I sat in a 2hr marketing meeting today for a client that I dearly love. We have been trying to get his brand of the ground for quite sometime with marginal success. As we sat together discussing the opportunities and throwing ideas up on the white board at a rapid pace I noticed a huge deficiency of his marketing campaign. Integration. We had basically thought of every possible idea to get his brand in front of folks. You name it he has done it….(Published author, check, great speaker, check)speaking engagements, social media, forums, great blog content, etc… He has excelled at all of these components of his marketing campaign but lacked the major component of integration. Let me explain. I asked my friend how many people were at his last speaking engagement. The answer was 113. I then asked him how many of those folks have been added as facebook friends, twitter followers, email contacts, or blog subscribers. His answer? zero. That is stunning. I realized in that moment that I had failed to explain the importance of integrating his offline efforts to his online efforts and vice versa. Heck even the concept of integrating his online efforts to his other online efforts was missing! If you have a speaking engagement that puts you in front of a new audience, you have to find a way to continue the conversation with those folks. After you have given a great speech or attened a networking event, people go back to there lives and are confronted with the same busy schedule that plagued them yesterday and will plague them tomorrow. There is a never-ending supply of Kids, spouses, in-laws, and bosses that get in the way of making a connection. Unless you are a celebrity with a substantial platform people are not going to come to you. You have to take the conversation to them. Add them as a friend, send them a follow-up email to thank them for coming, follow them on twitter, ask them to join the conversation. In the reverse marketing funnel that is the core foundation of modern marketing you find your audience, convert them to friends or followers, and keep them engaged. Find-Keep-Engage. The speaking engagement was only one part of the process….
Find. By integrating his offline speaking engagement to his online platform my friend could have
Converted the new audience to friends or followers. Then all that is left to do is for him to continue producing great content and engaging the audience to
Keep the conversation going.
