Marketing Article: Boost Response: Microcast Fills a Room for Its Special Events Using Tailored Audience Development Strategy Capturing the attention of key decision-makers involved in purchasing high-technology products and services is a tough, complex job. High-level IT executives are literally inundated with messages from marketers in every conceivable media format, virtually around the clock. Getting their attention is one thing, but getting some undisturbed face-to-face contact is tougher still. In recent years, in-person events—roundtables, seminars and conferences—have become increasingly popular among marketers as a way of conveying valuable information to IT buyers in a format that provides direct contact between buyers and sellers. Clearly, the content and value proposition for the event itself is a critical success factor in encouraging IT buyers to attend. But even with valuable content, marketers need well-thought-out, tightly integrated marketing programs from the event producer. The most successful events in this space utilize a combination of various marketing outreach tools to form a complete direct marketing strategy, culminating with personal contact with each prospective attendee via telemarketing. Even with the flood of information they receive, senior IT executives are inclined to attend customized events if they feel the information they’ll receive will be relevant to their job. After all, they understand the need to keep current with their industry’s changes. Additionally, companies are once again stepping up their purchases of technology products and services to drive business-critical applications, and these events can be a great source of information to aid in the purchasing process. While companies that hold customized events for their clients know well the intricacies of making them successful, audience development is the one component that must be handled most carefully…without stumbling. Microcast Communications, a New York-based integrated media company that produces customized events, understood when it started its business in 2004 that audience development would be the critical ingredient to holding successful events, and ensuring satisfied clients. Therefore, as Microcast searched for a partner who knew how to integrate direct marketing tactics and understood the information technology niche for which Microcast holds custom events, it ultimately tapped Portland, Oregon’s emark Solutions. It has proven to be a wise move. “We knew that emark had experience in doing outbound telemarketing for other events, and that they understood the process not only of how to qualify people, but what to look for in someone (a prospective attendee), how to deal with objections and questions, and the ability to network within a company,” said Michael Perkowski, Microcast’s co-founder and chief operating officer. Telemarketing Identifies Possible Attendees Microcast’s work with emark is a collaborative effort. Microcast builds an initial database of event prospects and then seeds the target audience with e-mail broadcasting and direct mail. Next, emark conducts a telemarketing effort with Microcast’s input and recommendations in order to connect directly with the target audience. Through telemarketing, “We assist Microcast in identifying this potential pool of attendees, educating them on the benefits of attending, and then, of course, seeing if they meet the criteria,” explains Greg Wease, vice-president/business development for emark Solutions. “We ask them a series of questions which are aimed at learning their role in a given company,” Wease adds. “We also try to identify the size of the company and size of budget that they control. Based on that criteria, if it’s a large enough company, and they are the decision-maker for, say, an IT purchase, we’ll continue on with the invitation process.” Wease emphasizes that during a telemarketing campaign the target audience will be informed about certain aspects that will be discussed at the event, and that they will interact with people having a similar role at completely different companies. “It so happens that the solution to these problems may be similar, and they want to share and learn from one another,” Wease notes. “The end result is a highly qualified group of attendees, the real decision-makers within that given market.” Overall registration results are further improved when the initial event invitation is followed with a timely telemarketing campaign, typically between two and four days. In fact, even with a well-crafted e-mail invitation, the highest number of actual registrations occurs during the telemarketing campaign. emark has worked with Microcast for nearly two years to drive the right people to custom events. During a telemarketing effort, emark provides the data it captures real-time back to Microcast so the company can view the registration and waiting list, plus provide feedback to emark. For Microcast, the key to making its events successful is not just getting the right people to attend them, but that attendees enjoy a positive experience at the event with interesting, relevant content, expertly delivered by Microcast’s moderators and handpicked third-party presenters. Customers and prospects today are more sophisticated in their ability to sort through thinly veiled sales pitches, and will only focus on information that helps them make smarter decisions. Also, the kind of information they need is a lot richer and more complex than they normally get when meeting with vendor sales representatives. “When attendees come to these events,” Perkowski explains, “they are looking for not only what’s going on with technology in this segment (information technology), but how it is being used from a business application standpoint, and what the financial cost is of implementing and supporting the product. The kind of information these people want now is much more individualized.” Events Focus on Education, Peer Interaction It is for this reason that Perkowski says his company is named Microcast, since the trend is a movement away from the cannon shot, broadcast kind of marketing across a wide audience in favor of a narrower, more well-defined group of decision makers. Because of the way that IT buyers seek out and consume information, it’s essential to use an integrated direct marketing campaign to effectively capture this audience and persuade it to participate in an educational event involving peers in their industry. An example of Microcast’s success can be seen in the customized events offered through its MuniWireless business unit that is designed for municipalities looking to build public broadband networks. For one recent event program, Microcast asked emark Solutions to cultivate, via an outbound telemarketing effort, a list of qualified information technology decision-makers from municipalities nationwide for a roundtable to be sponsored by a leading supplier of networking products and services for those municipalities. During the roundtable program, Microcast was able to glean information and issues about how the vendor should approach the municipal government sector in a more focused way with its networking services. Subsequently, that vendor was able to adjust its marketing efforts in order to fine-tune its messages and value proposition to the municipal audience. “This kind of opportunity to put problems and solutions together among peers is something that people find interesting and gratifying at the event,” says Microcast’s Perkowski. “The peer interaction is what our feedback indicates that people like most.” Perkowski feels that this kind of success with his company’s events is due in large part to the personal selling element embedded in emark’s one-on-one approach made possible through telemarketing. Script Cans Boost Response Before emark contacts potential event attendees, it consults with Microcast to explore strategies and to create a script tailored to the audience. Using a script for the telemarketing function is pivotal to eventually driving prospects to an event. According to the book Integrated Direct Marketing (Ernan Roman, author/NTC Publishing Group), “Interactive, customer-oriented, tightly structured scripts with extensive training and appropriate exit points for the customer will generate greater response than unscripted calls.” Likewise, when properly integrated into a direct marketing campaign, telemarketing can help engage prospects in a discussion about the event’s goal and benefits, and provide immediate answers to questions, Roman says. “We have to engage these people in a meaningful conversation to move them to the next level,” explains emark’s Greg Wease. “In doing so, many of these potential attendees will have questions about what they’ll see or learn at any given event and how it’s going to impact their lives. They’re not going to get this information in an e-mail or a direct-mail piece,” Wease said. Personal Contact: Best Kind of Marketing Naturally, persuading attendees to attend an event is just half of the job required to make it successful. Once attendees are assembled, it’s up to the event’s producers to provide the kind of content that will make the event compelling and valuable for those attendees and for the sponsoring company. Perkowski says he knows he has succeeded with a Microcast event if attendees linger once it has concluded to talk with each other and to the sponsor. This dynamic means two important results are occurring. First, from the sponsor’s standpoint, the event has allowed the sponsor to achieve one of its most important goals: to have face-to-face contact with its customers and prospects so that they can communicate points of view and messages to each other. Second, for the attendees, the event is a valuable way for them to get information that is tailored to their specific needs, and to gain insight into what their colleagues are doing with similar problems. Perkowski is quick to point out that the types of special events his company launches for sponsors is not a panacea for sealing business deals. “Probably no one would say they’ve cracked the code on how to precisely align marketing activities with sales results,” Perkowski said. “A lot of it is assumptive. But one thing that is not debatable is that if you can get in front of the right people, that’s the best marketing activity you can have.” Achieving this kind of personalized marketing would not be possible if attendees were not given the chance to learn why the event will be worth their time in the first place. This is why emark Solutions is such a key link for Microcast in developing the audience for each event. “It’s essential not to rely solely on one vehicle to do all of the work when launching a direct marketing campaign for events like those that Microcast puts on,” says emark’s Wease.” Whatever the direct marketing mix includes, if telemarketing is integrated into it, then this approach will definitely generate the highest response.” About Microcast Microcast is a new kind of media company, focused on high tech. We deliver specialized, targeted content in a number of media: Online, in person, in print. Our content is expert-based and presented with style, passion and commitment, whatever the format. We have two types of businesses: • Integrated Media: Web sites, magazines, conferences, executive roundtables, research reports and Web seminars packaged together for niche audiences. • Custom Media: Conferences, executive roundtables, white papers, research and consulting services for targeted audiences as defined by sponsors. About emark Solutions emark Solutions is a Marketing and Sales-support resource dedicated to maximize response levels across any campaign---driving the highest possible return on your marketing and sales investment. Services include a fully integrated, private-labeled call-center; database management; seminar/webinar management and support; direct mail/e-mail broadcast; order processing and fulfillment and comprehensive inbound web and phone inquiry response management. Full article at www.marketingpower.com