NATCHEZ — The marketing of Natchez-Adams County to industrial prospects has made the leap from the real world to the digital world this week.

Natchez Inc. made what Executive Director Chandler Russ called a “soft launch” of its new industrial and business recruiting website at www.natchezinc.com.

The website has a two-fold purpose, to communicate Natchez Inc.’s message with its stakeholders and the community, and to serve as a repository of information for businesses interested in Adams County, Russ said.

That repository includes property listings and specifications that would answer the initial questions of those looking for industrial or business locations.

“The deeper you get into the (web) site, it is really targeted at (industrial) site consultants and business development consultants, real estate professionals,” Russ said.

“The emphasis of the site is targeted at providing the information that is necessary, that business and real estate professionals and site consultants need, in an orderly fashion.”

The new website cost approximately $8,500 to create. Russ said Entergy Corp. gave a grant of approximately $4,000 and Natchez Inc. kicked in the remainder of the funds.

The framework of the website was created by the IT group Marketing Alliance, which specializes in economic development websites.

“They set up the framework and some of the graphics and things along those lines, but for the most part — in order to keep our costs low — we managed most of the content work,” Russ said.

Previous incarnations of the online recruiting center did not have the same functionality for either end-users or administrators.

“Our previous sites, whether ours or the Economic Development Agency sites, were not really able to be edited in house,” Russ said. “So we hope that the site works to communicate our message to the rest of the world and to provide the level of detail that (industrial) site consultants and business developers need to make decisions about Natchez and Adams County.”

As part of the soft launch, Russ said Natchez Inc. is looking for feedback from website users, both to make suggestions and to let Natchez Inc. know about any functionality issues such as links that don’t work.