Taken from an original article on Meeting Professionals International by Dann Anthony Maurno
Thanks to technology, it has become easier than ever for brands to communicate, both internally and externally. Online and mobile marketing have become a major part of how companies interact with their customers and employees. With print resources like Every Door Direct Mail from the USPS, and online and mobile solutions like email, SMS messaging, and social media it is possible for a company to reach out to an increasingly wider range of potential customers.
Just because we can reach a wider audience, however, doesn't mean it is always necessary. There is a noticeable shift happening in the way brands interact with their potential clients - and it's not all about the numbers.
"If only attendance was the measure of success. Then, the ILA Berlin Airshow, the biannual aerospace industry event with routine attendance of 1 million plus, would be among the most successful events in history. "But how many of the million are going to buy an Airbus A380?" asks Colja Dams, CEO of Vok Dams Group, an event management agency based in Germany.
Hardly any. "It's cool to exhibit there and to go there and bring your kids to see big fighter planes," Dams said, but it is misguided to hope that some buyers will be among the million."
Brands are discovering that a strategic, targeted strategy is a much more effective way to drive sales. It isn't enough to simply put their name in front of a wide audience, or have a social media presence. Brands need to
engage with their customers in order to make an impact.
"Engagement is no soft-edged deliverable or silly new buzzword; it is the new way of thinking about the classic sales cycle, or as the Event Marketing Institute describes it, the age-old purchase funnel: "Brands around the world [recognize] the power of the human connection and then [use] that engagement" to drive sales. Engagement, says McGonnigal, is a two-way dialogue rather than one-way mass communications."
Read the full article on Meeting Professionals International