There is a famous quote from the late motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” While Ziglar’s career primarily focused on motivational speaking to sales personnel, his famous adage certainly applies to marketing- especially relationship marketing. 

If you would like a refresher on relationship marketing, you can find my blog on the concept of relationship marketing here.

Building relationships with your customers can take some time, but one of the most effective methods for customer relationship building is through events. While Covid-19 wreaked havoc on event marketing over the past few years, events are starting to come back again. Why? Because event marketing works. Chances are, you’ve attended a craft fair, home and garden show, work conference, or trade show in the past, talked with vendors, perhaps purchased a product, or signed up for a service. 

According to the 2022 State of Experiential Research Study by Agency EA, “75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that, as a consumer, they felt more connected to a brand after an in-person B2C brand experience” (Agency EA, n.d.).

Think that event marketing is only for large, well-known companies? Think again. While small to medium-sized businesses may not have a significant budget to plan and host extravagant, large events, they can easily host smaller-scale and more personalized events, albeit maybe using a bit more creativity.

So, what type of events might work well for small businesses? Read further for seven event marketing ideas to implement with your marketing efforts.

Customer Appreciation Events

The first marketing event I’d like to introduce is Customer Appreciation Events. Some of the best times for these events are during New Year or the Holidays. Depending on what type of business you have- you can either host your customers at your facility or perhaps rent a local space or partner up with another company to co-host.

While you can certainly turn a customer appreciation event into a mini-trade show with vendors who have goods or services your customer base would like, the onus should be on thanking your customer for their loyalty. Make sure to give customers a gift or a token of your appreciation during the event.

Networking Groups

Networking is a great way to get to know other business owners in your area. Networking is a great place to develop relationships. While these groups may not necessarily get a sale from someone within the group, your network can provide referrals. As you continue to attend networking groups, you will get to know the other members, and you can begin to send referrals to one another. You do not have to join just any group if you want to start your own- do it, and watch it grow as your network gets to know each other and helps each other out.

Educational Events

There are two types of educational events that you could potentially host for your small business: seminars or conferences and lunch and learns. Both events will have a slightly different target market, but both fall under the educational umbrella.
Are you known as an expert within your industry?- Hosting a seminar or a small conference on a topic relevant to people who work within your industry will be a great way to get to know others in your industry or an adjacent industry.
Do you have a product or service that you can create and execute a presentation on and share with customers or clients? A lunch and learn is a great, low-pressure event for your base to learn more about a service you provide and can bring you top of mind when they’re ready to move forward.

Product/ Business launches

Getting your client base to come out to an event for a new product, service, or business line can be a fun way to get some excitement generated. If you are nervous about hosting this event, you could try to do a soft launch or host an event to get a select group of clients to test out the product or service concept. This will give customers a feeling of exclusivity, and also give you some valuable insight before a full launch.

The following two event ideas can potentially be controversial, so tread carefully. You’ll want to make sure that you do not alienate or offend your customer base in any event.

Charity Events & Fundraisers

If you have a cause near and dear to your heart that you would like to invite your customer base or networking group out to, this could be a fun way of building a relationship. However, for most businesses, topics like animal adoptions certain illnesses (i.e., cancers, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, etc.) are safer bets. Also, unless your business is specifically political or religious — stay away from anything remotely political or religious. Even then, I would recommend treading carefully and staying within your lane; at least your event becomes a PR catastrophe.

Holiday Events. 

Like the charity events and fundraisers example above, Holidays events can be somewhat controversial, so again, tread carefully. Not all events are universally celebrated, and not all events may be appropriate for a business to celebrate. Events that are primarily cultural or religious will need to be treated with the utmost respect to alienate or offend any customers. These can also be events where you can have partner vendors to market products and services for holiday events.

Festivals and Vendor Fairs

If you want to draw a crowd to your business, a spring, summer, fall, or winter festival event can undoubtedly do the trick. These types of events are best for community-based companies like schools, daycares, and even a local community bank or store. This is a great way to highlight other local companies in addition to your own business. If you have a smaller budget than it would take to host such an event, look into bringing sponsors on board to help offset the cost.

There are also many ways to drum up interest in your event- there are many free options to help advertise- try posting the event on local event calendars, chamber of commerce websites, and more. If you have a local radio station that allows you to post events- try reaching out to see if they would be willing to do a live broadcast and post the event with them.

Hopefully, at least one of the above-listed event types resonated with you, and you are eager to try implementing a marketing event this year with your business. I have personally done most, if not all, of the types of marketing events listed above at one point or another throughout my career in marketing and sales. If you want to bounce off an idea for an event or need help getting an event plan started, you can contact me at mthornt2@stedwards.edu. Comment below- What event are you most excited about implementing into your business. If you have implemented any of them- how have they worked for you in the past? We only can get better if we learn from each other and grow.

Happy Event Marketing, and have some hustle!

 

References

Agency EA. (n.d.). The 2022 State of Experiential Research Study Findings. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://agencyea.com/insights/2022-ea-research-study-findings/

Brenner, M. (2020, February 18). Why Event Marketing Works and Then Some. Marketing Insider Group. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/event-marketing-works/

Major, L. (2022, January 6). 10 Experiential Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2022. ATN Event Staffing. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://atneventstaffing.com/10-experiential-marketing-statistics-you-should-know-in-2022/

Messler, M. (2021, May 17). 8 Event Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Campaign. Constant Contact. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://blogs.constantcontact.com/8-event-marketing-examples-to-inspire-your-campaign/

WhyBuyFromYou. (2017, July 16). Zig Ziglar Video Sales Quote “If People Like You, They’ll Listen To You, But If They Trust You” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWtWdG3oZFs

Hello, my favorite solopreneurs!

You’ve built up your branding to reflect yourself and the unique value you provide your customers. Your business has grown, but you want to expand your reach further. 

Over the last few posts, we’ve talked a lot about the value of relationship marketing and how it connects you with your customers in a mutually beneficial way- where customers find precisely what they need, and you’ve provided that need. Since our world has become increasingly connected digitally, social media efforts, like relationship marketing, work best in their most authentic form. 

Creating a relationship-based strategy encompasses more than just throwing together an idea and hoping it sticks; it takes a plan. So before even considering what social media ideas you can implement into your business, you will need to plan out your strategy. 

But how?

The video below, How to Create A Social Media Strategy, emphasizes the importance of planning out a social media strategy (Cyberclick [Inbound Explained- Digital Marketing], 2021, 0:28). 

Now that you’ve learned how to create a social media strategy, you can begin to implement your strategy. 

Two ways to implement social media

1. Start a blog

A blog is a great way to share insight and knowledge about your industry. According to HubSpot, there are many purposes to add blogging to your marketing and social media strategy — more traffic, leads, authority, and a better relationship with your audience (Wainwright, 2021). For more information on the benefits of blogging, please check out their blog post here. 

2. Start a Business Page on (platform of choice)

Now that you’ve defined your brand and begun plotting out your strategy, you’ll want to grow your brand on a social media platform. There are so many to choose from; how can you possibly narrow it down? Based on your brand, and your target market, you will want to focus on which platform makes the most sense. Do you sell life insurance? TikTok may not work for you. Do you provide a home organization service- rows of perfectly aligned storage containers make a more visual impact on Instagram than Twitter. Find your niche and where they tend to hang out.

References

Cyberclick [Inbound Explained- Digital Marketing]. (2021, August 4). How to Create a Social Media Strategy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBfze1Izahg

Wainwright, C. (2021, May 25). Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing. HubSpot. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/the-benefits-of-business-blogging-ht

You’ve had a dream of starting your own business for years, and you’re finally making it happen. You’ve got your idea, business name, and location (if your business needs one). Now you’re ready to begin attracting customers or clients but not sure where to begin. 

If you have opened your own business or someday plan to, you’ll need to brand yourself, but the concept of branding can be so overwhelming it’s hard to know where to start. This week’s post will simplify to two steps to help you get started amplifying your brand and growing your business.

Before we dive into these steps, let’s define branding and why it matters. 

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association, 2022).

When you’re a solopreneur, i.e., hairdresser, photographer, organization specialist, etc., you are an extension of your brand and therefore need to brand yourself. Doing so will help you hone your message to your audience and help keep you from chasing customers that don’t make sense for your business (for example, a hairdresser marketing to a bald man). 

 

Julie Andrews said it best when she sang, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start,” as Maria Von Trapp in Sound of Music (Rogers & Hammerstein).

Grab a pencil and some paper, put on your thinking cap, and begin to brainstorm who exactly you want to buy your product or service. You can do a barebones outline as shown below to get started before expanding and detailing your ideal market.

Step one: Create a Barebones Idea of Your Business and Target Market.

Start by creating a barebones outline of the following prompts:

• Business Concept: (what product or service am I selling?)
• Buyer persona: (who is most likely to be interested in purchasing my product or service) 
• Unique Value Proposition: (what I alone can bring to the table)

Step two: Expand and further define your business, your audience, and your UVP 

This step will help you hone and build upon a foundation that you started in the first step. This step will help you move from generic: “I am a home organizer” to specific: “I am a busy momma who educates other busy mommas on how getting their home neatly organized helps them to spend more time with their babies.” 

As your business grows, you can continuously refine your branding, but the steps listed above can help get you started. 

If you would like more guidance on building your target persona or your personal brand, please email mthornt2@stedwards.edu for a free Zoom session to brainstorm ideas. 

 

References

American Marketing Association. (2022, January 24). Definitions of Marketing. Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.ama.org/the-definition-of-marketing-what-is-marketing/

Hammerstein, O., Rogers, R. (1965). Do-Re-MI [Recorded by Julie Andrews, Nicholas Hammond, Debbie Turner, Duane Chase, Heather Menzies, Angela Cartwright, Kym Karath & Charmian Carr (Sound of Music Cast)]. On The Sound of Music [Vinyl]. RCA Victor.

Photos and videos courtesy of:

https://storyset.com/business”>Business illustrations by Storyset

Freepik.com

Adobe Stock

Relationship marketing. It’s a term you’ve likely heard before, but what exactly does it mean, why is it important, and how can you apply the principles to your marketing strategy?

My name is Mary Anne, your resident Relational Marketing Guru. My career has mixed sales and marketing together, relying on customer relationships to market new products or retain customers in my current position. Over the next few weeks, this blog will cover the concept of relationship marketing, why it is essential, and offer tips on implementing tactics into your marketing plan and with staff across various departments in your organization.

What is Relationship Marketing?
The Association of National Advertisers defines relationship marketing as “Relationship Marketing is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy that emphasizes customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime customer value. Its purpose is to market to current customers versus new customer acquisition through sales and advertising” (The Association of National Advertisers, n.d.).

Relationship marketing is the practice of seeking to understand the customer’s needs, wants, and desires by getting to know them personally. As someone who works with customers daily, getting to know customers personally lets me know if an additional product or service is right for them. Still, most importantly, it leaves the customer feeling like they are important and listened to.

Four Reasons Relationship Marketing Is Important
#1. Relationship marketing helps you best identify your target market
Focusing on building relationships with your customers can help your organization pinpoint precisely who your target market is. Correctly defining your target market can avoid a lot of wasted resources.

#2. Relationship marketing builds loyalty and trust
Getting to know your customers personally allows for trust to be earned between your organization and the customer. In turn, this loyalty and trust can lead to an increase in sales.

#3 Relationship marketing can improve your CLV
Your organization wants to ensure that great customers stay long-term and continue to subscribe to your service or purchase your products. Longer-term customers equates to a higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In addition, relationship marketing builds loyalty and trust. When customers trust a company and feel that their needs, wants, and desires are being taken care of, they will stay longer as a customer and refer friends and family to your organization.

#4 Loyal customers refer friends
When done well, relationship marketing can carry over into referral marketing. Taking good care of customers by genuinely getting to know what they need often leads to sharing the experience with their family and friends. According to Neilsen, in 2021, 88% of customers trust word-of-mouth referrals from friends and family (Neilsen, 2021).

Relationship marketing is a strategy that connects the organization with its customers by being authentic and personal. It helps you better understand your target market and brings value to your customers by establishing and supporting a long-term relationship.

To learn more about how you can apply the principles of relationship marketing, please connect with me on LinkedIn.

References
Neilsen. (2021). Nielsen. Retrieved January 17, 2022, from https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/11/2021-Nielsen-Trust-In-Advertising-Sell-Sheet.pdf
The Association of National Advertisers. (n.d.). Relationship Marketing. ANA. Retrieved January 17, 2022, from https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/brand-activation-relationship-marketing