This is a transcript from the Marketing for Advisors Podcast. To listen, please visit mfapodcast.com and every episode is easily available and free to listen.
Don Anders: Hello, my name is Don Anders, and welcome to Marketing for Advisors. I’m here with Donovan Stull and today we're going to be talking about how every event can be different and the external factors. A lot of times people will say, "Well, I got 40 people at this event. Why didn't I get 40 people at this one?" They think that it should always be consistent, and the one thing in marketing is that it's both a science AND an art. So there's a science to it, but there's also subjectivity. One picture is going to work very well in Orlando, but that's not going to work very well in Colorado, and that's not going to work very well in New York.
For instance, we worked with a client who was in New Jersey and in that section in New Jersey, there's a lot of people who are vegetarian. So a picture of a medium-rare steak did not go over very well. But in Texas you better definitely have your steak medium-rare or else that's sacrilege. It just depends on the area. There's art to it, but even if you take a certain area, okay ... We had a client who was up in Chicago, and they were running an event. They had 25 people show up the week before, did the exact same thing and the next week and nobody showed up. They were like, "Well, why didn't anybody show up? We had people that were registered." And then-
Donovan Stull: We looked on the back end of things and said, okay, well, you know, was everything done the right way? We looked at everything was done...
Don Anders: The same.
Donovan Stull: Exactly the same. It was fine. There were no issues from that side of things. But here's the kicker is that it was situational where they had a snowstorm. It was colder in Chicago that day than it was on Mars.
Don Anders: It was -35 degrees or -40 degrees…
Donovan Stull: Something ridiculous like that. And that was the actual temperature without wind chill. So yeah, people are probably not going to go out.
Don Anders: Right.
Donovan Stull: And the advisors they said, "well, you know, people are used to the cold and the snow". That's fantastic, but why would I want to go out in something like that, to an educational seminar to talk at a library to talk about social security. I think I'll sit at home and just stay warm.
Don Anders: I don't even know what that's like in Orlando. We take out our big fluffy coats when it gets 55 so I don't run with that. I don't know what -30... I don't know what that means.
You just have to take a look at it. Was there a really bad rainstorm? If you're doing an event or you're doing something like that, were a bunch of people on vacation. Were people snow-boarding? If you're doing events, especially events, especially live events, because here's the thing, a live event is not where you're sitting there having a cup of coffee. You click here, you watch a video and then you sign up for something and get e-downloaders or whatever it is, or you purchase something. It's not an impulse buy. When somebody signs up for an event, they're making a commitment and it's a commitment that doesn't cost them anything to cancel.
There really are no social repercussions for doing it. They're not upsetting their friends for canceling. They're not upsetting people that they know for canceling. What's happening is if they cancel, nothing happens to them. Right? They don't show, nothing happens. So it's a real commitment for somebody to, well, they just got off of work, now they have to get their spouse or whatever else and, now they have to get in the car, and they have to drive back out. They've been driving since 6:30 and they have to fight traffic, and have to get there ,and then they have to go in, and then they have to sign in for you, and then they have to maybe listen to this presentation. "I don't know what this presentation is going to be about, they might try to sell me a timeshare, they may try to get me to sign up for something".
And there's this whole commitment involved with live events. So the big thing is, if there is some good ones or some bad ones, there's definitely a formula to optimize them and make them a little bit better.
But I'm shocked that people show up at all. I would never go to a live seminar, live event, but people really need the information. I mean, I have to take that back, I do go to live events about marketing or about our business or even this week we went to a live conference. You need to make sure that an event is offering something of value. That could be your content. And by the way we get it, you think your time is valuable.
And I'm sure it probably is, but the whole argument of, "Well I'm giving them an hour of my time", no one cares. I don't mean to be a jerk about that, but, "I'm giving them an hour of my time", that's not good enough. So you need to give them a unique subject that they'd never heard about before. Offer something that will improve their life, be it a good meal, or a good evening out, or a good distraction from their life. We'll even do Orlando Magic games, we'll do baseball games, things like that because it's a distraction. It's not really about selling anything. We'll just bring them in and say, "Hey, we know that y'all probably have some, if you need some investment help, if you need insurance help we're here, and enjoy yourself. You have our cards, you have our information, enjoy yourself". And they show up cause we give them something of value. And so you either need to have a really awesome presentation or something that nobody else is doing or you need to provide something else of value, like a dinner or a meal or something along those lines.
Donovan Stull: Don touched on a lot of really good points on all of this here and it's about getting people there. So talking about the people who don't come. So let's say you have a list of people and there's 30 names on there that say, "yes I am coming to your event". Well what happens? Majority of the time? You probably have what, 5-10 maybe drop off?
Don Anders: And mailers are a little bit better than digital.
Donovan Stull: Yeah. And that's to be expected.
Don Anders: Yeah. Cause mailers are, it's a harder way to register. It's instantaneous.
Donovan Stull: Sure.
Don Anders: So the fact that they went through the whole thing of opening up the mail...
Donovan Stull: Calling their office.
Don Anders: ...and talking to their spouse, calling your office, they usually get the mail at nights, and then they have to wait for you to call back, and then they reconfirm and then they, talk with you. Since that's such a kind of an involved process, the sticklers are going to be proud cause they already went through so much to do it and they're probably a little bit more serious than somebody who just clicked on a thing and then filled out a quick form and was done within five seconds.
Donovan Stull: But what I want to go with is, let's think of why maybe these people didn't show up. Because the thing that happens a lot of the times are, we automatically write these people off because, "Oh, they didn't show up to my event. They said they were going to come".
Don Anders: They weren't serious.
Donovan Stull: Yeah, they just whatever, put them in a drip campaign and call it a day.
Don Anders: If that.
Donovan Stull: Yeah, if that. Okay, well how many times have people just said, "you know what, the weather's bad. I'm not actually going to go out now. I'm not feeling well. I'm too tired now". You know, they probably need this information. But...
Don Anders: Yeah, I don't, I think they signed up because they intended on going.
Donovan Stull: Yeah.
Don Anders: But life gets in the way.
Donovan Stull: Car problems.
Don Anders: People are busy.
Donovan Stull: Issues with family.
Don Anders: Maybe they're just tired.
Donovan Stull: Yeah. They're just tired. It doesn't matter. Whatever the case may be. There's nothing wrong with them following up and saying, "Hey, you know, you couldn't make it". In our office we follow up with the people who don't make it, "And you know what, we really want to apologize. You know, we just got home and we completely forgot about it". That happens even if they get a reminder the morning of the event, it is so easy to still forget. Especially when, Don said it, life, just the whole day, you know, it just if things happen and things get in the way. I mean here in Florida we're kind of on the opposite spectrum of knowing when a hurricane is coming through and people will start preparing days or weeks in advance when you know the moment they know about it.
Okay. It's time to start prepping and getting ourselves ready. And we've run events where we've had 25 people say they're going to be there. Here it is Tuesday night of the event, we are under the impression that the hurricane potentially could be here by Friday or Saturday, still a couple of days away. And so many people say, "you know what, we we don't want to come out because we need to take care of our hurricane prep before".
Don Anders: Yeah.
Donovan Stull: Okay, that's fine. You know, we completely get it. So our room of 25 went down to a room of six. These things happen.
Don Anders: Well, the other thing about the other thing about digital marketing that, people knock it, but I actually like it. They'll say, "well yeah, you can get 40 people to sign up, but 20 you're going to show", which is true across the board. Some people are higher, some people are lower.
Donovan Stull: Roughly 40-60% show rate.
Don Anders: Yeah. And people act like that's terrible. But if you do a mailer for $8,000 and you get 30 people to show, or if you do digital for $2,500 and get 30 people to show and you got an extra 30 names that now I can re-market to and drip on and invite to events later. Why do you care about what the drop-off rate is? Why don't you just care about who actually shows up and how many new names that you can get to a list and re-target them? Cause guess what? If 60 people RSVP and 30 people show up, well those other 30 people, and now I have their email addresses, and I'm going to send them an email invite instead of spending for a mailer or a Facebook campaign or something else. I'm going to take those people and I'm going to just email, invite them cause it's free.
Donovan Stull: It's a lot easier doing it that way. And if you already have the information, use it. And again, we don't know people's circumstances. So they signed up for a reason. One way or another they signed up. So they gave you their information in exchange for something, an event, a book download, whatever the case may be. They exchanged their information for that.
You now have that. Treat that as something valuable. You should be able to treat that as, "Okay, I've got their information, I can follow up with them", whatever the case may be. So Don said, "All right, we had a 50% drop off and only 30 out of the 60 showed up", or whatever the case may be. Fine, re-invite them or, situations change all the time where maybe they just weren't ready to come in and meet at the time.
Maybe they thought that they didn't have enough money to work with you. Maybe they just felt intimidated. Who knows what's going to change in the next day, the next week, three to six months from now? And they're like, "You know what, I wanted to come to that event, but I just couldn't make it for whatever reason. Thank you for re-inviting me, I'm here now".
Don Anders: Yeah. I mean we had a gentleman that we re-invited. He had actually showed up twice before and we re-invited him to another event and a lot of times we'll say, "Okay, well you know, he's not interested. He's showed up twice, hasn't come in for an appointment". He was a school principal and so he showed up and he actually had his retirement papers with them and he goes, "Hey listen, I'm two months away. I need to do something. I've been meaning to meet with you. I've just been busy. We're moving, I'm a principal and I'm training the new principal". So things like that happen. So don't assume, I think it's easy for us to just assume the worst and just keep moving on.
I think that's also a problem with our industry where a lot of us are so obsessed with getting new leads that we don't really focus on the ones that we have. But we'll get into that in later episodes.