“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not followers” – Ralph Nader
A thought provoking quote, no doubt – and one that should reshape your thoughts on leadership. But what if I evolved the wording ever so slightly to make you rethink marketing your event business: “The function of marketing is to produce more marketers, not followers“.
At its core, great marketing is about creating experiences that turn your customers into a voluntary salesforce. We can often be blinded by the desire to attract more eyeballs to our ad, our website or our Facebook page and lose sight of the far more important task of giving the people we have secured as clients a reason to sell our business for us.
The power behind this idea is that when looking for an event business, your customers will likely trust what other people, like them, have to say about your services far more than what you have to say about yourself.
Helping smart businesses attract more customers (289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com
Send me emails that are of no value to me when I do sign up
Call me without doing any homework on me, my business or what I may need (hint: I’m on the social web…it’s really easy to find out who I am, what I do and what my needs are)
Put a pop up all over your site and make it really difficult to close
Make it overly complicated to find what I’m looking for on your website
Interrupt me with annoying ad-like messages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
Autorespond in any way, shape or form when I do connect with your company
Buy a Promoted Tweet that clogs up my twitter stream
Get a whole bunch of people to ‘tweet’ about your products / services when your products / services suck
Approach me as a blogger like I’m a mainstream media outlet in hopes that I will spread your message (i.e. stop sending me press releases)
Hand me a business card that’s too big to fit in my rolodex because ‘it stands out’ (yes, yes, rolodexes are going the way of the dinosaur…but take heed until they’re extinct)
Have a flash site that takes over 15 seconds to load (and if I do have to wait that long…15 seconds is an eternity on the web, it had better be good)
Use a ‘tricked you!’ email subject line to get me to open your emails
Tag me in a photo that has nothing to do with me on Facebook in hopes that I’ll find out about your event, product or service
Use a company logo as your social media avatar and never disclose who’s managing your account
Litter your website with a whole bunch of flashing images in hopes of attracting my attention
Hand me an uncreative promotional item that has nothing to do with your business at a tradeshow
Talk about how amazing you are when you accept an award
Send me bribes in hopes of winning my business
Call me after I’ve told you I’m not interested and no I would not like a follow up call
Stuff your website full of keywords
Aggregate all of your social media streams so you say 1 thing and it’s replicated on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your blog, etc
Share a status update about your hygiene practices, your sex life, your alcohol regimen or anything that your body is doing that it shouldn’t be with me, a business connection
Do anything that could be considered a gimmick
Helping smart businesses attract more customers (289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com
Optimizely – Split Testing a website used to be quite laborious. Optimizely lets you easily split test a site without having to know HTML or CSS! It literally takes minutes.
Wikileaks has prompted a war of sorts. It has made many of us pick sides. Some Internet activists vehemently believe that Wikileaks stands for freedom of speech, while others believe (just as strongly) that too many lines have been crossed. Regardless of which side you stand on, one thing rings true: We are now living in the age of exposure.
Everyday people wield unprecedented power to expose companies’ dirty little secrets – all they need is a little bit of passion, an audience and access to the internet. Employees, former employees, disgruntled customers, competitors or anyone with a vested interest in your company can wage their own war with you smack dab in the center.
The infamous face of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, once warned that if a company wished to stay off of the pages of his site they should simply operate ethically and treat their employees well. The big lesson for businesses in this new era should be that what you say is not nearly as important as what you do.
Stand for something great, beyond simply products and services.
Set high standards and live up to them.
Make decisions you’d feel comfortable someone blogging about.
Recognize that every single person within your organization contributes to your brand, not just your marketing department.
Be curious enough to learn what people really think about you.
Be open enough to do good with what you learn.
Helping smart businesses attract more customers (289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com
Today, a hot story in Toronto revolves around our Toronto Transit Commission, those who control our city’s transit system. The news was reporting on a proposal that may result in increased pay for transit employee’s. Controversial, sure. But it was their statement that these employees could be paid on par with our Police and Fire workers that got me fired up.
When I oversaw Sales and Marketing for my family business, Regal Tent Productions, I set out to promote our 30m structure. I’m not sure about you, but 30m means little to me and I soon realized it meant little to others as well. Instead, I communicated that this structure was about the size of 2 NFL football fields. Every single time, I was met with a “Wow!”. Easy to understand and powerful.
Analogies are effective because they help to explain complex ideas, convert something unfamiliar into something easy to understand, and are memorable. Add to that: simple, familiar and memorable ideas are ones that are more likely to be shared.
Being a great storyteller requires capturing imagination and igniting an emotional response. Something that can’t be achieved by sharing facts and figures.
Helping smart businesses attract more customers (289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com
Since you were a child, you’ve been playing games. From cops and robbers to snakes and ladders…games are entrenched in our growth and our culture. Ever ask yourself how people can spend hours and hours in front of their television lost in a video game? Developers have learned that the key to a successful game is the ability to have fun coupled with a system for incentives or rewards.
Gamification is defined as “the use of game play mechanics for non-game consumer technology applications, particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications”. According to Bunchball, “People have fundamental needs and desires – for reward, status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism among others. These needs are universal, and cross generations, demographics, cultures and genders.”. Educators have long since recognized the power of games in helping us learn and marketers are rapidly understanding the power of games in capturing consumer attention and interest. Here are just a few examples…
Gamification in Events
Nike Grid
Nike held an event called Grid in London on October 22, 2010. Participants were invited to run (not walk or take public transit) across London, find the Grid phone boxes, punch in their unique game code. The more running they did, the more points and badges they earned. The person with the most points in each area claimed the crown of that postcode. Badges were also awarded for speed, stamina and insider knowledge of the streets.
Gamification in Marketing
Under Construction
Gamify.com is a business focused on bringing gamification and engagement to web clients. Their site is under construction. Now, instead of simply having an Under Construction site, they created a game – try it yourself. I was compelled to engage with their website simply because there was a game.
Mint.com
In 2007, Mint.com took a revolutionary approach to personal finance. They turned it into a game by making managing your money fun. Say, for example, you were saving up for a trip to Hawaii. You could choose this option from a menu, and as you save more funds towards towards your goal, your gauge fills up. You also get a financial score that encourages responsible actions (like avoiding high banking fees, etc). To date, the site claims to have more than 1.5 million active users.
Is Gamificaiton right for your Business?
As with any other externally-driven initiative your business takes the key is to determine if it will add value to your customers and whether its benefits aligned with your goals. If so, build gamification around your priorities – do you want consumers to remember you, tell a friend, engage with your product? Build incentives that will promote your priorities.
I have a really short answer to the title of this post. But first, let’s talk about why ‘getting more subscribers’ and ‘attracting more fans’ is paramount to business professionals. We want immediate results. We live in a culture bombarded with messages like: “Lose 10 lbs without diet and exercise!”, “Get your MBA in 2 weeks”, “Look 10 years younger without going under the knife”. We seem to be on a constant quest for silver bullets and magic pills. Most of us know these promises of immediate results and riches are equal to that of the snake oil salesman, yet many of us still get tempted.
A disturbing trend
In the past week I’ve come across a post on Twitter promising a Newsletter Subscriber Exchange and a LinkedIn post promoting a Facebook Fan Page Exchange.
Here’s the issue with both of these strategies to build followers. Quantity means absolutely nothing on its own. What matters is what you want people to do with the content you create and how many people took that action.
If you have 300 people on your newsletter list who care not about what you’re writing about, what is the value of your list? Nothing. If you have 300 followers on your Facebook Fan Page who do not actively engage with what you post, what is the value of your followers? Nothing.
The answer to the question?
How do you get more newsletter subscribers & facebook fans?
Work hard, invest time, add value, solve problems, listen, respond, build relationships…but whatever you do, don’t get tempted by the silver bullet.
Helping smart businesses attract more customers (289) 937.0141 . hello@ready2spark.com
