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CUSTOMER APPRECIATION |
Company: Czarnowski
Event: What2009: A Day of Revolutionary Thinking
Objectives: Strengthen existing customer relationships, generate new business, and raise brand awareness and value among clients and prospects.
Strategy: Educate attendees on topics they care about using a host of dynamic presentations to reinforce that Czarnowski stands at the forefront of the evolving exhibit and event industry.
Tactics: Create a relaxed environment to encourage attendee discussions and networking. Socialize with clients and prospects while eliminating the sales pitch to focus on building meaningful relationships.
Results: Attracted 125 guests, which is up 60 percent from the previous year's attendance. Generated $200,000 in new business, and created a more positive image of Czarnowski among 88 percent of attendees.
Creative Agency: Czarnowski, www.czarnowski.com
Budget: $15,000
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ince the economic collapse began in 2008, layoffs, downsizing, and cost cutting have replaced multimillion-dollar executive bonuses as common practice in the business world. From coast to coast, companies are pinching pennies and reducing staff to stay afloat in continuingly turbulent waters.
Not exempt from scrutiny during these tough times are companies' exhibit and event programs. With less money to go around, many businesses have cut staff in this area, or have cut their programs altogether, says Kim Merkin, West Coast director of sales for exhibit and event firm Czarnowski.
"Last year was a transitional year in the events industry with downsizing
and less support for educational programs," Merkin says. "There were a lot of layoffs."
The changing economic conditions caused many businesses to cut costs, increase effectiveness, and scrutinize the price tag of their events like never before. "Companies want and need to see a return on their investment - or at least some solid numbers or measurements to justify why they're going to trade shows," Merkin says.
 So Czarnowski set out to create a customer-appreciation event that would do more than simply thank its existing and prospective clients for their business and interest in the company's services. It would also educate them, provide the tools they need to reduce expenses, heighten their exhibit- and event-related ROI, and prove the value of their face-to-face marketing programs. In turn, the event would help Czarnowski meet its objectives of strengthening client relationships, capturing the business of new prospects, and enhancing the company's standing as an innovative partner in the industry.
Educate and Appreciate
Attendee-centric educational events weren't new to Czarnowski. In fact, the company has made client-focused education the centerpiece of its marketing strategy since 2006. That year, Czarnowski launched its "what" campaign, an umbrella program that focuses company marketing around educating clients and prospects on what's new, what's now, and what's next in the industry.
The company's 14 regional offices use the "what" theme in the customer-appreciation events they host each year. "These efforts vary from small-scale dinners to multiday open houses," Merkin says. "They're an important and effective element in how we build and maintain strong, healthy, sustainable customer relationships."
 For its 2009 customer-appreciation event, Czarnowski's San Francisco
office once again embraced the "what" campaign to address its clients' industry concerns and present innovative solutions for its customers and prospects in the region. What2009: A Day of Revolutionary Thinking, was born.
Czarnowski also developed a set of measurable objectives for the event. It hoped to increase attendance from the 50 attendees at the previous year's event, and generate a more positive response from attendees, with at least 75 percent rating the event content as "useful." In addition, Czarnowski hoped 75 percent or more of clients and prospects would walk away with a positive impression of the company.
Give Them What They Want
To meet these goals and connect with
clients and prospects, Czarnowski made a major change from the previous year's event. Instead of building event content on its own, it reached out to clients to tailor What2009 to their professional interests and concerns. As event planning began in August 2009, Czarnowski account executives conducted phone and e-mail surveys and held face-to-face meetings with the company's top 20 customers in the Northern California region to get a sense of industry topics that perplexed and/or intrigued them.
What Czarnowski found was a reflection of the economic impact on the exhibit and event industry. "Cutting costs was a huge area of concern for our clients, along with justifying the cost of participating in trade shows through event measurement," Merkin says. Other areas of interest included "the use of social networking to
promote your products or services."
With a checklist of client issues, Czarnowski began developing an agenda that would present attendees with the solutions they were looking for. To discuss measurement plans for exhibits and events, Czarnowski booked Tom Frisby and Mark Watson. Frisby is the vice president of strategic
services for Orlando, FL-based Think(form), an independent creative arm of Czarnowski, while Watson is the principle for MeasureINC, a Claremont, CA-based consulting business focusing on design and analysis of trade show and retail environments.
 To demonstrate social-networking tools and how to use them to enhance exhibits and events, Czarnowski looked to Megan Casey. After making a name for herself in book publishing for the likes of Random House Inc., Casey founded Squidoo, a community Web site allowing users to generate their own pages (called "lenses") on topics of interest without having
extensive knowledge in Web design.
For the lynchpin of the guest presentations, Czarnowski brought in Guy Kawasaki, a well-known venture capitalist and former employee at Apple Computers Inc., responsible for marketing the first personal Macintosh computers in 1984. Kawasaki also originated the concept of product "evangelism" at Apple, which involved inspiring product users to passionately advocate for Apple products. In a presentation titled "The Art of Intrapreneurship and Innovation," Kawasaki would address the importance of face-to-face client connections through trade shows and events while demonstrating how his unique marketing tactics could be used to invigorate attendees' exhibit and event programs.
"Seeking input from customers before and during the event-planning process allowed us to deliver an event that was truly attendee generated from top to bottom. We're literally giving them content they want, not content we think they should have. This is all about them and much less about us," Merkin says.
David Frey, author of "The Small Business Marketing Bible," and founder of www.marketingbestpractices.com, says this customer-focused, education-based marketing strategy is often more effective than traditional sales approaches, as it cuts out the hard sell that can turn clients off. In his article, "Education-Based Marketing: How to Make Business Come to You," he writes, "the beauty of education-based marketing is that you give prospective customers what they want, information and advice - and remove what they don't want, a sales pitch. By offering helpful advice, you establish yourself as an authority because prospects see you as a reliable source of information. A relationship of trust often results in dramatically higher sales."
Price-Tag Perfection
Czarnowski hoped to give attendees what they wanted without breaking the bank. Using a strategy of staying
in-house and negotiating with preferred vendors, Czarnowski felt it could stage an engaging, educational event for a price tag that amounted to corporate pocket change.
Using its own facility, the company eliminated venue costs up front with the added bonus of built-in Czarnowski
branding at every turn. Next, the company procured free or heavily discounted event- design services and materials from a selection of vendors with whom it regularly partners. In
exchange for the freebies and price cuts, each vendor received a table space at the event to promote its services to attendees, says Czarnowski account manager Melissa De Long.
For example, Cort Furniture provided the seating for What2009 free of charge, and marketing agency BrandVia assembled a Czarnowski-branded bag containing snacks, a water bottle, and other promotional materials at half of cost. Czarnowski tapped Dave Barten Production Service to bring in innovative exhibit and event lighting products to inspire attendees, while Reality Engineering Inc. provided a demo showing attendees how to use the Nintendo Wii to attract prospects and get them to interact with staffers.
When it came to the speakers, Czarnowski kept costs down by working with people who had an existing relationship with the company and who were located near the San Francisco office. With the added incentive of being able to tout themselves and their products to Czarnowski clients (which include Audi of America and General Electric Co.), Czarnowski secured well-known, dynamic speakers for bargain-basement prices.
After finalizing the roster of 10 vendors and three speakers and balancing the checkbook, the cost of What2009 came to a meager $15,000.
Blasting Up Attendance
Apart from supplying event furnishings and displays, vendors also comprised an important element of Czarnowski's plan to boost event attendance, as each vendor provided contact information for 25 to 50 prospects and potential attendees. Czarnowski assembled the remaining contacts using its own database of existing clients and new prospect inquiries from its Web site.
With approximately 850 contacts in hand, Czarnowski utilized an e-mail invitation campaign to get the word out about What2009. The initial e-mail invitation asked guests to attend "a day of revolutionary thinking about what is next in face-to-face marketing."
A second round of e-mail invitations went out to invitees who didn't register after the first invite, while those who did sign up received a final e-mail reminder four days prior to the event. Czarnowski reps also made personal phone calls to VIP clients who didn't respond to the e-mail invitations.
With attendees registered, Czarnowski trained its staff to ensure event management and messaging reflected the company's goals. The company instructed its reps to mingle with as many guests as possible, keep conversation light, focus on attendees' needs, and avoid a hard sales pitch. Instead, Czarnowski coached them to ask leading questions in order to get guests talking about the exhibit and event issues most relevant to them, while tactfully introducing examples of Czarnowski solutions that may address those concerns. The goal, quite simply, was to foster relationship building.
Class is in Session
As the sun rose on the event on Sept. 30, 2009, the e-mail campaign paid dividends. Attendees packed the San Francisco office for registration and networking beginning at 9 a.m.
At the event-registration desk near the office entrance, a staff of 12 reps, dressed in Czarnowski-red branded shirts, greeted guests and handed out name tags and Czarnowski-branded goodie bags. Event planners designed different colored name tags for current clients and prospects, making it easier for Czarnowski staff members to quickly identify guests' relationship with the company, and tailor their message accordingly.
After registration, attendees had time to explore the vendor tables and technologies on display, including an electronic collateral-distribution system, called "e-literature." This touchscreen tool allows exhibit or event visitors to select information on products and services that interest them and have it sent to their e-mail account, eliminating the hassle of carrying around a fistful of flyers while sidestepping printing costs.
At 10 a.m., presentations took center stage in a theater area constructed at the rear of the office space. For 45 minutes, Frisby and Watson schooled guests on the importance of measurement and how to incorporate it in a successful marketing program, while Kawasaki grabbed the spotlight from 11 a.m. to noon. "He explained the importance of attending trade shows, having a well-developed strategy for your exhibits and events, and being fiscally responsible with your exhibit program," Merkin says. "We were very cognizant that attendees needed to be able to take ideas back with them and apply them to their business."
An hour lunch and networking session followed in a seating area outside the theater. Czarnowski staff circulated the area and asked guests about the challenges facing their companies, and their marketing goals. Reps listened for opportunities to casually suggest Czarnowski's products and services as possible solutions. To prevent conversations from getting too sales-oriented, staff also showed a concerted interest in each individual, asking about favorite hobbies and movies and use of social-networking sites, which played handily into the day's final presentation.
Titled "The e-Watercooler," the seminar on online social mediums such as Facebook and MySpace found Megan Casey engaging the audience with the very tools she was touting. "She had audience members use Twitter to send her questions to demonstrate how social networks can be used to encourage audience
participation and enhance your
exhibit or event," De Long says.
Studying the Results
When Czarnowski got the results of a survey it e-mailed to attendees several days after What2009, it was clear that the company's client-focused education strategy garnered top grades.
All respondents indicated they appreciated Czarnowski's efforts in pulling together an educational forum, while 88 percent reported leaving the event with a positive impression of the company. One-hundred percent of attendees said they walked away with at least one idea they could apply to their own programs - with 70 percent indicating they left with multiple ideas to help them increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their programs.
Czarnowski's use of educational presentations, rather than hard sales pitches, appealed to this year's Corporate Event Awards judges. "I've been to a lot of events where they have a great keynote, but it doesn't really address the specific needs of the attendees," one judge said. "Then, the generic keynotes are followed by corporate sales pitches. But here, the company identified topics that were of interest to attendees, built an event agenda around those topics, and bypassed the pitchy presentations altogether."
For a meager investment of $15,000, Czarnowski successfully educated 125
visitors, a whopping 60-percent increase in attendance from the previous
year. New prospects comprised more than half of those attendees, and Czarnowski has also snagged two new clients and additional project requests as a result of the event, translating to $200,000 worth of new business.
By using its own resources and connections, providing an attendee-focused learning experience, and concentrating on client relationships instead of the hard sell, Czarnowski proved that a little money and a lot of education can quickly put you at the head of the class.E
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