How stupid are so many UK businesses?
February 5, 2010 10:49 am Blogs, Email Communications, Email Newsletters, Twitter, Website StrategyWe’re coming up for the Kent 2020 exhibition in April 2010 and it’s started …. the stream of emails and phone calls from companies trying to sell exhibitors their services. This could be printing, exhibition stand stuff, gimmicks, whatever.
Like local political party reps at election time, they come out of the woodwork expecting to gain business. To be frank, it’s insulting, opportunistic, and in today’s climate, just plain stupid.
The winners in business in the future will be those that create an ongoing, but non-invasive awareness of themselves. Does Custwin want to buy new exhibition popups etc. for Kent 2020 this year? No. Would we need to next year? Possibly. Would we be adverse to getting a blog feed, Tweets, or an occasional email newsletter from companies who supply such products, over the months? No, we wouldn’t be adverse. In fact, it would help to build up trust, it may even lead to us meeting the suppliers at some point, and it’s got a much stronger potential to turn into business for the suppliers at some stage.
Taking another subject, a company was pitching chocolate fountain hire for the Kent 2020 exhibition. As a cold introduction to 100 people it’s possible that very few may respond. But as a warm drip feed over a longer period of time, the percentage of buyers will increase. HOW that drip feed is implemented is a subject all of its own but it’s not rocket science.
The focus here happens to be on an upcoming business exhibition but the principle applies for any type of business that wants to gain new clients, particularly at times of the year when those potential buyers are more likely to need such services.
Those businesses that don’t embrace the concept of drip feeding their message into potential clients will soon find themselves losing out to their competitors who understand what makes potential clients tick.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Was that ‘drip feed’ bit particularly in relation to the chocolate fountain1!
Seriously, Andy, I completely agree with your sentiments. Building relationships through your marketing efforts is so important, particularly for local businesses, whether that be through email marketing, networking online and offline or even through direct mail. But, as you say, this needs to be ongoing, not just around an event. Come to think about it, that is the whole point of a ‘relationship’ – it is an ongoing, gradual build thing not just as a result of one or two actions.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Thanks Jo,
Knowing the way you work with people and the way you build up those important relationships, it’s good to see the same mindset, and it does pay dividends.
Now here’s a thought for you Jo – what if you went round the Kent 2020 exhibitors, getting onto their mailing lists, and saw what came back to you afterwards? Chances are that most of them would be in that “promote ourselves before the event, during the event, and chase leads after the event” but very few would have the mindset of “actually, let’s see if we can drip-feed to these people on an ongoing basis, with their approval, and see what comes out of that in the following months”. Which of course, is when you step in to show them the errors in their ways!
March 1st, 2010 at 11:23 am
Hi Andy/Hi Jo
Funny you should propose that Andy and allow me to throw in another example of stupid businesses after an event like this.
When we did exhibit once during Kent 2020, two days after the event we were cold-called by a company offering to collect all those business cards we’d collected during the exhibition and to follow up on them for us – because, as she rightfully mentioned, very few businesses do this.
Well, happily I could tell her that our follow-up letters were already on their way to the post and secondly: why would we hand this task over to a business we didn’t know from Adam? If they had drip feeded us way before the event, that would have been a completely different matter
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)