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Online entrepreneur directory shows profile and lead analytics for Flagler County businesses
Summary
A presenter for the Florida Virtual Entrepreneurial Community (FLVEC) told the Flagler County economic development board that entrepreneur profiles and resource-agency listings on the site produce real-time analytics and company lead reports; sponsors underwrite profiles for counties that support the program.
A FLVEC representative told the Flagler County Department of Economic Opportunity on Sept. 17 that the program's online profiles and agency listings produce real-time analytics showing how often entrepreneur pages are viewed and which links users click. "In the last 7 days, his profile has been viewed 11 times. His website was clicked 3 times. His LinkedIn was clicked once," the representative said, describing the metrics for one example profile.
The FLVEC representative said the platform collects the same analytics for local resource agencies, and gave the Flagler County Department of Economic Opportunity as an example: "The listing has been viewed 39 times, and it looks like there were 2 website clicks from that," the representative said.
Nut graf: The online directory is designed to increase visibility for small and growing businesses and to provide county officials with data on inbound interest. The presenter said the program also supplies lists of companies that visit county pages, using a third-party service that matches visitor IP addresses to company records.
The presenter described how the program identifies potential business leads: "We subscribe to a data program that uses IP addresses and matches them against the database... So if they see that, for example, JPMorgan Chase IP address came on to FLVEC, the database will ping us back the corresponding information that you see here." The representative said the downloadable report includes company name, how they found the Flagler County content, location, telephone, email, employee size, industry and what content they viewed.
The presenter demonstrated search-engine placement for individual profiles, saying a Google search for a local firm returned the FLVEC profile as the first result among "more than 20,000,000 results" and noting "studies have shown if you're not on the first page of Google, you're losing huge opportunity." The presenter urged board members to tell local businesses the service is free and is sponsored locally so entrepreneurs are not charged for profiles.
Board members asked about funding and county participation. The presenter said FLVEC operates as a program of the Florida High-Tech Corridor Council, which the presenter described as "state funded through 3 universities, UCF, USF, and UF," and that the program receives Corridor funding that is matched by local sponsors. Sponsorship levels, the presenter said, run from about $2,500 to $10,000 per year, and a sponsor is required for a county to have active profile intake.
The presenter said FLVEC currently publishes a wide range of company sizes "from 1 person all the way up to 5,000" employees and that the statewide portal can host profiles for all 67 Florida counties but that FLVEC does not accept profiles from areas without a local sponsor.
The presenter asked the board to help promote the site to local entrepreneurs and resource partners. "My one ask of this group would be, tell your local businesses that this resource is available to them completely free," the representative said.
Ending: The presentation closed after attendees asked questions about county participation and data compilation; the presenter and staff encouraged outreach to bring more sponsor counties and local business profiles onto the platform.
