In my last job, I would laugh every time the phone directory would call and ask us to advertise in the Yellow Pages. I would go back and forth with my firm on the warrants of it and always lost, so up until 2013 when I left they were still paying the extra money for the 2pt box around their logo, basic services and contact information. My question back then is the same as it is now – who is your audience??? Because, hello, Google has been around since 1998. I know there is still a generation out there who seeks help through the Yellow Pages (at our last event, I spoke to an older participant who did not have a digital device, or even a flip phone – but he still had email). But is that generation looking for your business? I can see how it could apply to some sectors: doctors, grocery stores, churches, maybe even realtors. Looking in the Yellow Pages for engineering seemed a little farfetched. Anyway, today I am dawning my fortune telling garb or maybe just evaluating Meeting Northwest’s advertising prospects for 2018 and trying to predict our next move in client outreach.
Who is our audience?
For several of our last events we have introduced a conference app. This has given me insight on how people use their devices. It is easy to forget that not everyone uses their device as a tool in their everyday life. However, after looking at our statistics, it is apparent that within the groups we work with, less than half used the conference app. Our last event had the highest download rate yet and that was exactly half of our participants. This says something about our demographic. Participant response was mixed, the people who used it, loved it for the most part. The people who didn’t use it were adamantly against it. Of course, I am confident this number will only grow from year to year as we, as a society, rely more and more on our devices. Even though it is 2017, not everyone trusts or wants to use their device to lead their lives and I totally get it. I have a hard time trusting how secure things are. So, like I said, I get it. After looking at our current client demographic, I need to analyze how best to reach our audience.
How do we reach our audience?
Meetings Northwest, like many small businesses, has a very limited budget for marketing outside of our website. We do meetings, events, and association administration. How do we reach that network? We have done mailers with little response. We post ads through Google AdWords and the click through for the money isn’t bad, but it is such a wide market that it is hard to capture. We have print and digital ads in our local Chamber’s Destination Missoula and Missoula Meetings website. To be honest, most of our business comes from repeat customers and referrals. How do we broaden our marketing base without a budget?
Referrals
Maybe we should ask our clients to introduce us to other groups? As I said, 90% of our work is either repeat or from a referral. Maybe we set up a time to have our happy clients introduce us to some of their colleagues.
Community Involvement
If I were telling a client what they need to do, I would say partake in and sponsor community events that have the same social morale as your business. I even wrote a blog on it (here). I may get a blank stare. I give myself a blank stare when I suggest I get more involved with things, while I am shuttling from activity to activity, helping organize school fundraisers, and pushing out some pro-bono graphics for a couple of groups I care deeply about (Living Art of Montana and Watson Children’s Shelter). Plus, these days I am not sure I can conjure up a decent conversation with a stranger after riding the 4 year-old rollercoaster ride my twins are on all day. Become more involved. Yeah, okay, maybe we could.
Social Media
We have also written about the importance of social media as a marketing tool in a couple different blogs (here and here). Social media can turn into a full-time job and you must reach an audience to make it successful (to have a Facebook page turn to a Facebook Business Page, it requires 100 followers). That number seems small when I have over 325 “friends” as an individual, but 100 followers could be challenging if you aren’t an online store, selling a product or a service that a lot of people need. We set out to be creative and draw people in with our storytelling, whether it be a review of an event site, advice on technology, ahem – reaching new clients in a digital world, or even how to cope with juggling life’s priorities.
We haven’t ventured into “boosting” our articles on social media yet. We do it for our events, but aren’t practicing it on our own pages. Again, that takes foresight and budget, which is what we are working out right now.
Print/Digital Advertising
This one is tricky and can be expensive and is only effective with correct placement and the right business. We use print and digital advertising for all our events; from boosting ads on social media and digital outreach in pointed regions to print and digital advertising in regional newspapers, white papers, journals, etc. We team-up with papers and magazines to write special interest articles about our events to relate on a more personal level than traditional advertising. But for ourselves, nada, nothing, zip, zero. Up until 2018, we have placed an ad in the visitor’s guide, but I just couldn’t warrant it this year. It didn’t seem fitting to our market.
What is Meetings Northwest’s outreach plan?
This year, we are going to skip print advertising all together, unless it connected to an outside event we are sponsoring or volunteering at. We will set-up meetings with our current clients to discuss potential colleagues or future events. We are continuing to pay for listings for our chamber of commerce sites – they have been a great referral source for us. For 2018, we asked to be listed on their “MissoulaMeetings.com” page (which was not an existing application, and they said “YES” to our request!), so we could be more easily accessed for people looking to do conferences and events in the Missoula area. We are going to join some additional chambers in the region and become more active that way. We will continue to volunteer for organizations we care about (check-out our interests here) and maybe branch-out and support other community events. We will delve into social media boosting to get our pages more hits from our growing number of clientele who use their devices as a daily tool. We are also toying with the idea of doing some digital outreach during the prime planning season to boost our online presence. None of this is free because it takes time and time is not free, but in the end, we hope our creativity and experience pushes us to the next level in our business. Here’s to another year of gains!
About the author:
Kasey B. Wright is a small town, small business kind of girl with nature in her heart. She grew-up working long hours at her parents general store in amazing Joseph, Oregon – Google it, oh wait, here’s a link – visit! Really- Arts, Camping, Resort on Wallowa Lake, Mountains, 52 high lakes, Gorgeous! Enough with the free advertisement, but truly it is amazing – Google it! Now days, if not twiddling away on her iMac, painting, or mentally re-designing pretty much everything, she is outside with her family enjoying all of the adventures that lay beyond her front door (which in Missoula are abundant and basically start within a five-minute radius of her house). Her family, a husband of whom she met as a freshman in college (architect – I know two designers and yes, nothing ever gets done), our dog (neurotic first child wire-haired pointing griffon), cat (shelter cat – maybe the most adjusted member of our family), and 4-year-old twins (girl+boy) in chronological order (yes, I had 5 hours between births), keep the adventure alive! Oh yah, fish too (rarely claimed).
