Technology is moving on fast nowadays. After all we can now talk to our phones and ask them to find a suitable meeting time, then email or text the people to invite them. The only trouble is, we now seem happy to talk to a phone but not to actually contact the person and talk to them about the meeting. OK, that’s taking it to extremes but I’ve had a few instances recently where I’ve been invited to meetings and yet not one person has tried to speak to me. Hence - I haven’t gone along.
As a person I want to be engaged, encouraged and spoken to - emails just don’t always fit the bill. So here’s 3 circumstances that may just make people think about how they invite people to events and meetings.
Case 1: I was invited to meet up with a new employee at a supplier. I don’t use the supplier regularly but am willing to stay in touch. However, I have now been sent 3 group emails inviting myself and other clients to contact them to set up a meeting. This seems so lazy to me and as I’m not valuable enough to the supplier to warrant a phone call I’m just not going to use them any more.
Case 2: A venue finding client wanted to host a small seminar in London and they had met a collection of potential attendees. This seminar did incur a small cost but the Return on Investment on attending was huge - so it should have been an easy sell. However, the client refused to call the interested parties and get them to sign up. They were trying to be more subtle and didn’t want to appear to pressurise people. Emails are great but they can be ignored (see Case 1!). If you really want to get people to sign up you need to do more than just blast them with social media. Try the old-fashioned picking up of the phone - especially for a small event where you have already got agreement of interest. It may take more time but I am sure it will get you the sign ups you need.
Case 3: I was invited to visit a local venue recently - the emailed flyer was once again sent to a large group of recipients. Emails such as these are almost junk to me - with so many arriving they have to stand out to get my attention. So I didn’t pick up on the first email but was surprised to receive another mail, marked urgent, which asked why I hadn’t responded and was I attending. Again, it’s not a venue that was essential to my business so I put the email to one side to consider and a few days received another mail, once again demanding I let them know if I was attending. I can’t believe that this small venue had invited more than 100 people so wouldn’t it have been so much more impressive to call me and invite me personally. I’m not someone who goes to the opening of an envelope but I am someone who has serious business clients who might use the venue. Group emails may get you some numbers but do they actually get you the quality atttendees that you need?So this may all seem like a rant but hopefully you can all see that each scenario would have been so much better by the organiser knowing their mailing list, what motivates and engages them and then making sure that they use a variety of communication, especially a phone call to encourage attendance. Please PICK UP THE PHONE!
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’ve changed my Safari home page away from BBC news, and turned off BBC Radio 4 in the mornings. It’s so refreshing!
I keep confessing to you all and I really have to stop this but then what value would a blog be if it didn’t reveal a little more about me and my thoughts each time? That’s just my view though - I don’t feel I can write a regular blog without outlining my thoughts and values. Many other people do write very plain, business like blogs and have enormous success with them. I’m not aiming for a huge blog following but am still happy that it’s growing gradually. So why do I do this?
I’ve written before about attendance at events - the good news when some exhibitions are showing great increases in visitor numbers but also those companies that assume people will turn up without putting in any effort. It’s the difference between the two that interests me - is it the topic that draws the audience or is it the marketing programme surrounding it?
I’ve recently been focussing more of my time on LinkedIn - working to get my profile accurate, interesting and building up my contacts. I’m also looking for business partners so I joined several groups and started a discussion. I’ve been amazed by the responses I’ve had and it shows how you can really make some far reaching connections just by asking a question.
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