You’ve heard the old adage, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” At the core this is an obvious truth, but at masterIT we’ve refined our sales process to be much more proactive. We believe successfully selling to clients is a process that takes time and investment. One of the most successful tactics we’ve come across as it relates to signing new clients, creating more revenue with existing clients and enforcing the value proposition of why clients should and are doing business with your company is event marketing. Let me give you an example:
In our market we have identified 700 businesses between 20 and 500 seats that should be doing business with masterIT. So we very much take a targeted approach to marketing our business. I tell my salespeople that signing a new client is an 18-month touch process, and if they sign someone sooner, great. To help accelerate their success, we’ve taken up the practice of hosting symposiums for local business owners and managers. These events give our existing and potential clients the opportunity to see the technology in action and learn how they can leverage masterIT to do two things: lower total cost of IT spend and eliminate the operational headache of IT.
We hosted our first symposium at the FedEx Institute of Technology on the campus of the University of Memphis (way cool venue) at the end of 2006 called “Is Your Technology On Fire?” The name came to us after a fire in downtown Memphis destroyed one our oldest churches and made data security and business continuity a top-of-mind subject in many business owners’ minds. The content came from us thinking as a business stakeholder and what would matter most to them. Remember, it’s all about them, not us.
Our flagship event attracted 61 companies. Five of the attending companies became clients and now represent approximately 305 seats of $30,000+ monthly recurring revenue. Even more, these five clients commanded more than $300,000 of front end projects.
Did they sign because of the event? Not really. Was it a credible touch that demonstrated masterIT’s care for the businesses in our community with a value based solution? Absolutely. Was it worth the effort of crafting the event, marketing it through direct mail and customized email invites, relentlessly following up to confirm attendance and post event target marketing of all who registered? You bet. It took 9 months to see those tangible results, so trust me when I tell you it’s a marathon not a sprint.
Last week we hosted another event at the FedEx Institute for about 100 companies called “Business Unplugged” – How To Increase Productivity and Profitability Leveraging Mobility. Taking all that we learned from our first event, we also secured co-sponsors for the second. N-able, Intel and Cellular South, a market leader in wireless in our market, were our co-sponsors and helped us with event content and costs. What will be the results? Check with me in 9 months, but I know it will have been worth it...