Educational Marketing… the only way it should be.
Business Week had a very informative article and it really resonated with Tom and I. It’s about educational Marketingc and its benefits. The interesting part is that this approach isn’t just beneficial to the marketer, but also to the marketee (that’s a word, right?)
Three examples from the article:
Business: Real Estate Agency
Ineffective offer: “Let me teach you why you should list your house with me.”
Effective offer: “Let me teach you the five mistakes everyone makes when selling a house. No matter who you list with, you’ll need to know these things.”
Business: Financial Planner
Ineffective offer: “I want to come and talk to you about how I can help you plan for a better financial future.”
Effective offer: “Even if you never do anything with me, I want to make sure you know that there are five critical mistakes everyone makes in trying to accumulate wealth.”
Business: Technology Services Company
Ineffective offer: “Let me tell you how great we are at helping with your IT services.”
Effective offer: “As part of our effort to build better relationships in the business community, we offer a free white paper entitled ‘Six ways to dramatically increase productivity using your current technology.’ ”
This really hits home for us, and fits with how we do things. We’ve addressed the transparency already but this is a different beast. This is putting our attendees, and even speakers and sponsors, ahead of us.
Our goal is to expand the Flex (for now, it’s just Flex… for now :D ) Community. The industry needs developers, of all skill levels. If they get that training at 360|Flex, great. If they go to any of the other conferences offering various levels of Flex training and sessions, that’s great too. The end result is the same, and the industry and community benefit.
So how does this directly help us? Well according to the article, and even some limited anecdotal evidence we’ve already collected, by looking out for the best interests of your constituents (customers, community) we make them more likely to want to work with us. By being genuinely interested in our customers’ well being, they return that sentiment in kind with their business. Everyone prospers, and comes out the better for it. Anyone see a downside to that model?
Business and Cluetrain
We’re not the first business to embrace the concepts of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Lego’s done it, I’m certain more have. I’m more certain that more should.
I’m not sure if there’s any start ups that ‘started cluetrain’ like we did. From the very first days of 360Conferences, even before the company was formed, we made sure that openness and transparency, and conversation were the core tenets. We started blogs, we approached user group managers to spread the word. We polled our customers, asking them what kind of conference they wanted.
Tom and I know we don’t know what we’re doing :) but we know what we like, and at least for me, as a conference goer (usually on my own dime) I know what I like, and what’s lame.
From there, we just ‘did it’. No mission statements, no venture funding, no outside Board of Directors, just Tom and I. Well, we had Ryan Stewart for like a month, until Adobe snatched him away from us. :)
I literally (I know I’ve said this before) carry cluetrain in my bag. Everything we do, we ask ourselves, “Is this the most open way we can do it? Is this too close to ‘business as usual’?”
When we launch an event, we used to put a percentage sold ticker up. We’ve had people tell us, “Why would you do that? It might scare people into not registering.” Yeah, it might, but it also shows the community roughly how much space is left. It hopefully shows people that waiting around ’til the last minute, may mean not attending. We also have had people ask, “Why don’t you prop the numbers up? Make it say 75% instead of 25%” I’ll admit, for a fraction of a second, we thought about it, but then realized, in terms of keeping ourselves open and trying to maintain a conversation with our customers, that we’d be lying. To their faces. We couldn’t do it.
Tom Paragraph:
However, our sponsors have told us that the ticker scares them. I’m the money man too, so I need to weigh our decisions against the money option. Sponsors pay money to make the shows better for the attendees. While being open is good, having money to make the shows better is more important. Therefore, the ticker is gone. We’ll still blog about the numbers though if we get close to sold out, etc.
We strive to be essentially the opposite of the existing conference industry. To us, conferences aren’t just a “profit center”. Ideally, shows should make a profit since it is a business. We don’t, however, see a single show as a our “bread and butter” or “cash cow”. Our plan is to grow to many shows, making a little bit of profit with each show. As we grow the business, hopefully more communities bloom and grow with us. We’re not trying to “get rich quick”. We’re not even in a super big hurry to leave our day jobs. We do want to share our vision for community with as many industries and groups as we can. We don’t think Flex developers (though we do love ya’ll) are the only group that would enjoy our style of events.
Cluetrain, the course! Freakin’ awesome!
Saw this on Doc’s blog, and had to talk about it. It’s on the practical PR blog, which (it says) is a “conversation with PR students at Kent State”.
They’re walking through each chapter of the Cluetrain Manifesto, starting with the preface, and are discussing the book’s ideas along the way. That’s so great! I wish I was in that class!!
I’m re-reading Cluetrain right now. I’m about 1/3 through, and finding so many little insights I missed the first time! Tom and I bought 300 copies to give out at 360|Flex Atlanta as our way to showing the attendees what is we’re doing as a business and why we do it.
We show what money comes in and goes out. We talk about the software we’ve built to help us, and when there’s a bug (as there always is), we tell everyone about it so they know and can get the latest version.
Tom’s Paragraph: In other words, we believe in transparency. Our company is not a secluded citadel where things are done in private. It is a product of our customers money and therefore, they deserve to know what’s going on inside. This way, if something is broken (like speaker compensation) we can fix it.
It seems to really resonate with attendees. I’ve heard that a few are already reading their copies. Only Amazon or eBay will know if there’s a sudden flood of unused, ‘new’ copies hitting the market. We tried though, and as a business, that’s all you can do.
I’ll be following the Pratical PR blog discussion. I’m very interested to see how the students relate and react to the manifesto.
Tom’s Paragraph: John and I didn’t go to business school. Heck, we didn’t even finish college. We jumped straight into the business world. We always wonder if kids that never participate in the business world can truly come to understand it just by reading books. They’re reactions to Cluetrain will be very interesting indeed.
Karma makes the world go around
I mentioned the actual event on our conference blog, but wanted to talk a little more about it.
Tom and I both believe in Karma. Not in the Hindu sense, Tom’s a Mormon and I’m a non-believer. Hope that’s okay with everyone.
That said, we do feel that the concept of Karma is a good one, and highly relevant, maybe one day I’ll finish my essay on the “Karma Circle”.
Many business visionaries have said it, plenty of religious leaders have said it, and as I mentioned, one religion revolves around it. The concept of doing good things, ideally for no other reason than because you can, is powerful.
In Atlanta, we received a “Hat in hand” email, explaining why this person couldn’t pay to attend our 360|Flex event. He asked if there were any cancellations he could use, or any discounts, etc. He’d drive himself (though he ended up flying since he caught a cold), if only he could somehow get in the door.
This person pinged us and our sponsors. David Bigelow from Simplified Logic replied to this person and gave him the reg code he had been given as a sponsor. His sponsorship level included a few passes, and he had used all that he was going to use, so he had a few left over. Tom and I don’t care what sponsors do with their passes so it was cool to see Dave just give his away. Not to a prospective client or employee, but to someone who obviously needed some help.
I think it’s really powerful when people, and more so when it’s a company, do things like this. Not to further their business, or win a new hire over, or anything like that, but rather just because.
Tom and I thought about making something more formal around this idea, but for now, it’s going to be more informal. Our first thought was some sort of marketplace for unused passes that sponsors could all put them into a “pile” to be doled out to those less fortunate, but that puts some one (Tom, me, or someone else) in charge of deciding who is worthy of a free pass. That’s not us, we’re not in a position to decide that. Something will solidify itself over time, it’s Karma. :)
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Score! I’ll email and ask for a hand out” but aren’t really in need, think again. You’ll likely be ignored, and if not, Karma will get you. :)
Offsite Summits
Some companies try to find time and fundage to go for an offsite summit at least once a year. The reason for this is to get out of the traditional surroundings, find themselves in a new place that will hopefully stimulate new ideas. Many corporations swear by them and feel that their business will come to a standstill without them.
With regards to 360|Conferences, we find ourselves in a lucky predicament. One month before each show, we fly out to the location of our upcoming show for an onsite visit. Usually, it’s just a walk through with the staff. We finally get to meet them face to face and get familiar with the rooms that will house our conference.
The onsite visit only takes a couple of hours. After that, John and I find ourselves in a completely foreign place with nothing familiar but each other. We take this time to explore the city by day and then we do our strategic summits by night.
It’s just another example of how our little company can beat the big guys. Our offsites are a necessity, and so our customers benefit in more ways than one on these trips. We nail down the details for the show and figure out ways to better serve everyone.
Killin’ two birds with one stone, ya gotta love that, especially when we don’t have very many stones. :)
Engage everyone
During the planning for 360|Flex Atlanta, Tom and I realized something. We hadn’t been engaging our speakers. Here we had 40+ of the biggest names in the Flex developer community, most of whom blog and/or regularly speak at User Group meetings.
And we weren’t talking to them, let alone engaging them.
What do I mean by ‘engage’? I mean talking to them, asking them for help, asking them to do what they do best, asking them to be themselves.
At about 30 days out we had about a third of the registrations we wanted. We realized while sitting around the lounge of the OMNI that we had not engaged our speakers. WHAT? Yeah it sorta took us by surprise too, we just never thought about it.
That very night around mmmm 1am or so, we composed an email that we sent to each speaker. We explained that the speakers were in fact our marketing department and budget. Sure plenty of people read the 360|Flex blog, but too many (in our opinion, LOL) don’t. We meet attendees when they pick up their badge. Some will ask if there’s any events planned. We’ll say, “Yeah, the ones we announced on the blog.” To which some have said, “You have a blog?”
That night, we let each speaker know, that we needed their help, that all we asked, was that they blog about speaking at 360|Flex Atlanta, that they mention why they’re speaking, what made them want to speak, etc. Nothing untrue, nothing “shady”, nothing like that.
The reason we asked them to mention the conference, and their involvement was easy. Their blogs all had hundreds or thousands of people reading them daily. People who may not know we have a conference blog, but who read the speakers’ blog religiously.
By everyone, we also mean customers. That same night we also asked our past customers to give us a plug on their blog as well. Tom gets all mushy in his recount of the customer aspect on his blog.
After both started posting, we saw registrations double in about a month.
That’s what I mean by ‘engage’. If you have customers (speakers, attendees, and sponsors in our case) that care enough about you, then utilize them. We did and they literally make all the difference in the world to us.
In the face of others doing it right, holding course is certainly one option
Tom and I aren’t born to the calling of conference organizers. It wasn’t in our blood from birth, and we didn’t start conferences to push other business. We do conferences to promote community. In the case of 360|Flex, it’s to bring the Flex developer community together under one roof, for one purpose. We’re not trying to retire young (though that’s not a terrible goal I suppose), we’re not trying to get rich on any single event. We’re certainly not in it to (pardon the term) rape our customers. Other than a few other visionaries in the space, we’re alone in that last one.
I’m not going to name names, but there’s an event in DC, I’ve attended it, it was ok. Not cheap, and the price seems to go up almost yearly. For that reason alone, before even starting 360Conferences, Inc, I decided I wouldn’t return.
As far as I know pre-conference training has been part of this event for a while. Always a seperate fee, always a lot of money. This year’s no different.
When Tom and I had the opportunity to offer pre-conference training, we jumped at the idea. We also decided to make the training free. If you’re registered to attend the conference, the training is free, just show up. Why? Why not? Why should the attendee pay even more? We don’t believe our customers deserve to, or want to be nickel and dimed. I know as a consumer, I don’t like it. Why would I do it to my customers?
What has always confused me about business is the lack of agility. Now, Ford or GM turning on a dime, not possible, but the rest of the business community? Really you can’t do it? Tom and I completely tossed our first model, and adapted to what our customers and speakers said was important. It wasn’t hard, it didn’t hurt. (Editoral note from Tom: Though it was humbling. Thinking you have the perfect model, then getting a “Well, not quite.”)
That said, I can’t for the life of me figure out why this other event is still telling their customers to bend over for pre-conference training. The company that runs the conference has never to my knowledge let it’s numbers out, so who knows how many people will end paying $900 for two days of training. $900 bucks? Yup.
Their announcement made sure everyone knew, NOT FREE, NOT INCLUDED.
*All classes are $449 each (this cost is not included in your conference registration for the main event, it is completely separate)
$449 each? 450 bucks a day if you want pre-conference training? On top of about $1,100 to attend the conference itself. Really?
Tom and I may not be a huge threat, yet. But having attended this other event before, they’re not doing anything Tom and I don’t do, except give out backpacks and a shnazzy printout of the slides… SNORE. Well, the prinouts are nice, but $600 nice? So how do Tom and I do it, for less than half the price? How do Tom and I do it, without having another business to prop up the conference? To use the conference as a marketing event for other services? Hmmm…good question. I’m hoping the community at large is asking this as they decide what events to attend. They should be.
Transparency, not just a fad
There’s been times when Tom and I have wondered if transparency is really that great. Those times usually pass pretty quickly, we can’t see running a business any other way. I saw that, as of yesterday, the TSA is blogging. How freakin’ great is that!?
I’ll be the first to admit, I usually hate the TSA. They break things and take no responsibility, they’re more often than not rude, and the policies and thoroughness vary from airport to airport.
Opening themselves up to the public like this (as of now, the first post has almost 500 comments), letting us get a better idea of who the TSA is, and letting them get a better idea of who we, their customers are, that’s great! It doesn’t counter the treatment they impart, but hopefully that might change. Reading some of the stories, I realize I could have worse luck in my travels.
They’re breaking out topics such as shoes, liquids, and even inconsistencies in policy execution, into separate blog posts, asking, yeah you read that right, asking for comments. And from the number of comments so far, the public has no problem answering the call for engagement.
And it’s not just a one sided “post, response” scenario. TSA peeps are commenting, replying to specific people, acknowledging failings, etc. It’s a true two way dialog!
Seeing this, totally reinforces my resolve that business (or government) can, should, and needs to be transparent. Too many businesses as well as our own government have forgotten whom they serve, and have decided that, “it’s better if we don’t know”. We say Screw that! A conference soda costs $5.00! Wifi sucks ass! Hotels charge too much! Renting a projector for 3 days is almost twice the price of owning one!
Right on TSA!! You keep talking to us, I’ll keep trying to smile share a kind word as I pass through.
Our Events
Below is our list of events. The shows still taking registration have active links, the past shows are just listed for posterity.
360|iDev
March 2-4, 2009 – San Jose, CA
360|Flex
May 18-20, 2009 – Indianapolis, IN
August 2008 – San Jose, CA
April 2008 – Milan, Italy
February 2008 – Atlanta, GA
August 2007 – Seattle, WA
March 2007 – San Jose, CA
Sometimes you just have to ask
“What do I get for that much money?”
I’m reading Gonzo Marketing right now. Each page gets me more amped up about business and reinforces that Tom and I are not wrong. So what does the question above mean? It means: In the conference space, there’s an incredible range of prices for events.
We recently did a survey asking (yeah, asking) our customers what they wanted. You can see the results here.
What did they tell us? For starters they told us that they’d like to see speakers get a little something back. We were already giving a little back by selling videos and giving 1/3 of the price to the speaker, but that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a land slide at all, but 37% of those who responded, think we should give a little more. Done.
We also asked if the price was right. Was $360 the ‘sweet spot’ or would anything under $500 work? The answer, surprisingly with 53%, was that anything under $500 would be OK. I think what’s important about this question is that, people could have put the screws to us, and said, “$360.00 is the right price, don’t budge it” and we would have had to either decide if $360 would work or close up shop. Instead our customers, the community, acknowledged that a good event costs money (our events being top notch has never been an issue, from what we hear), and that if we have to raise prices a little, that’s cool. Done. We’re thinking that $480 sounds good. We’ve done some math, and with less food budget, and paying for speaker accommodations, $480 makes our company and our conferences viable in the long term.
$480 per attendee whether you show up the day of or buy when we announce. We don’t raise the price on you for showing up last minute. Bring 4 of your team for a mere $1500. We don’t believe in coercing attendees to register “early”. There’s no discount for buying movie tickets 2 weeks out, why should conference pricing change? Is there something different about the post early bird pricing? something ‘extra’? something later registrants don’t get? Nope. Enough about pricing though.
Here’s my main point… “viable in the long term” at $480 bucks, not $600, not $900, certainly not $1200 or $1500. At $480 dollars, and we think we can still pull off an event that sends folks home happy and more knowledgeable than when they arrived. They also leave with a stronger sense of community… for $480 dollars
So back to my question, “what do I get for…?” (taken from actual Conference sites)
$free.99
$599.00
$749.00
$629.00
$1,495.00
$1,095.00
What do you get from these events that you don’t get from a 360Conferences, inc. event? Nothing. Great speakers? Check. Lunch? Check. Cool people? Check. Great sponsors with great products to show? Check. Marketing hype about the consulting services or training services of the company putting the event on? Uh, no check, sorry. An Overload of sessions, where you literally have dozens of options, mostly all good in the same hour? Uh no. Crowds so immense that you’re a plankton in a big pond? mmm nope.
What about the free ones? like the *camp style? They rock! But they’re not a business. I ain’t gonna lie; Doing Conferences, and doing them well, is a business AND a passion for Tom and I. If there’s no lunch at a free event, do you complain? if a speaker can’t make it, what then? Free events are ad hoc in nature. They’re pure community and while fun, you can’t guarantee a return on your investment of time. You could see the guy that invented the Furby speak, or maybe you just get the latest schill trying to explain how cool his widget and it’s API are. Both great, but in different ways.
Yes, we went from $100 to $360. Now we’re going to $480. Who’s to say we won’t raise it again? Us. At $100, we were on eBay’s campus and just paid for food. At $360, we paid for an actual venue but gave speakers no cash. Both shows taught us a lot. The first show we learned how to plan and run a conference. The second show taught us how to pay for a conference. The third show is finally all the pieces put together in what you, the customers have told us are the right format, setting, etc.
We’re here strictly to serve you by putting on the best conferences we can, while still keeping them affordable. Don’t think we’re done “tweaking” the numbers. We will keep working them, finding ways to continue to give your more for each dollar at each show. We have ideas to try out, and when they work, you’ll definitely see the benefits. We don’t do shows to make us happy, we do shows to make you happy, which does make us happy, by the way. With over 700+ satisfied attendees (yes, some are duplicates, so sue us! LOL), we think we’ve done a good job so far. We don’t have any plans to stop that now.
