Posts Tagged ‘sales’
How to Get Convertible
Many small businesses are so focused on traffic that they don’t spend any time on conversion. Conversion is the process to transfer potential customer traffic into a sale. It’s normally discussed as part of web marketing strategy but it also happens in real life. Simply put – how easy is it for me to make a purchase from you?
I recently attended the Champagne Festival – what a great event! They give you an engraved glass at the door and you get 72 types of sparkling wine to taste. Each drink was paired with a different kind of food from a different restaurant. I wandered around with my tribe and ooh and ahhed at all the selections. All of us are in the target demographic of this event – we have the disposable income to buy our favorites by the case and eat in the type of restaurants that co-sponsored the event.
As the night wore on, my one friend loved champagne X and my other friend kept declaring she wanted a few cases of sparkling wine Y. The third was absolutely in love in the caviar soup served with champagne Z. All the vendors dazzled us with taste this, taste that, this is vintage G and that’s vintage K and just find our booth number in the program to remember our 30 syllable French name.
Great, great, will do. Except the problem is that we went to a piano bar afterward and lost our programs. And I promise you, 72 tastings later, I have no idea what bottle X was and what the booth number or the vintage. I vaguely remember the location of the restaurant that served the caviar soup – it’s one of ten in the radius I’m thinking of.
Point being? Five target customers with plenty of disposable income wander through for two hours. Total amount spent? $0.
WHAAAAAT????
Let’s do the quick analysis. If I was a vendor, I had to pay for the following:
- something for my booth
- time or labor for the people who worked the booth for 4 hours (including setup and breakdown)
- food or drink for to up to 300 people
- booth supplies (napkins, cups, etc.)
With that kind of financial outlay, these small businesses were hoping and praying that I could keep all my French words aligned with four digit booth numbers and the wherewithal to find them later?
Not one vendor handed me a business card (or a coupon which has far more of an incentive to keep).
Not one vendor collected information from me (enter here to win a free blah blah blah)
Not one vendor (I assume they got the attendance list) followed up with me after the event.
This is a great way to seem like you are working really hard in your business to do these kinds of events but if you aren’t spending any time on CONVERSION then you are wasting both time and money.
