Archive for May, 2008

A great event marketing case-study - Nestle’s baseball campaign

Posted by writer

Nestle is recently hosting an amazing family days campaign as part of its Minor League Baseball Sponsorship. They’ve also built a great interactive website for this campaign. The Drumstick Cone events. This is an interesting casestudy of how a company can; a- make their products into events, b- create excitement and hype around the events, c- have mini-events (or relaunches) within the events themselves.

They’ve strategically linked the campaign with ticket discounts and ‘fun family activities’. They’ve also built hype around the fact that they will be touring selected minor league ballparks where they will take pictures with the families who attend. Note: An incentive to go. Next, they’ve targeted kids really well by offering trading cards to those who buy their drumstick cones at the events. Note: An incentive to buy. Then, if it wasn’t enough, they’ve added an element of creativity and ownership on those trading cards by making them completely customizable. Note: An incentive to brag about. Hats off to Nestle’s marketing team. Great job!

Using mind-mapping software to plan events

Posted by writer

The power of mind maps. Ever wondered how our mind segments thoughts in little pockets and somehow manages to form links and relationships with them in real time? Ever wondered how multi-dimensional relationships spark up and roll like a movie in our minds every time a thought is triggered. It’s amazing, and yet next to impossible to physically capture all of that information.

Mind-mapping software options: Although its impossible to capture everything, people have tried to come up with softwares that can help us organize our thoughts in a more structured way. A few notable ones are; Mind42, imindmap , mymind (for mac users), Brainmine (for MS Windows), Mind Meister, Wise Mapping, and FreeMind. You can see a more detail list here and here.

Benefits of mind-maps: Being event marketers and planners we’re always juggling thousands of elements or thoughts in our minds at all times. We also manage to train ourselves to multi-task without making it feel like a burden. So, having useful softwares to plan and launch events is actually something I recommend to most of my friends. A few benefits off the top of my head are;

  1. Its great for your entire team or clients to get together and brainstorm in one place
  2. It ensures all stakeholders of the event are on the same page
  3. It is a great way to map out ideas and find possible alternative options for different things, e.g. venue backup plans, etc
  4. It give a complete picture of the event and makes clients understand the dynamics of the plan
  5. It gives you a good reference guide while implementing the plans
  6. It is easy to come back to it after the event to see what things worked best and what didn’t. For example, if you’re marketing your services online, you’ll be able to see which of the social marketing tools helped in building more pre-launch hype.
  7. It makes us marketers feel important and intelligent when we look at the complex structures formed after weeks of brainstorming :)

Find a mind-mapping software that fits best around the way you work and start mapping your thoughts.

Turn your events into a revolving door

Posted by writer

To keep up with today’s pace - businesses are like revolving doors for launches. You’ll notice how they’ll go through an extensive hype building pre-launch campaign, and then finally launch; only leading to another relaunch or special mini-launches. The interesting thing is that this process actually works!! I have been studying event marketing tricks for a good time, and have found this cyclical launch technique fabulous for business.

If event marketing and launching is dominated by ‘a survival for the fittest mindset’ - then this technique is truly going to benefit you a lot. I call it the ‘revolving door technique’ because; just like revolving doors go round and round, marketers can keep launching and relaunching events. It would be noteworthy to mention that this technique is also backed up by some of the most influential thought leaders in internet marketing.

So, if you have been reading my posts recently, you would know how to continually keep building your community through lists. You’ll also know that just having lists is good for nothing until you have strong relationships with them. All of this sounds like very basic stuff, and it is just that. But even basic things need to be handled with tact and intelligence.

A typical event goes through a standard hype cycle, where the launch is usually at the peak of the hype curve. Slowly, after the event, the hype wanes and fades away with time and only becomes a fragment of people’s memories. What we recommend to our clients is to always keep ahead of the game. Always be on your audience’s or client’s minds. Always have something exciting going on. Lets suppose you launched a product by building lots of hype online to get the targeted audience excited. You would want to keep that excitement and loyalty to that product intact for a good time to come. So, you can simply launch discount campaigns, competitions, product variations, seasonal offerings on the “same” product without having to invest anything extra in product development. If your product is an event, you would want to make it into a recurring event with something new to offer every time.

Treat your events like revolving doors, don’t just stop there.

Creating scarcity in tickets and merchandising

Posted by writer

I am sure you have heard about how marketers often play with certain emotional triggers to entice people to act quickly. You can use the same principles of scarcity when selling tickets and merchandising to your audiences. Creating scarcity implies restricting the supply of the things that you are selling to create a perception of shortage. This becomes even more effective if it is bundled up with a promotional offer, such as a discount or bonuses.

Some people are indecisive or slow about making their decisions and often end up being too late. Scarcity puts them in a spot where they become more inclined to jumping for it rather than “thinking about it later”.

If they are on your lists, they already are interested in your services. Give them a great offer for a limited time and they might say “heck, why not”.

I have even used scarcity for high demand markets by increasing the prices up by 25%. This happened in an “open theater concert” that we were planning a few years back on the East Coast. It was going to be the first concert of that summer and people were already looking forward to it. Regardless of the prices, we would have sold a total number of 980 tickets for 980 seats. We decided to play with the scarcity approach to increase the prices up 25% from our usual rates for a limited time short supply. This trigger helped us sell all of our tickets in a record time and earn 25% more than we usually do from such events.

Client relationship tips for event managers

Posted by writer

Here are some quick tips to help you in maintaining relationships with your customers and prospects.

1- Give options. If your clients want their events to be different, offer ways of customizing them to the nth degree. Be consultants, not just organizers. Give your full attention to what they want and then propose solutions and options to them.
2- Show that you care about them. Offer complementary services or gifts for bigger events to build relationships with regular customers. These can be anything from a picture album of the event to free bartenders. This depends on your budgets and resources. But a good gesture goes a long way in building lasting relationships.
3- Keep marketing material handy. Always have case-studies of successful events that you did and present them in an attractive way for prospects. You can short fliers or brochures printed or online PDFs. Make sure you can demonstrate your capabilities as great event organizers.
4- Never forget your lists. Keep in regular contact with previous clients, prospects or audiences through emails and occasion-based greeting cards. You can setup reminders for yourself to invest a few minutes each month to do this.

Creating experiences for your events

Posted by writer

We discussed earlier how to build brands for the events that you plan. The idea there was to help you to turn the event into an entire experience for all of the people who participate in it – the audience, the attendees, the clients, the guests. The experience should be seamless right from the beginning, even before the event actually takes place. If ordering an iphone is an event in your life, then the experience begins from the moment you go to their website to place an order, to how the package looks like when it arrives, to the promptness of their customer support staff. Similarly, for organized events, the experience begins from the moment people find out about it, all the way till after the launch. The smoother the flow is, from the start to the end, the more memorable the experience will be.

I recently got an invitation to a wedding with the most beautiful invite card that I’ve seen. Everything from the font, the graphics, to the feel of the card texture was wonderful. It also had a small personally addressed hand-written “looking forward to” note attached to it. Just the invite made me feel honored to be invited and excited about being a part of it. For me, the wedding’s first touch moment was perfect.

So the idea, is to turn your events into experiences that everyone would want to remember and feel special about. It also comes down to simple things, like making it simple for people to get back to you with regrets or RSVPs. Make it easy for them to find locations and venues. Give offers, discounts and giveaways. Also remember, that your event doesn’t just end at launch – the post-launch phase is just as important.

Each event is a brand – do you have the right story figured out?

Posted by writer

Every event that you plan is like a separate product – each event requires its own brand and identity. Its sad to see how people keep on launching events without giving thought to the event’s brand story. Today, I am briefly going to talk about ways of building brand stories for your events, whether they are small soccer club gigs or huge global conferences. The essence is always the same – does the brand of the event make people want to brag about and be a part of it?

There are different approaches to building the brand story, but I like the simplest approach the best. Its more genuine and honest and takes up less time.

Step 1: Understand what sets the event apart

The first step to building your brand story is to understand who your ideal attendees are. What are there thoughts, fears, requirements, ideas? What gaps exist in other events that you will be filling? Once you understand your targeted attendees, you will be able to identify things that you want to highlight about your event that fills their needs. This can be anything, from better payment terms to cool merchandize. Write down the things that set your event apart. Let’s call them the brand attributes.

Step 2: Build a story based on your brand attributes

Now that you have the brand attributes written down, it’s easy to build a story around it. A story is a description of how the event idea came about, in layman’s terms. The story doesn’t have to be a fabricated knit-up but it should be positioned in a way that is easy to remember and repeat. A story could be: “we were furnishing our baby’s room and couldn’t find good economical furniture for small baby rooms in this town. First we looked around then, we decided to take things in our own hands and custom build them. They turned out so great and everyone loved them. We now have a small furniture outlet in our own garage for other parents like us where we arrange bi-monthly meetups for parents to share ideas and come up with designs. Our little get-togethers are open for all expecting or existing parents and even furniture designers.” This is a story people will not only remember, but spread to every parent that they know.

Step 3: Tell the story to your audience

If you have been following my posts, you probably already have a community (audience or list) that you are actively building a relationship with. When you are ready to share your story with your community, just tell them the exact story that you have spun in the previous step and let them absorb it. Never push anyone to your events, let them get lured themselves.

Step 4: Make references to your story and encourage others to spread it

Make it easy for people to share your story with their friends. A great way to do this is to have materials ready, that they can send to their networks. Also, keep referring to different aspects of the story or different analogies of the story off an on, as a subtle reminder to the community. For example: “you know how we have this great little garage all set up…”, or “we are avid believers or DIY home products..”, or “our babies in a cute and inquisitive stage these days..”, or “its interesting to see how great ideas can be generated in fun brainstorming sessions..” etc. These references will revive the entire story in the listeners mind and will make sure he or she doesn’t forget it.

Just like product brands require special attention, your events deserve the same level of thought into designing them. Good luck.

Never stop building lists

Posted by writer

Building lists of customers, prospects, attendees, audiences should be a constant process. Once you have people on your lists make sure you start building a [[strong relationship]] with them. These lists are like an asset for every event organizer. They are an invaluable part of launching successful events and should be treated that way.

You can use different online methods to locate people with similar interests, a few of them are:

When you add people to your list, make sure you start communicating with them immediately, so that they don’t forget about you. Keep them in the loop with what’s going on, and build meaningful relationships with them. The stronger your relationship is with your lists the more likely they will support you when you introduce your events to them.

This is as important for event planning as it is for sales. A sales-persons value is often determined by how many contacts and networks he has. So, whether you plan events as a career, hobby or are only contemplating on building a career in it – get down and start building those lists today. They are going to help a lot when the right time comes.

Launching events – building a relationship of trust

Posted by admin

As event managers, we have gone through the extensive cycles of launching shows and parties a great number of times in the past. I have to admit I had a lot of inhibitions about it initially, as we turned towards online platforms for marketing. I knew there were areas which would benefit greatly, like automatic RSVPs and ticketing etc – but I had no idea how we would be able to pull the crowd in without spending too much time planning meticulously.

Interestingly enough, online marketing is closer to real-life situations and emotions than offline promotions. I will elaborate on different aspects of this observation in the next few posts.

It’s all about the relationships:

To launch events you have to build relationships with your market or audience first. Just like in real-life every interaction that you have with others is determined by your ability to build relationships – short or long term. Whether you are talking to a passenger sitting next to you in a train or dealing with close relatives, the power of these interactions depend on how well you can build and maintain relationships. This comes naturally to some people and is relatively difficult for introverts. Generally, if you are in the event management or planning field, then you are already a step closer to having these rapport building skills in you. Quite like real life, you have to build trust and credibility with the audiences online as well. These interactions have to be like real-life conversations – show genuine interest in them, find out their pain points, see how you can help them, make their input an important part of shaping the events.

You can’t simply, as an example, put tickets online and expect people to buy them. You have to slowly and gradually build strong relationships based on trust and credibility first. The stronger your relationships, the more it will benefit your events. So schedule special time aside for investing in building meaningful relationships with the people who matter the most: your audience, your customers, your clients, your attendees.

An example of a great relationship:

Just to stress my point, I am going to give you an example of how Tech Crunch leveraged their loyal followings in launching their events. They started a conference called Tech Crunch 20 in which they covered the top 20 tech startups live. Instead of just launching the event as is, they got the audiences involved way before the event. They kept adding information, sharing ideas, asking for direct input and kept everyone on the loop. The excitement led to more and more signing up to buy tickets. Within a year the community drove the event to an even larger scale and changed the name to Tech Crunch 40. This year they will be covering 50 top startups.

The reason I’m sharing this case with you is that these things don’t happen by fluke. Relationships, respect, authority and credibility play a significant role in the success of your events. The Tech Crunch conference would not have been successful if they hadn’t interacted directly with the people before, during and after the event launch. After the success of one, they can now relaunch by going through the entire prelaunch and launch phases every year.

More on relationships & trust from the blogging world around us;

5 Dysfunctions of a Customer Relationship
- When dealing with a “prospect” who has yet to become a “customer”, the biggest foundational barrier to progress is often “trust”. This common thread of trust is what got me thinking about this in the first place. …

High Value Relationships - Trust Points
- Trust Points are the customer interactions where the quality and outcome have greater implications than other points of contact. For example: the processing of someone’s bill is a trust point, whereas the handling of their luggage is a …

Leverage Your Relationships
- Another example of leveraging your relationships in on the internet. People will always want to buy off someone who they trust. If you have a relationship with someone who has a list of people who they email a newsletter to each week …

Previous Page