At the end of an event are you happy to say “it was brilliant over [insert big number here] people attended, great job”?
What outcomes do you look for after a website or brand relaunch? Is it by page visits?
How do you ascertain whether your social media policies are working? Do you count views and likes?
Or do you look at enquiries and the conversion rates of those enquiries?
An increase in numbers – whether those numbers relate to website traffic, events attendees or LinkedIn likes – don’t necessarily translate into profitable new business. It’s more likely to come from tyre-kickers, not your target audience.
One of the best events I have done was poorly attended. It was a talk I gave for CIPA (the UK trade body for patent attorneys). Despite a weather-dictated low attendance, the event was a massive success. Half of the 20 in the audience became Tenandahalf clients.
The lesson? When it comes to EFFECTIVE marketing and business development, it’s about quality not quantity.
What do you need to do next to get better outcomes?
1 Focus
Who do you want to engage with and do these targets correspond with your marketing strategy?
2 Engage
Engage your targets by communicating in their language and by framing the direct benefits they’d enjoy if they instructed you.
3 Be selective
This means building in the time required to follow up quickly and robustly.
4 Be decisive
Decide how you’ll measure success before you start each activity. Then measure performance against those criteria and track them so you can compare relative success of all your different events.
5 Be strategic not reactive.
Decide what you are going to do and just do it – don’t be distracted by shiny new things!
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you, please drop us a line and we can find a convenient time to talk.