Simplogy helps professional development events company to transform into the leading one-stop knowledge network for its niche audience
Situation in September 2008
Private Wealth Network (formerly Dealers’ Group) was operating as a specialist events production company for financial services professionals. Each time a new event, out of six major events it produced every year, was introduced, a standard process of producing brochures, uploading it on to the Web site, printing and distributing it was followed. Ads or inserts in trade publications, e-mail to all past delegates and direct mail to rented lists were the principal marketing channels.
The challenge
This Web site promoted a transactional relationship between the delegate and the company. The cost of acquiring delegates was high. There was no direct ongoing relationship with delegates and so even though the business knew that many delegates simply loved our events and attended repeatedly, we were not fully capitalising it. The company did not leverage previous visits to carry forward their relationship to the next event. As a result, the marketing costs remained high as each delegate had to be acquired as a new customer in each event. The company wished to extensively use the Internet to build a brand and lower marketing costs.
The solution
With Hasnain on board, we took a series of steps that transformed us from an offline event company to a knowledge network of a chosen, high value segment of professionals. How did we achieve this transformation?
First, we revamped our marketing strategy, defined our target audience sharply and determined a series of online initiatives. Then, as part of implementation, we:
- created The Brain – a repository of knowledge and information. This helped get Google love for many of the high traffic generating keywords.
- introduced a monthly e-mail newsletter - Private Client Adviser – containing a mix of technical and conceptual knowledge and updates. This helped us position as thought leaders in the industry
- determined traffic goals and installed Google Analytics.
- search engine optimised our content and submitted in directories
- installed forms to capture visitor details and expanded our database of private client advisers.
- created a Google AdWords campaign for each new event
- created a membership scheme and recruited more than 300 members
- started a Webinar series for members
The result
Traffic increased three times within a year. We received tremendous interest from the audience to contribute in the newsletter and it helped us connect with our delegates and know them better.
The proportion of online marketing in the total marketing spend increased and marketing spend per delegate acquisition dropped, even during GFC.
We have transformed the company from a transactional to relationship oriented provider. In recognition of this change, we successfully won two network sponsors.
The road ahead
With phase 1 comprising membership network and online marketing focus now successfully completed, we are moving into phase 2 in which we are building a niche professional network, dramatically reducing the cost of online delegate registrations, minimising registrations by offline media (fax, mail and phone), ramping up Webinars and putting in place a social media plan.
Members will have access to a niche professional network in which they would be able to publish and view profiles and contact other professionals. They will easily refer events to other colleagues and collaborate with the event producers in setting agenda.
Paul Salmon, Director of Dealers’ Group says:
