Our latest guest blog comes from Melanie Gibson-Walsh, Director of Oliver Myles, a boutique events service for both corporate and private clients. Melanie discusses how you can support your outbound lead generation efforts through the use of targeted corporate hospitality. We are all working so hard these days at both retaining clients and gaining new ones. In terms of lead generation, there are so many marketing channels that you can use to do this that sometimes your head is just ready to burst.
With this in mind, can entertaining your guests with at a nice event be a viable option to add to your marketing pot? Well, of course we think so.
Why add hospitality to the mix?
Well, having delivered some warm leads through telemarketing or some other route, why not take them to the next level by getting to know them better. Invite them along as a guest to an event you are hosting. You must careful of the event that you choose though. You don’t want to spend your hard-earned marketing budget on an event where you see the guests at the start of the day and then they disappear to explore on their own. It’s all about spending time with them. For example, a day’s racing at a somewhere like Ascot is a great invitation to receive. But make sure you keep your guests all in one place in a private box with its own balcony from which to watch the racing. One of our regular clients takes a box each year and mixes new prospects with clients who will sing his praises. He chooses a date outside of Royal week as he can entertain up to 18 guests from just £225 per head instead of almost £800 per head during Royal week.
He only needs to convert one prospect to make his investment worthwhile and, in the meantime, he is also making sure his regular clients are feeling cared for. Maybe your prospects are inundated with invitations from your competitors so why should they choose yours? It’s important to make your invitation stand out by offering something unusual.
Maybe something on their bucket list like a day gliding or a private show round of the Crown Jewels with a private dinner afterwards will prompt them not only to say yes but will ensure that they turn up on the day. A lot of your prospects may be business women and, with so much traditional hospitality based around sport, it would perhaps be nice to send an invitation tailored for them.
One of our clients hosts a Ladies Day each year for 10-12 clients and prospects. It has become the ‘invitation’to receive within their industry. How nice that now their prospects are waiting to be asked. Entertaining your new business leads will help them get to know you better as a company and as a person.
Let’s not forget that people still buy people. Ask them to bring along a + one who, although might not be in a position to use your services, might refer you if an opportunity arises. Above all, you can use invitations to unique occasions to raise your profile and get you talked about.
It can make you stand out from the crowd and support your lead generation and client retention strategy driven through other marketing channels. If you’d like to find out how GSA Business Development can help Generate Growth for your Business or book one of our new business development and marketing strategy workshops, contact us now on 0845 658 8192 or send us an email.
