How events can help grow your print business
Printers do far more than just print. Events are a great way for them to display what they can do and illustrate the benefits to their customers.
Before I began my journey with Mitingu, I ran a digital print business. About 8 years ago I had doubts about the longevity of print... how wrong was I ?! Print is the perfect physical communications tool and combined with technology and complimentary digital channels, the only limit to what you can do with it is simply one’s creativity.
There are lots of printers out there that have the technology and skill to make their clients’ communications come alive. The issue is there are far fewer who actually tell their clients and prospects what they can do and how they can help improve marketing ROI and cost efficiencies (via print on demand).
This is where running onsite, local and national events come into their own. It gives the print business the opportunity to inform, add value and raise awareness of what they can do and how they can help.
If you are one of those printers out there that thinks you don’t have the time or budget to organise one event, yet alone a number of regular events, I completely get that because I felt exactly the same! When I finally got round to organising an event (an open house), it opened my eyes to the opportunity. We attracted existing clients and some prospects who until that point we hadn’t managed to have a conversation with. We found out their actual pain points and got the opportunity to demonstrate how we could help them. The event gave us the opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones.
The great news is that it doesn’t have to cost lots of time and money to organise and manage a professional event for your business.
Mitingu can help printers or any type of business with event marketing, registration and ongoing communications from one platform. Here’s how…
1. A mobile responsive event registration and marketing site - your branding, your URL..not ours!
2. Event emails - invitations, booking confirmations, reminders, survey requests...personalised, branded and relevant to each recipient.
3. Attendee management - plan ahead by seeing who’s coming and what they hope to get out of the event (use the registration form to get valuable information such as that).
4. Analytics - see important metrics like registrations versus invitations, email response rates and total bookings and revenue (if you’re charging people to attend).
5. Integrated payments -take card payments online as part of the registration process.
6. Share on social media - helps to generate registrations and interest in your event.
7. Check-in - a professional way to check attendees in via an iOS and Android app. Their status is upgraded in the event admin attendee list, so you know who has made it on the day and who hasn't.
8. Surveys - your chance to collect more valuable attendee data to help you understand their pain points and how you can help them. It's also an opportunity to get their honest feedback on the event which can be used to refine the next event so it's even better!
Print has a great future, especially if it utilises technology such as web to print and cross media marketing software.
Events could be one of your business’s biggest opportunities to get the message out there and we’d love to help.
6 reasons to make business events accountable
Why we think it's essential to make your business events accountable
Making events an accountable part of the sales cycle and culture has always been an issue for businesses. Believing any opportunity to meet customers or partners face-to-face, or bring employees together at a corporate event has always ‘felt’ like the correct thing to do. Time and time again budget holders were left questioning and unable to answer what the return was. The set up, management, delivery and measurement so often fell short of being properly planned and integrated into wider internal and external customer sales and experience strategies. But that is all changing.
There is now a growing recognition and a desire amongst corporate event managers and other lines of business (sales, marketing, procurement, finance, HR teams etc.) to be much smarter in the way that events are run, and how they can prove accountability to the business. Here’s why:
Businesses need to differentiate to win. Real world face-to-face interactions (via your events) allow these points of differentiation to be delivered, experienced, captured and capitalised upon.
Events can contribute significantly to the overall experience and perception customers, partners and employees have of your brand. By being joined up with business and sales objectives events become an integral part of their company’s purpose and accelerate opportunity and belief.
Without a strategy you're committed to and a plan to deliver against it, you are vulnerable. Knowing why, how and when you need to run an event will ensure it provides and delivers value to all.
The customer is at the heart of everything. Successful events are not run by a siloed department. They are an integral part of the sales cycle and experience process. The face-to-face opportunity events provide has relevance to every part of your business.
First class experience is expected as default. Providing a personalised experience to each delegate individually from the very first communication is paramount. The more you can demonstrate you understand their needs and preferences, the more relevant you will be to them and the greater their desire to engage and attend. You can also serve them better too.
Technology is an enabler. The right event management platform will enable your business to set-up and deploy an event in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. Intuitive to use, aligning to your brand for a seamless look and feel and providing relevant data and insight to enable you to deliver a great delegate experience on any device, pre event, during the event and post event, should be the basic criteria.
By aligning to business strategy, applying good planning skills, integrating with other business activities and colleagues and using the right technology tools and applications, any event can now feed both the attendee and the business with richer and more valuable experiences and outcomes. All of which can be measured and reported more accurately and effectively than ever before.
Tool up to win
Event managers that have a good understanding of their organization’s purpose and strategy will be better placed to make lasting and valuable contributions to the sales and experience effort and ensure all future events are correctly funded and attended.
Choosing and using the right event management technology to bring it all together, attract the right delegates and remove the uncertainty of event accountability is time worth investing. A simple gap analysis of how you currently run events versus how you must plan and run events in the future is a critical first step. With that knowledge, there is only ever likely to be a limited number of event management platforms and applications capable of meeting your needs. We understand that and this is why we built Mitingu.
Start small, think big
It's great to dream big, but doing it in small steps helps you get a greater sense of achievement and stay motivated. Just a few of our thoughts and lessons we've learned along the way.
A child’s first steps, just a few at first then within no time they are running; a business winning its first customer and then gaining more in the first few months, they’ve started small, but thought big.
When you're starting out in business, whether your aspirations are for a lifestyle business or to become the next Apple, there will nearly always be a staged approach to growth.
There is a real need for a plan! It’s critical to know where you are going and how you’re going to get there. You also have to have a firm grip on finances. Know how much money you’ve got, need to spend now and in the future, it helps to know that when you are shaping your objectives and goals.
It's worth saying at this point that I'm not a business coach (get one if you can, they can help you fly), but I have learnt some important lessons with Mitingu and previous businesses that I've been involved with. It's also a bit of self therapy writing this as it reminds me of what I have to focus on to get Mitingu where we want it to be and to keep my feet on the ground when it comes to realistic expectations.
It's been over 18 months since we launched out of private BETA into the big wide world. We’ve made great strides and are working with some fantastic businesses. It's been a roller coaster of a ride, but the team and our families have great belief that we will achieve our goals.
Dream big, but make sure you do it in baby steps!