JOHN WALL: Events are the best way to get information about what’s going on in your community, what your customers are up to. It’s your best chance to give your pitch and get feedback. We talk a lot in business about game theory or poker, where there’s limited information that you’re having to use to make a decision. There’s no better way to learn that info than getting people together. 

So how do you do that? In a lot of industries, there are events, conferences, expos, where they pull together multiple organizations and experts and communities, and it gives people an excuse to show up somewhere. That’s a good place to start. Even if you don’t have the money to be an exhibitor or be involved, you can still draft off of those events and show up in the city. Even if you can’t go to the event at all, if there’s multiple people in town for that event, you could set up appointments with prospects or partners while they’re all in one town. You can do it all in one shot instead of traveling around the world. 

Before you get there, you might also think about virtual events. It is much cheaper and easier. You get full geographic access, right? You’re not limited to the city. Anyone on the internet can come to your virtual event. But what we’ve found is it’s very similar to live events, because it’s still appointment marketing.You’re requesting a specific day and time, which is a tough ask. What we’ve seen is that it often mirrors in person events. For instance, if someone says they’re going to be there Wednesday at 1:30pm,  unless they’ve paid money to lock in that appointment, the odds of them being a no show are very high. 

Then at the top of the peak, once you’ve got full marketing programs going, it is if you could run your own event and bring in customers or prospects to talk to them. The most important part with this, because we see these events fail all the time, is just know that the first three events are probably not going to go well. They will probably not be well attended. What you’re hoping for is, even if you just get one to three customers or prospects and have some great discussions that’s worth doing, then the idea is that word will spread organically. You need to get a reputation that this is something that’s worth people’s time, and that they’re going to get either some extra insight, some extra time with the product team, or their questions answered. But again, give it three cycles to prove that it’s worthwhile, because the first three events are going to be tough, but if you can get over that hump, it can be the most effective marketing that you can do for your product.

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