Old and New - Taking the best from both marketing worlds!

Taking a cue from both Mark and Kevin’s recent posts – "When a tchotchkie is a brand damaging piece of junk" and “Social is in the sidebars, not the swag” on this blog, I would like to add my 2 cent’s worth about conferences – and in Canada it is 2.04 cent’s worth.

A couple of the biggest conferences in the space have come and gone, and the big sigh of “ahhh” can be heard across the industry. However, building up to the conferences themselves, all kinds of promotion strategies are discussed around conference tables, and in conference calls all over the country. What outreach strategy do we use? What marketing vehicle to we utilize? How much do we reveal? What do we surprise them with at the conference? How can we get those conversations? What SWAG do you bring? Oh Boy – these are very difficult decisions to make. However MY focus is to meet and introduce "me" to as many new people as possible, and to meet my established clients in person if possible (one of my favourite things to do). Well – it takes some old and some new, we can all be successful at the conference game.

Case in point – the new - I do some Tweeting – or perhaps I would say that I am above average in my Twittering skills and find that what I love to do most is to try to create a “fever pitch” moving into a conference. That is what I did before the WorldAtWork annual Total Rewards conference in May and again for SHRM annual in Las Vegas in June. In the particular case of my story, I was following the hashtag for WorldatWork, and began a couple of online conversations with others who would be there and decided that it would be great to meet. Basically, we introduced ourselves, communicated about various things in the industry, and decided to meet – a true online courtship all in the name of business.

The old – good old actual conversation. There is nothing more telling and satisfying than meeting face to face, discussing all the nuances of the needs and objectives of a prospect, and the full opportunity to even show a Demo at the show. To see the furrowed brows of confusion, the surprised “aha” of clarifying the information and the satisfied smile of someone who totally understands what we discussed. LOVE IT.

And the end result – business. Yes, there is a happy ending to this story- are now working together with SilverSaver and we are privileged to be a strong partner with helping them to gain ground and momentum with their PR and media outreach into voluntary benefits.