Business Spotlight

Why a Business Spotlight?

The Business Spotlight will provide information to elected and appointed local government officials about the services and benefits offered by WVML business members.  Business Spotlight articles will provide valuable information to local government leaders about successful projects or innovative services for West Virginia’s cities, towns and villages.  The articles will also be a unique marketing tool for WVML business members, placing their success stories directly in the hands of hundreds of key local government decision makers: mayors and board chairs, council members and supervisors, managers, attorneys and municipal department heads and other staff.

Article and image specifications:

Articles will be printed in black & white.  Each article should consist of 500 words of text (or one page), plus a high resolution image (PDF, TIFF or JPG image of at least 300 dpi).  Articles should be Microsoft Word documents, without extensive formatting.  Arial font in 10-point type, single-spaced, is recommended. The photo should be saved separately from the article (do not embed photos in your Microsoft Word document.)

Successful images would be photos of client projects, such as a: public building, park, road project, water or wastewater system, town square, etc.  People can be included in the image (but no “head shots” please).  Companies that provide services can show a photo of the project that resulted from their assistance: a project or building they helped plan, finance, litigate, or sell, for example.  Site plans or similar schematics can be used instead of photos.  Please provide a caption for your image. The article and accompanying image is due on the first day of the month prior to publication.  For example, an article scheduled to run in April is due on March 1.

How to write your Business Spotlight:

The article should describe a project, and the benefits of that project to the owner and the community. The article is not an advertisement, firm history, statement of qualifications or a resume.  Instead, focus on how your firm helped your local government client meet a community need, save money, stay within budget, finish on time, or resolve other key concerns (lower crime, increase high school graduation rates, reduce traffic incidents, meet more stringent water treatment or permit limits, for example).  Successful articles will start by describing the community needs, problem or issue, then go on to explain how the consultant solved the problem or resolved the situation.  Articles nearly always should focus on West Virginia local government clients and projects, because that’s the audience for the website.

Guidelines for authors:
West Virginia Municipal League - League Lites & the Business Spotlight

"THE BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT" is an article that will be published monthly on the West Virginia Municipal League website or quarterly in our League Lites newsletter or both, if preferred.  Articles will  feature a different WVML business member each month.  There is no charge for the article.  This is a member benefit available only to business members.  A sample article is attached. It is important to quantify your success (How much under budget?  How many customers?), and say how this helps people.  Try not to be too technical:  only a few members of your audience will be architects, engineers or lawyers.  You may want to note that a project will “triple water plant capacity,” and that the expansion “will meet regional water demand for the next 30 years,” for example, instead of saying that “plant capacity will increase by 30 cfs.” Finally, WVML staff will help you edit your article to stay within the 500 word limit and showcase your firm in its best light.  We’ll also help you develop a great headline for your article.

Client approval:

You must clear your article with your client prior to submission.  Include a client contact (name, title, phone number or e-mail) for inclusion at the end of your article.  Also include a name and contact information for someone at your firm (i.e. firm owners or principals, project managers or marketing directors), plus your Web address and a short description - 25 words or less - of your firm’s local government services.

Getting more mileage from your Business Spotlight:

Once your article is published, feel free to reproduce copies from the website to take to trade shows, leave with a client, or use in a proposal.  WVML is grateful for the support of our many business members. We’re impressed by the excellent services available to West Virginia local governments and their residents, and we are pleased to offer this means of providing useful information to our local government members. Some business members have chosen to run advertisements in WVML’s League Lites in conjunction with their website articles, to reinforce name recognition and further focus our reader’s attention on the firm.

If you’re interested in this option, contact Debbie Price at WVML, 800-344-7702 or by e-mail: dprice@wvml.org

Remember, League Lites is published quarterly, not monthly, so it is not possible to have an article appear on the website and in print at the same time, except on a quarterly basis.

Schedule your Business Spotlight:

To schedule your article, call Beth McCoy at 1-800-344-7702, or e-mail: bmccoy@wvml.org