Strategically Marketing Florida’s Cities: An Exploratory Study Into How Cities Engage in Public Marketing

Over the course of this decade, Florida has emerged as one of America’s fastest growing and most visited states. As many of the state’s municipalities compete for opportunities to expand their tax base and achieve other municipally centered goals, they are faced with the challenge of needing to strategically differentiate themselves from their peers to attract opportunities. One way to accomplish this is through using marketing as a tool of strategic management. While literature shows that marketing engagement is happening in cities throughout the world, we lack a clear understanding of what American municipalities are doing about marketing and why they are increasingly choosing to participate in the activity. This work provides a glimpse into how a sample of Florida cities are strategically using marketing and what city managers and communication officials are specifically hoping to accomplish with marketing activity. The purpose of this research is to answer the following three questions: Why do city governments engage in marketing? Do city government officials engage in marketing from a strategic management perspective? How do city governments engage in marketing? Utilizing surveys and interviews from city managers and communication officials at the municipal level from across the state, this exploratory study sheds a light onto how several cities using marketing as a strategic management tool to achieve articulated goals. We provide recommendations for practitioners exploring strategic use of marketing and practitioners seeking to expand marketing engagement within their municipalities.