Budget Constraints… Join Forces

March 14, 2011 - PRLog -- Often times, marketing partners are an overlooked resource for creating an event. Joining forces with a marketing partner helps to offset costs while enriching your invitation list and the possibility of reaching a greater number of prospects for your product or service.

Develop a partnership with a trade association with members who meet your target audience requirements, or co-market the event with a trade association, college or university, to get additional promotion in their newsletter. Work with a partner that compliments your product or service or one with a similar client base, creating a strategy for the event that leads to sales opportunities for either your firm or your partner’s firm.

First Things First
Each partner should define overriding goals for the event, ensuring that needs are met and the message of the event is inline with each partners marketing strategy. It’s important that face-to-face marketing efforts offer similar benefits for all involved. Clients attending the event walk into an event, experiencing complete cohesiveness, without feeling that their time was wasted.

Typically, face-to-face marketing goals focus on increasing lead generation or building on existing customer relationship, whatever the goal partners should be clear that there is synergy in strategy to achieve marketing goals.

Key Considerations
If you deliver a top line event every time, your events will grow in reputation and attendance.
You can, for example, partner with two other firms and pool your resources and mailing lists to increase response and then deliver together. Besides having extra names to market to, your event will have a multifaceted presenter list, which can often increase attendance.


You can also co-market the event with a trade association, get the event notice listed in your partner's e-newsletters, work with a college or university to sponsor the event or any number of other partner strategies. For example, a network security service firm we know partnered with the FBI to run its seminar on the new security issues facing firms. The event pulled well than anything they had ever done before.


One of the most overlooked ways to increase event registration is delivering great events—providing information or tools that will be of significant value for the attendees. If you “deliver one of the best seminars of your life” every time… your events, much like your practices, will grow in reputation and attendance.
Who knows, someday soon you might even be able to answer the phone and say to your potential attendees, “Sorry, this seminar is full, but I will register you for the next one.”

If face-to-face marketing offers similar benefits for your company or clients, keep some key considerations in mind:
•   Find a partner. Teaming up with another company with a similar client base helps offset costs while enriching your invitation list.
•   Make sure the content is informative, not promotional. People don't have to be hit over the head. The less commercial the event, the more effective it will be as a marketing tool.
•   Bring in outside speakers. Whether you feature a well-known expert from outside your company or ask one of your customers to present a case history, the event gains status and you gain added credibility.
•   Handouts. Hold off on handouts until the presentation is over. Some audience members will flip through the material instead of listening. But do make the material sufficiently useful so they will want to keep it. And don't forget to include the sponsors' contact information.
•   Work the room. Make sure you have enough staff at the event to cover the room (an 8-to-1 ratio is not excessive), and coach staff to greet and talk to guests rather than huddle by themselves on the sidelines.
•   Follow up. Once the event is over, look for opportunities to stay in contact with your audience. Send additional information periodically. Add the attendees to your mailing list. Create a DVD or transcript of the proceedings and distribute to those who could not attend as well as those who did.
The final suggestion is to make your face-to-face marketing program an annual event. If your maiden effort was successful, the second will be a smash. You've already learned what works and what doesn't. You have a built-in audience for the second event, and this year's attendees will create positive word-of-mouth for next year.

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