Local Marketing - at it's worst

Yesterday, I attended the Calgary Small Business Week Expo, which is an annual event.

For a city of a million people and a hundred thousand businesses - I was disgusted!

This is an expo to share the best of the best - showcasing the success stories around town - and giving local entrepreneurs ideas on how to grow their business.

Yet, they couldn't market themselves out of a wet paper bag. 

The signs were non existent for the building the event was hosted in, the venue was literally empty (the coordinators excuse was that everyone there was listening to the speakers - that was why no one was wondering around the trade show portion).

It was a joke, to say the least.

They should have had signs everywhere. They should have had much more visible advertising and marketing. They should have done something (anything) to attract more business owners into the event. They should have been the model example on HOW TO MARKET AN EVENT... yet they failed dismally.

The lessons I learned by this:

• I take it personally when professional companies do such an aweful job at marketing themselves - then pitch others on how they can help their marketing.
• Signage is key when you have an event - if they don't know where you are - they won't come.
• Offer the trade show vendors some decent traffic - and offer the attendees some solid reasons to attend.
• Calgary is a great marketplace to show people how to do it right - and it seems no one has stepped up to the plate - yet.
• Seminars and trade shows are prime places to implement serious marketing campaigns - not to pretend it is a 2 bit operation. The more you connect with your perfect customers (in this case they had 100,000 companies to market to - all within 30 minutes drive time) the more people will show up.

And I learned that the skills of solid direct response marketing apply to everyone - if they would only use them!

Till next time.  Troy

Comments

[Lewis Green]

Troy,

Unfortunately, I think your example may represent the norm. Within the last year, I was hired to drive expo attendees to several clients' booths at large Northeast U.S. expositions. As you know, marketing for this purpose, when done correctly, leads to success nearly 100 percent of the time, and my clients booths were busy trhoughout the day, sometimes with lines of people trying to gain access. Unfortunately, most of the other booths (numbering in the 100s) were snooze fests. I often wonder why a business would spend thousands to exhibit and zero for pre-show marketing. One might as well flush their exhbit budgets, because without per-show marketing to drive folks to their booths, there is little to no return on investment.

Lewis Green, Founder and Principal, L&G Business Solutions

[Sean]

Troy your post is right on.

While I have not had the expo experience, I recently opened my local Yellow Pages to check out how local small business marketers and copywriters were advertising themselves. I was expecting some top notch adverts... instead I was faced with the same BLAH as the rest of the ads. I was in shock.

Thinking it was a fluke I then scoured the Sunday classifieds and business section in the Houston Chronicle. Same result. Marketing companies that have perfected blending in with all of the other ineffective BLAH marketing. I understood in that moment why there is a stigma attached to this profession.

A large number of marketers don't know squat or don't practice what the preach.

Sean

[Troy]

I guess that makes it even sadder. It's not just my city - it's ALL of them. Sad state of affairs. But, it does help me understand why so many companies fail. Who are they supposed to learn from? If they open the yellow pages - and hire a marketing firm there - they learn how to do the same as everyone else who is failing.

What's funny (or not so funny) is that most highly successful marketers and copywriters don't bother running ads as all the business they need comes in through word of mouth.

So the companies who need their help the most - have no way of finding them (unless they know someone who knows the real pros).

Guess it opens up lots of opportunity though!

Troy