Читать книгу Oversubscribed - Daniel Priestley - Страница 23

You email you list of contacts a thoughtful piece of content discussing a recent book about hiring and managing superstars. The email signs off with “PS: I'm in contact with the author of this book about speaking at our upcoming conference – if you'd like to save the date, block out the 21st of June in your diary. Also please reply to this email letting me know the key topics that would add the most value for you so I can discuss them with our potential speaker.”

A week later, you let people know you have secured the author as a speaker and you have also confirmed the venue. You share with them the topic requests you received via email and let them know that the guest speaker will certainly be covering these areas of interest. You ask people to pre‐register for tickets so they can access an early‐bird price as soon as tickets are available. As a bonus for pre‐registering early, people will also get a digital copy of the author's book right away.

Finally you send an email letting people know that the conference will have 60 tickets available and already there are 93 people pre‐registered. You include a link to a podcast you've recorded with the guest speaker and an article they wrote for Forbes. You let pre‐registered people know they can get a 20% discount on Monday and then the tickets will go on sale for everyone else on Tuesday at the full price.

On Monday you watch as 47 of the tickets are snapped up. You make a few phone calls on Tuesday and sell another six tickets to the people who pre‐registered but didn't buy on Monday. Over the following week, the remaining tickets sell and you email your list letting people know the event is sold out and they can pre‐register for next year's conference if they wish.

In the first example, a binary option was promoted with no warming up, no signalling and no indication of capacity. Tickets are on sale – take it or leave it.

The second approach offered value at every step, warmed people up to the speaker and the topics covered and asked for small signals of interest along the way. This put the organiser in a position to communicate the capacity of the event was oversubscribed and genuine reasons to buy a ticket upon release. It also allowed the organiser to follow up with people who had signalled interest but didn't buy.

In all other ways, this conference could be the same but the number of attendees would be vastly different.

Signal to the market what you're doing slowly and elegantly, adding value and intrigue as you do. Let them signal back to you their interest, concerns or input. Although it seems more time‐consuming to engage in this drawn‐out courtship dance with your potential clients, it's a surefire way of actually achieving the desired results.