Exhibitions - why bother?
I attended a conference on Monday this week in London and I have to say it was excellent. It was all about innovation in the UK technology industry and I learnt a lot about what this sector feels it needs to continue to thrive. Good marketing, strong partnerships, appropriate finance, effective employment and retention strategies and much more was discussed.
As with most conferences there was an exhibition area running in the networking rooms. I’m a big fan of exhibitions, they can be an effective part of any multilevel marketing mix, but so often they are poorly utilised. If you want top tips for how not to get results / value for money then please follow these guidelines:
1. sit at the back of your stand checking your email,
2. don’t approach and talk to people looking at your stand,
3. don’t collect contact details for following-up after the show,
4. leave your handouts at the office,
5. man the stand with people who clearly aren’t comfortable being there.
If you follow this guide, I guarantee your exhibition stand will be unsuccessful and a waste of your budget. Instead, you could invert all of these points and make a real impact.
What do you think? If you’re going to invest the thousands of pounds it takes to hold an exhibition stand, you might as well get value for money.
Tag:exhibitions multilevel marketing
The online marketing mix - 4Ps or 8?
For anyone writing a blog as a means of making money, it would be worth reading Daniel’s Daily Blog Tips blog. I especially like this article that applies the traditional 4P marketing mix concept to blogging (www.dailyblogtips.com).
Daniel makes some great comments about the 4Ps (Product, Promotion, Place, Price) and how these are outdated when applied to blogs. For example he suggests Promotion should be replaced by Persuasion, with bloggers encouraging their readers to share ideas and contribute to the discussion. This makes perfect sense as blogs become more valuable when they are interactive.
However, the 4Ps model was actually usurped firstly by the 7PS - which mostly applies to services marketing - and now the more recent 8Ps.
So what are the extra Ps and are they valuable for your business?
The first to think of is People, which in a red brick company means your employees. However in the more interactive world of blogging this also applies to your readers. You need good readers that interact and subscribe in order to grow a sustainable business. How do you get good readers = good content.
Physical Evidence. In an offline business this refers to your restaurant, or the invoice you send out, or the letterhead you use. But in an online environment it equally applies to the quality appearance of your blog and other materials - your online brand if you like. Develop this with a clear and consistent feel if you want to maintain a good readership. You will see a lot of over designed blogs but simplicity is the key here.
The third extra P is Process. This usually means the steps in which a customer goes through from first contact with your business, to receiving their good or service. For bloggers, this means the ease of which readers can sign up to an RSS feed, or newsletter, or even comment on your posts. Make this as simple as possible as it is all too easy for a reader to click away from your blog. Chances are unless your content is excellent, this will happen fairly quickly anyway.
The final and most recently added P is Planning. As with any business, you increase your chances of being successful by planning what you want to achieve ad how you will achieve it. Think short, medium and long terms (i.e.1,3 and 5 years) with a series of objectives, strategies and tactics i.e. where you want to get to, how you will get there and what will actually happen.
So there you have it. A great idea from Daniel, developed to add the further 4 Ps of the modern marketing mix concept.
Tag:General marketing mix People-
Recent Conversations
-
- deden: He is my inspiration. Whenever i say i can’t. I am trying to remember Him. He breaks...
- Product Sourcing: nice blog, i used that times 50 bestt blogs thing once, very good list of them...
- hair irons: Everyone has high hopes that Obama can turn everything around. I just hope they give...
- Jessica Helter: what a such good information.. thanks for this.. I totally agree in your post.....
- Roger Hamilton: Aggresive marketing is irritating..
- book marketing plan: Excellent post! Thanks for recommending Steve’s site - his eBook is a...
- Voos Baratos: I think that bloggers are not geeks, but geeks can be bloggers :-) The so-called...
- Andy Bargery: Hi Isuzu Commercial Truck. You should definitely be able to find good small town...
-
Loading ...
-
Subscribe to this Blog
