A Marketing Surprise
By Robyn Logan
Have you ever paid for a booth at a conference? If so then what I am about to describe will be very familiar to you. Firstly, you wrangle to get the position you want, at the price you can afford, then you spend the next couple of months brainstorming a way to attract people to your booth. Will you hold a raffle, invest in an iPod or collect a range of bonus products together as one big giveaway? Collect business cards in a fish bowl and then spend hours (or get someone else to spend hours) entering names into a database.
Either way , it’s all a big investment in both time and money - and I haven’t even talked about banners, brochures and display costs. But as I said, if you’ve been there, then you know what I am talking about.
We had an opportunity to secure a booth at the ICF conference in Long Beach, California, last month. After much deliberation we decided against it. We just couldn’t justify the cost. Of course that didn’t mean that we didn’t have the odd moment of self doubt upon arriving and noticing 90% of our competitors were there with fantastic booths and great giveaways.
But then something strange happened. It was utterly unplanned, totally unique - and the response took us completely by surprise.
Two weeks before the conference it suddenly occured to me that there would be coaches from all over the world gathering in one place at one time. Yes, not rocket science I know, but the thought that followed was “How amazing would it be to video coaches from all over the world, and ask them about their experiece as a coach?”
I had just been reading an email from Ben Mack in which he talked about his role in taking Yomega Yo-Yo’s from $ 8mm one year to $ 120,000,000 the next. And he did it not by “selling” anything. Instead, he inspired kids to see themselves as heroic, as bigger that they thought they could be, faster than they thought they could get there and the yo-yo’s sold because they paid-off on that promise.
I was thinking that we could apply this to our coach training. What if, instead of “selling” the benefits of our training, (flexibility, international community, unique curriculum etc), we focussed instead on presenting coaches as heroes? What if we profiled coaching as one of the greatest careers around, and coaches as the coolest, most career-satisfied people on the planet?
So - that’s what we did. I got on the internet, managed to find a couple of VERY professional filmmakers from LA and threw together a rough production schedule. Our trainers all pitched in with very little notice, some scouting for “talent”, some conducting interviews, some keeping a running production sheet etc. Altogether it was a fabulous, spontaneous, last minute effort from everyone at ICA.
And the surprising results? Well not only did we get some great footage that will make excellent little video snips for our website, but we generated a HUGE amount of interest in ICA. What started with us running around collecting people to be filmed very quickly turned into people approaching us wanting to be filmed, wantingy to know more about us and wanting to know more about what we do.
We didn’t have to collect business cards in a fish bowl, and the total cost for the day was a tenth of the cost of a booth.
So what is the message here? I’ve been trying to figure that out.
Although part fo it was just plain old good luck, I guess for me the lesson is about trust and courage. The self trust required to go with your gut feel in business (not to get a booth!) and the courage to follow through with your gut feel even when convention appears to contradict it (not get a booth!).
And finally the most amazing message for me was really just a reminder. I happened to lose my voice the day of the shooting and was therefore unable to do much. The vigour and generosity with which both trainers and students threw themselves at the task at hand, reiterated to me what an amazing community we have here at ICA. Our people care passionately about our school and they care passionately about each other.
Now - we just need to figure out our “booth replacement” for next year! Anyone got any ideas?