Getting a Flood of Referrals from One EventWritten by Heidi Richards, MS
The second most important thing next to staging a world-class event is front and back-end promotion. By that I mean, cultivating referrals from your clients/vendors/attendees. Promoting your services for other events to this base of referral business requires careful, strategic, ongoing planning. You could turn one event into many with right marketing mix. It’s personal attention, details and relationships you build that will create this flood of referrals. Gather Information: Create information cards that will be your resource for referrals. The cards should be completed for both clients and vendors. Vendors can be a great source for referrals and should be treated with same care and personal attention as clients. Information on cards should include: · Names and birth dates of family members · Wedding anniversary, and other special dates such as # of years in business or with same company · Interests of each family member to include hobbies, talents and accomplishments · Place of employment of client and spouse · Special designations, offices or memberships of client · Corporate client cards to include information of your contact within corporation and CEO · Birth dates of key personnel within company · Any annual celebrations company hosts Ask your client for an evaluation immediately following event. Make it brief and concise. Send evaluation with a thank you note. Be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Ask one or two open-ended questions to elicit candor. Ask client to be open and honest about all aspects of event you were involved in. Handle any complaints professionally and proficiently. Do not allow time to lapse before addressing complaints. Handling and correcting complaints quickly will solidify relationship, and increase your chances of working with client in future. Remember statistics which imply that when a complaint is handled quickly and favorably, 87% of those who complain will do business with “offending” party again. You’ve worked so hard to get client; in most cases, it’s much easier to keep a client than find a new one.
| | Increasing Event AttendanceWritten by Heidi Richards, MS
Increasing event attendance is generally biggest challenge facing meeting and event planners. Many people think that if they plan a fantastic event, people will just come. This does not happen, not on its own. In fact, this can be confusing and disturbing to those responsible for hosting and completing event. Do you hire a Public Relations firm to help with publicity, which is supposed to lead to more attendees? Or do you depend on “lists” of likely people to attend. It can be a little of both. Hiring PR firms and solely depending on their ability to drive attendance up can be a big mistake. A PR firm’s responsibility is to bring in publicity, not attendees. In fact, media rarely does stories on events that have not yet happened. Advertising event can be costly too. It will increase awareness of event, while not necessarily targeting people most likely to attend. In fact, unless advertising is directed at a specific, highly targeted group of individuals, cost of ad will far outweigh any likelihood that more people will come. So, just what will increase attendance? Mailing lists! However, not just any mailing list. Many associations and organizations experience a decrease in attendance for their events over years. Why? Because they keep using same mailing lists over and over again. In fact, when events are new, more people are likely to attend just to “check it out.” Then attendance starts falling off. In order to keep that from happening, you must develop a specific targeted mailing list and a solid action plan to use list that will ultimately increase your attendance. Here are a few strategies you can use to see immediate results: · Research other available mailing lists. Look for associations and organizations who present events to similar audiences. Offer to trade sponsor recognition in exchange for their mailing lists. The sponsorship could include a table at your event for them to distribute promotional literature. It could include their name and logo in your brochures, programs and other printed materials. It could include an exchange of your mailing list (for a one time only use). Negotiate what they would accept or develop sponsorship guidelines to include what they would receive. This will cost you nothing and your mailing list could go from 1,000 to 10,000 (or more). Of course, it will cost more to mail to more people. When my church decided to host an auction, we researched other organization that had hosted auctions in past. We were able to trade lists with some of them, resulting in a list triple size we started with. The result: nearly half of attendees came from those other lists. · Since printing and mailing to a larger list will increase costs of promotion, use other strategies to save money. Print inexpensive brochures that are self mailers (saves on envelopes). Use a two-color process instead of four color. Use creative designs that catch eye and save on printing. Bidding is always a good business practice; have printing “bid” on, unless your printer sponsors printing in exchange for exposure. Use bulk mail instead of first class. It saves tons in postage, enabling you to mail to more potential attendees.
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