Grow Your Business Through Events

Earlier this week my husband forwarded me an article entitled Fake Boston bridal show signs up thousands. The article begins:

“Scammers set up a Web site advertising a fake bridal show billed as the “biggest and most extravagant” and used it to steal from thousands of brides-to-be and their vendors, who were lured by chances to win “fabulous gifts and prizes,” police and FBI experts said Monday.” Click Here to Read the Full Article

Vendors for this event paid up to $4,000 for a booth and the show sold thousands of couples pre-registering to attend the show spending $10 to $15 per ticket. As an event professional I am saddened by the scammers who have left a scarlet letter on the industry and can empathize with the thousands who have been screwed over, especially the vendors.

While I am outraged by this situation, I want to put an optimistic spin on it and use this occurrence as a prime example of a key principle when planning a business event. In order for an event to be successful, you have to have a solid event-marketing plan! These scammers in Boston have proven that the event-marketing plan is more important than the event-plan itself. Thousands of tickets were sold and there was no actual event.

Now I am not encouraging (or suggesting) anyone to plan fake events. However, I am encouraging (and STRONGLY suggesting) that you spend as much time planning your event-marketing efforts as you do planning the event itself. Here are 5 tips to having an effective event-marketing plan:

1. Set SMART Goals: Almost every business owner has heard of the “SMART” method of goal setting. Your goals for your event should be Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Timely. The first step in planning an event is determining what you want to achieve by planning the event.
2. Clearly Define Your Target Market: The target market for your event should be specific and well segmented. Selecting your target market requires that you take a close look at who you want to attend your event and how to appeal to them. What demographics will allow you to achieve your results? What mix of each demographic do you need to attend?
3. WIFM Approach: As an event-marketer you have to understand that your “guest” are going to have a “What’s In It For Me” mentality. In order for your event to be a success you have to create a draw for your invited guests. In the case of our scammers they promised attendees that they would “receive a welcome bag of goodies and will be entered for a chance to win fabulous gifts and prizes!” and that is was to be “New England’s biggest and most extravagant Bridal Show!” So what reason do your invited guests have to attend?
4. Timing is Everything: An event marketer walks a thin line between promoting too soon and not soon enough. How early you should start promoting your event will depend on the event itself. For example, and event that requires travel, or carries a high price tag may need more promotion time than a free, local event. You should carefully consider how early to begin promoting your event to maximize attendance.
5. Hindsight is 20/20: Even if this is the first time you are holding this event, it is important to look at past experience as a guide on how to market your event. What have your competitors done, and how successful was it? What marketing tactics have you seen used that produced the desired results? What market research can you find about your intended target market? This questions and others like them will allow you to develop a sound marketing plan for your event.

As you are planning your next event allow ample time to plan and execute your event-marketing plan. You could plan the most elaborate and fabulous event but if no one attends it is all for not; that is time, money, and resources wasted.

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Are you tracking your online statistics? Most businesses have discovered the benefit to online marketing opportunities. However, many neglect to evaluate the performance of their electronic efforts. Let’s think about it like this, you spend $500 to have your website professionally designed, invest an hour or more per day to social media initiatives, write tons of (key word rich) articles, blog posts, guest blog posts and at the end of the day no one sees or reads any of it. Problem right? YES!

If you aren’t tracking your online marketing efforts (and all of your other marketing tactics) your business is likely to miss its mark. There are simple (and free) ways to track the majority of your online marketing efforts. So where do you begin?

Website Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics solution that gives you insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Google Analytic’s (in my opinion) is the most robust free web analytics tool currently available. Simply sign up for a Google Analytics account, follow the instructions to “Create a New Website Profile”, and Google Analytics will generate the needed tracking code and instructions on where to insert the code into your website or blog.

Twitter Statistics

Here is a list of 8 Twitter tools from Social Media Today that are great for tracking your twitter behavior and statistics. Some even allow you to look at some statistics for other users. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/80437 My two favorites are TWITALYZER and TWITTERFRIENDS.

Facebook

Facebook provides “Insights” which offer Fan Page owners a post ranking, as well as some metrics regarding who your fans are. From the insights page you can see how engaging your posts are, the gender, location, and age bracket of your fans as well as subscribe and unsubscribe trends.

Some of the basic things you should be looking for are the demographics of the people you engage with, how people are finding you, the types of keywords they use to reach you, and what content is the most popular. Use this information to assess if you are reaching your idea target market and what types of content you should continue to publish.

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What is Wall Street Wednesday? The Wall Street Journal Digital Network has a section specifically for small businesses. They address business related topics such as Financing & Investing, Building your Business, Technology, Franchising and more. Every Wednesday we will share a relevant small business article from the Wall Street Journal and provide our take on what WSJ has to say.

Three Best Ways to Win a New Client, January 14, 2010

Many small businesses ring in the new year by taking a fresh approach to winning new clients. Whether you plan to reinvent your company or just attract an untapped demographic, there are a few ways to achieve your goals. After pinpointing your audience, reposition your message to gain those customers. Work your connections, but keep in mind, it’s tougher than ever to land deals. These days, your potential clients might be hurting or short of funding, says Mike Silverman, managing partner of engineering-services firm Ops A La Carte LLC in Santa Clara, Calif. “If you’re fairly new at this, you really have to not be afraid of rejection,” Mr. Silverman says. “You can’t give up. There is light at the end of the tunnel.” Here are three best ways to win new clients:

1. Go where the growth is.
2. Ally with other businesses.
3. Use online tools.

Click here to read the full article

Go Where The Growth Is: What Are Your Key Opportunities?

Every year (or quarter depending on the length of your sales cycle) you should be evaluating the viability of your primary target market. Outside factors influence every type of business and the target market that was once a gold mine may now be a dessert. Think about products and services that have been phased out based on external factors. For example, as technology developed some providers of dial-up internet services shifted their focus to cable and DSL services. More recent, as business travel has declined due to the economic downturn many airlines shifted their focus to selling upgrade services to individuals and families. In order to win more clients to need to target a viable market.

Event Planning Tip: If you are shifting towards a new target market, now is the time to plan a growth event. This is a great way to gain exposure to a large number of potential clients in your new target.

Ally With Other Businesses: There is Strength in Numbers

Far too often small business owners try to do it all themselves. Being a successful soloprenuer or small business owner is all about leverage. You must leverage your money, time, talents, and other resources. Think about other business types that offer complimentary services, how could you collaborate with them to leverage their client lists or to co-market in order to reduce marketing expenses? These businesses also become key sources for referals making it easier to close new clients.

Event Planning Tip: If you aren’t already well connected in your industry try hosting a networking event and invite related businesses. By hosting the event yourself, you place your business at the center of the event and it can help to establish your business as an influential business in your industry.

Use Online Tools: Inexpensive Marketing That You Can’t Live Without

It is 2010 and we are in the heart of the information age, online marketing is a MANDATORY component to your marketing plan. No matter what product or service you are selling, you are hindering the growth of your small business if you do not have a solid online presence. At MINIMUM, you should have a website that provides the basic information about your business and its products or services. In addition, there are an abundance of other networking and social media tools at your disposal that will allow people to connect with your business. Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Squidoo, and YouTube are among my favorite online marketing tools. Using these tools individuals are able to find and learn about your business and through social media they are able to connect to your brand. When that connection exists sales will follow.

Event Planning Tip: Using online tools is an ongoing effort building a solid following will help when you get ready to market your small business event. The people you interact with online already have a connection to your business, even if they aren’t in your target market they are far more likely to recommend your event to a friend.

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Guest Post By Rudo Malequin

Rudo Malequin is working as Marketing Executive for Fortepromo which create high quality Promotional Products that help companies to promote their brands.

The Success of a Marketing Campaign mainly depends on how much research and hard work you have done while creating your marketing strategy. Having an effective marketing strategy not only helps you to run you’re marketing campaign in a successful and organized way, but it also helps you to measure your results in a more accurately, determine the methods that work best and where you should focus your efforts long term. In, this article I am going to share some basic tips, which will help you when creating a marketing strategy for your business

1. Set Objectives: What is the main purpose of your campaign? What goals do you want to achieve at the end? Each campaign has its own Purpose. For example, it could be to increase brand awareness, increase monthly revenues or just to improve the rankings of your website for a specific keyword. Since each objective requires a different strategy, it’s always good to decide the objective of your campaign before creating marketing strategy.
2. Describe USP: What is the USP (unique selling proposition) of your product? What makes you different from your competitors? What are those qualities that can help you to stand out easily from your competitors? Write down all the benefits of your product that you would like to focus during your campaign.
3. Research You Target Audience: Who is your target audience? To what demographic would you like to promote your product? Research the likes and dislikes of your target audience, what are their requirements, what kind of products and services are they looking for, what problems are they facing with the current products and services they are using. All of these things will help you to create highly customized and effective marketing strategies for your campaign.
4. Competition Analysis: Try to gather as much information as possible about your competitors and their marketing campaigns. Doing proper analysis of competitors will help you find out the most effective marketing methods in your niche and to create a reliable marketing strategy.
5. Set Budget: Do you have a fix marketing budget? How much are you willing to spend on marketing activities? Often marketing campaigns are unsuccessful due to lack of funds. Allocating a fix budget at beginning will help you to focus on strategies, which can be carried out successfully within that budget.
6. Set Benchmarks: Establish benchmarks that are achievable at each level of the marketing campaign. This will help you to analyze the progress of your marketing campaign better by giving you a deep insight about the performance at the various levels of your campaign. The other primary advantage of setting benchmark is that it will keep you motivated throughout the entire marketing campaign.

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I am a member of several event related ning.com groups. This question was presented for discussion “The ENVI team would like to know is it necessary to host client appreciation events for your customers or is that just another way for the company to spend money unnecessarily?”

My brief response was:

I believe client appreciation events are extremely important. The hard part of sales is convincing someone to buy from you the first time. Once they have already purchased they are 70% more likely to purchase from you again or recommend you to someone else. If you nurture the relationships you have already spent time building the reward for your business can be huge!

Let me expound upon that here. Most businesses spend a lot of their resources prospecting, and moving prospects through the sales cycle. It can take both time and money to woo a potential client enough to motivate them to purchase. Where many businesses fail is believing that that relationship ends following the delivery of the final product or service and a token of your appreciation.

By not continuing to court your clients after you have sealed the deal you are allowing a competing business to come in and steal them away. Afterall, you have already identified the need for your product or service why let someone else reap the residual benefits. And, even if they don’t have an immediate need to purchase from you again are you top of mind when their friends and relatives ask if they know anyone in your line of work? If they never hear from you after the final “thank you” chances are you are not.

The reaction from most small business owners when I mention holding a client appreciation event to nurture the relationships you have with existing clients is “I’m a small business or soloprenuer, I can’t afford to hold a client appreciation event.” This mindset is generally based on previous exposure to large-scale client appreciation events. You don’t have to send your clients to Hawaii or host a huge golf tournament to say thank you. Why not hold a small reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres to say thanks? Or a picnic in the park? You can offer a raffle or contest, give away free products and services, there are tons and tons of ways to host a successful customer appreciation event that won’t break the bank.

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