Feature Article: How to get your customers talking!

I can't remember the number of times that I've been asked for the most effective way to develop engagement with new clients. We've all been involved in the discussions which go something like: "...so what's the most suitable event to attract new customers… and by the way, our marketing budget's been slashed again, so this program has really got to cost us as little as possible?"

In truth, as we all know, there's no silver bullet. What we can do is look at what's worked for others in the past and if it fits our market we can then reproduce it to suit our own objective. This of course applies in reverse, if it's not working - don't repeat it.

It is clear that interest in shows and exhibitions is declining. There are a number of factors which have led to this trend. Not least amongst these is the availability of information over the web. Customers just don't see the value of being sold to - and often harassed at shows, particularly if they've invested in the time and effort to attend. Prospects often get accosted left, right and centre by salespeople whose smooth sales patter persuades them to step up and have a look at the latest version.

Once you're on the stand, providing you've got money, you'll be plied with coffee and biscuits or drinks, sandwiches and crisps. Does this ring a bell? No wonder potential prospects sit in front of their computers searching for their particular grail. It's non-threatening and allows them to capture information at a rate, and in a direction that suits their objectives, not that of a sales person.

However, customers still want to be informed. This will often take the form of one or more sales calls. But customers like to feel in control of their destiny. We have to encourage them, not force them.

So the question is, "how can we get customers to talk to us and allow our sales people to engage with them, whilst making the process appear less threatening". More to the point, "how can we do this in such a manner that shows they've got real value"? ROI isn't a term solely related to product or service purchases. It also applies to our prospects' time.

So what makes attending a vendor event worthwhile? It's certainly not, as some vendor's seem to believe, the "death by PowerPoint" delivery often forced on unsuspecting audiences. One of the answers is in the category defined by one of my colleagues as in the "bleeding obvious". People like to talk. In particular they like to talk to similar people about similar issues. In fact they love to talk to people that have had a similar problem and solved it. They want to look at how their counterparts have addressed particular problems and capitalise on their past mistakes. If a problem is yet to be solved, they want to pool knowledge with similar minds and investigate alternate points of view. In the end they will rationalise new concepts to see if there's a novel means to develop a solution.

Cambashi has held several conferences where peer-to-peer forums have successfully used this concept to deliver remarkable results. Consistently, feedback from our events cites that a key element of their success was peer-to-peer discussion.

At the Conference for the Future of Engineering Software (COFES) earlier this year I had the opportunity to study this process at first hand. The true success of this event, in my view, lay in the process of networking and peer discussion. This is not to say that the presentations held no value. They indeed fulfilled a useful purpose. The key is the content mix. For many, the real benefit of the conference was in the way it was structured into a series of discussions. This encompassed both casual discussions, over breaks, and managed one-on-one and group sessions.

As further evidence, I've had the good fortune to spend time talking to customers at various product update sessions from a broad range of IT vendors. What stands out at these events are the intense discussions amongst attendees in break-outs. Unfortunately this is often overlooked by the vendors in their enthusiasm to inform customers of new product features. Lest we forget, one of the strongest references for sale is word of mouth. Good news spreads fast. Unfortunately bad travels faster. Clearly there's a risk in this, but in reality, we live or die by our past success.

Does including more attendee-driven content provide a new and valued alternative to the historic "show and tell" seminars of the past? To some extent this is dependent on whether this format is repeatable and cost justifiable. In reality, it's far more expensive when people don't attend because they can't justify yet another product seminar, even if the title does include"ROI", "enhanced returns" or "improving your success in".

At the end of the day, we must find new methods of providing value to the attendees. Perhaps we need smaller more interactive events which encourage greater attendee participation? But will the vendor's organisation have the creativity and commitment to meet this challenge and depart from "selling to the customer" to "encouraging them to allow us to sell to them"?

Allan Behrens

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