Travel west from Des Moines on U.S. Highway 6 into Waukee and you’ll find a city in the midst of an economic boom, with a skyrocketing population and construction in every direction.

City leaders are determined to use that growth to market Waukee as a prime location for business development.

“Really, what it’s all about is being able to let everyone know what kind of a product we have,” said Jody Gunderson, Waukee’s director of community development. “We’ve been growing so fast and we’ve been so busy trying to stay on top of growth that we’ve not had such a focus on business recruitment. We’re looking at going outside of the metro and looking at larger companies and larger support companies to local industries.”

To accomplish its goal, the city signed a three-year contract in August with Urbandale-based Trilix Marketing Group Inc. with the intention of creating a strategic marketing plan. The initiative came about through the advice of the city’s six-member Community Development Committee.

“It’s a group that, over the last two years, has really gotten more focused on development,” Gunderson said. “I think where we’re at now is we want to concentrate on marketing the community.”

A recent special census in Waukee provided further evidence that the city is growing at a rate that was previously unprecedented in the town. The head count showed a population of 8,153 – a 12.3 percent increase since 2000. Population projections predict a 7.9 percent average annual growth rate from 2000 to 2010, with a 2010 population of 12,937.

From 2000 to 2004, the number of households in Waukee grew to 3,292 from 1,798. According to Gunderson, 10 residential developers, more than the city has ever seen, have purchased property in and around Waukee within the last year, and that land has the potential to provide 1,765 single-family lots and 615 multifamily lots.

Gunderson said that marketing the city’s growing population – a prime lure for potential employers – is of increasing importance. He said city officials would like to see more of the people who live in Waukee also working in Waukee.

“That’s part of the reason we’re ratcheting this up and going out there and targeting those companies that will hire our residents,” he said.

According to a June 2003 analysis by the city of Waukee of the available labor force, approximately 244,000 people from Waukee and its surrounding communities, close to 80,000 people within the total potential labor force are very likely or somewhat likely to change employment. Nearly one-third of those commuting out of Waukee are willing to change employment.

Gunderson noted that the city hopes to market itself on a national level to businesses within a cluster that have been selected as being worthwhile to pursue within the Des Moines area.

“Clustering just makes good sense,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of the same types of skill levels in the supporting industries that should be attractive to other companies that have similar products.”

Waukee is targeting the “information solutions” cluster, namely, the financial services and information technology industries. A financial services labor availability analysis conducted by Waukee shows a potential workforce of more than 66,000 from the city and its surrounding communities, with more than 30,000 people within the industry who are very likely or somewhat likely to change employment.

“We’ve got a very educated population with really good skill levels that are very easy to market in growing industries,” he said. “We would be foolish not to market that.”

Todd Senne, vice president of marketing services at Trilix, said his company seized the opportunity to work on this strategic marketing project, the first time Trilix has contracted with a government agency at this capacity.

“My kids go to the Waukee school district,” he said, noting the company’s vested personal interest in the project, as several of its employees live in Waukee. “I know when new business comes in that that’s only going to feed the tax base, which is going to provide better schools and more services.

“When it comes down to it, it’s just a fun, exciting project to be a part of.”

Senne and Trilix threw their hat into the ring this summer through Waukee’s request for proposal, or RFP. The company was hired following an interview process, that left city officials with a feeling of comfort in entrusting Trilix with its marketing needs. They hope that by hiring one company to develop the entire strategy, their marketing efforts will feature consistency and professionalism.

“When we initially got the RFP, we read the requirements of what they were looking for, which had a very close fit with what we are good at,” Senne said. “So not only could we give them what they were looking for, we thought there was a high, high chance of actually accomplishing their goals. We thought there was a very good chance of success and we wanted to be a part of that as well.”

Senne and Leah Schomburg, director of marketing services at Trilix, both said the likelihood of success has driven the company toward clients, as well as away from quite a few.

“Some are too big and some are unrealistic,” Schomburg said.

“It’s a relationship business,” Senne added. “To put our hearts and souls and minds into something, we really have to believe in it and we have to know that we’re the best ones to do the job, and if we don’t think we are, we’d rather pass and keep our reputation intact and wait for the next opportunity.”

Gunderson said Trilix and the city of Waukee have been working at “warp speed” since a three-year contract was approved by the city council on Aug. 2. Trilix is in the midst of developing the city’s message in order to create consistency from one marketing tool to the next, whether that will be through mailings, a Web site or other mediums.

Gunderson added that the city has previously done most of its marketing internally, though it outsourced a few projects, allowing it to target area developers primarily for residential development. But in order to attract commercial developers, the Community Development Committee emphasized the importance of consistency through every piece of marketing material that is directed at the targeted audience.

“Cities don’t have internal marketing staffs,” he said. “They outsource this. The question is, who do they outsource it to? There are some cities that use multiple firms. The fear that we had was, we are really trying to refine our message and we do not want to lose that message through different filters. That may not be an issue with other cities, but it wasn’t something we wanted to take a chance on.”

Clyde Evans, community development director for West Des Moines, said the city hired a St. Louis consulting company, Development Strategies Inc., two or three years ago as the Jordan Creek Town Center was gearing up.

“We were looking around Jordan Creek and [trying to determine] how much office development and how much commercial development we could support in that area,” Evans said.

The city used its partnership with Development Strategies, which specializes in real estate development, community development and economic development, to decide where it should be focusing its efforts.

Johnston Community Development Director Gene Martens said that unlike Wauke, his city has not hired an outside firm to handle the bulk of its marketing chores, instead relying on the Johnston Economic Development Corp. to market potential development opportunities.

“That’s the purpose of JEDCO and the city supports JEDCO with funds to do that,” Martens said. An outside vendor handles the management of the city’s Web site.

Gunderson said that, with a relatively small community development budget, he and other city officials wanted to make sure the marketing strategy was mistake-free, adding that they were comfortable entrusting that work to Trilix.

Though some of the details and the execution will be a bit different in dealing with a city, according to Senne, the basic principles of marketing still apply, with research, strategy and execution being key.

“The same thing that drives a customer to a store is the same that’s going to drive a business to a city,” he said. “It’s nothing that’s going to be vastly different from our normal day-to-day clients.”

Whether Waukee utilizes a Web site, e-newsletters, special mailings, brochures or other marketing tools, Gunderson hopes its efforts pay off in improving the quality of life for the city’s growing number of residents.

“People have very high expectations when they move out here, and they should,” he said. “So what you might be able to do in-house and that works for you, you want to step it up. People out here find that there’s always room for improvement, there’s always a way to make things bigger and better.”