I started talking about the marketing strategy for WhizSpark's event website builder and email invitations/marketing services here. I jumped right into stage III - where we are planning free trials exclusively offered to select people - because that was the part of the proposed plan that is most unconvential.
So, this past week, we launched some of the no-brainer stuff that have been in the works for a little while now.
Step 1: Micro-Niche-Marketing.
Involves explaining the advantages of WhizSpark functionality when applied to different types of events. Almost all event planners (and potential advisors) that I speak-to ask us the same questions:
- What kind of events is your service used for?
- What are your target markets?
- Are you similar to evite or acteva?
And I proceed to tell them that our service has been used for everything from networking events to nightclub events to fundraisers to concerts to open houses to association events. To most event planners the following analogy isn't quite relevant, but to bloggers, this should make a lot of sense:
We want to be the typepad.com service for events.
We want to be a a low cost brandable service for marketing and organizing all kinds of events. Even the kind you roll yourself. Actually: Especially the kind you roll yourself.
So, our challenge becomes: How do we BE relevant to all different types of customers/markets/event types, while having a generic utilitarian - software as a service - functionality driven approach to the market?
Answer: we invest in a versatile wardrobe.... Or - more literally - we create landing pages that address each type of event and their unique needs...
We've recently (as a result of my networking and emails through our contact form) received a lot of leads for trade show related marketing. We've also found these customers to have pretty deep pockets compared to other markets that we've pursued. And the sales cycle is quick and over the phone. We have a service. They need this service. Done.
So, with a few happy customers and case studies under our belt, we launched a page on how our capabilities can be applied to trade show marketing. We plan to launch pages for viral concert promotion, nightclub promotion, bands, book and celebrity signings, etc. We plan to enhance our existing fundraising events page too with more case studies. Down the road, as people and organizations use WhizSpark for different types of events, we'll add pages that address these types of events.
After we create these, we have to advertise them. Get people to "land on" them. I'll save that for another post. At a minimum, I'd like to say that contextual search engine advertising makes this strategy feasible.
Step 2: Partner with Organizations to Provide Event Concepts to Event Planners.
Another big leg of our strategy is to partner with other organizations to market unique event concepts to the event planners and venues of the world. This approach is most similar to the HurryDate, 8 Minute Dating business model. It is similar because they have legions of event planners that work for them. Except we don't intend to own the event concepts. Nor do we intend to hire event planners. We also plan to offer more than just dating events. The breadth of events that we plan to cover won't initially be as comprehensive as meetup, but I envision us scaling to this level at some point. Of course, we will be doing events that have a business model. Not random meetups in coffee shops. Not that I am disparaging that in any way. But, $19/month doesn't quite meet our revenue goals per event. Not right now, atleast.
Like blogging software has made it possible for anyone to create a micro-publishing venture, we want to provide event planners with a platform and off-the-shelf marketable event concepts that they can execute locally. For each concept, we plan to partner with another organization, who will manage the recruitment and training of event planners for that concept. We will provide the technology to market and organize the event online.
Our first partnership is with Play 52 Card Pick up. Here's a description of the event concept. And here is a sample event website that an event planner can use for marketing and organizing a Play 52 Card Pick Up event. Turn Key. Lovely.
Step 3. Building a network of affiliate event promoters/advertisers.
What will we offer them: free use of better tools than they are using now.
What they will provide to us: Help promoting other events. They'll also get paid for this.
So, it is a win win situation for them.
I've talked about this here. We have not implemented this program yet. We have some very unique capabilities for managing co-promotion of events and measuring the ROI of online advertising and viral promotion of events. I've talked about the capabilities here. The technology is in place. We haven't implemented this program yet, however. I want to start this with a bang. And I am still rounding up participants and supporters. Then, we'll launch it formally.
Next up: I'll talk about our advertising, lead generation and sales strategy.
Until then, I'd appreciate any feedback.
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