator and a weekly job-board newsletter, to make the site genuinely useful.
- Published a magazine promoting the region, with a 3,000-copy print run and an online edition.
- Presented regularly to investors, city councils, and stakeholders to grow organizational investment.
The result
Live the Valley reached 2.4M+ people online, drew 100,000+ visitors, and maintained ongoing contact with 1,000+ talent leads for Cedar Valley companies. The magazine was named 2018 Publication of the Year by the Iowa Association of Chambers of Commerce, and the cost-of-living tool was adopted as inspiration for a statewide branding effort.
Why it matters
This is where I learned that marketing is the legs a place, or a business, stands on. Everything I do for clients now traces back to what worked here.
