As a business members of several
organizations, Greenfield Services'
sales team (Meagan Rockett and
Doreen Ashton Wagner) works hard to attend as meetings industry events, thus we end up on the delegate list, as well as the exhibitor
list.
The problem is that there are still companies
out there who are sending us offers, including free trips, to stop by their
booth at a tradeshow. It happened again in the days leading up to the
CSAE Tete-a-Tete Show. We were invited to "explore how our association can benefit from XYZ..." BUT WE ARE NOT AN ASSOCIATION….
We
have talked about this issue in the past, focusing specifically on how
exhibitors should not waste their time, why member profiles are important and how to ask the right questions to get the segmentation you
need, and how lazy sales reps bank on emails making their
brand a success.
Thankfully, in a few
months, with the application of Canada's new Anti-Spam Law, we'll be able to
tell these people, "stop it, you're breaking the law!"
We are not even sure how we got on the distribution
list for the two most recent emails we received. The delegate registration list for this year
has not been provided. Where did you get
our name from? Must be from last year’s list….
At least the first email received did not assume
that we would be in attendance.
It clearly stated that “IF you plan on attending, come see us…”, BUT
their message was drafted and sent with association executives in mind. Nothing to do with us.
The second email did not even go that far – it
was a “Win a Trip/Looking forward to seeing you” email, as if they received the
list pre-show.
Why annoy the industry with these messages in
their inbox? Instead:
- Move this type of messaging to Twitter, using the event hashtag. Stop by our booth, or Win a Trip types of messages can reach a wider audience there. AND, you can do the event organizer a favour and include the links to register and get more info…
- (PLEASE) Segment the List: IF you were lucky enough to receive the delegate list pre-conference, or pre-tradeshow, REVIEW it. Half of the list may not be your target market, so remove them. Why decrease your brand reputation?
- If you MUST send email, give value. You may think a free trip is valuable, but you will likely get a lot of traffic with no potential for you, and are just having a meet & greet that will enter them in the draw. These “shrimp eaters” as we lovingly call them likely will not do business with you in the future. Instead, offer tips, best practices, demonstrations, bring a planner or client who can offer testimonials on the client experience, etc. Shake it up a bit!
