Excellent as usual. How about a strategy for listening? Gathering feedback from your efforts and making adjustments to your outbound communication strategy, tactics and event positioning as necessary?
@Matts - okay, the next post will be about listening, then. You already read Grow Bigger Ears, right?
Scott Gould
· 9 months ago
I've only flicked through this as I'm off to meeting, so I'll read it in more depth later, but I just want to thank you Chris for the way you write these practical lists.
My very linear thinking appreciates it!
Joseph Fiore
· 9 months ago
Great insights Chris - thanks for sharing!
With regard to the first Matt's comments on lisening, I would like to recommend our RepuTrack™ service for businesses requiring listening/monitoring tools to track feedback and opinion on all campaigning, or even as part of an overall strategy to guage online audience intelligence and the perception value of their brand (s) and reputation.
Joseph @RepuTrack
Advertising Detroit
· 9 months ago
Great post - and as always great reading. However I think one thing you forgot was proper follow-up for any communication, attendance or purchase for any event. You always (in my experience) want the person who courted you to feel accepted and appreciated.
Jayson Flint
· 9 months ago
Chris visualization is a very important part of planning overall, while I'm not an expert I know that taking what you have blogged here and apply it to my business is key for successful planning.
Oh btw I would have definately left the oil for lamps and candles behind. lol
myinternetbusiness
· 9 months ago
Very good post. made very good reading
vandy
· 9 months ago
What perfect timing! I've just been wondering how to cope with launching three new services in about as many weeks. We already use our blog and Twitter to let the world know about our services. This framework has given me a far better method of structuring what we do.
It strikes me that a mind-mapping approach to this thinking could enhance the visual element of it and enable some connections to be easily mapped out.
Thanks Chris
Randall Beard
· 9 months ago
Building on the earlier comments about a listening strategy. Listening should begin even before the event. Perhaps the most important question beyond establishing a clear goal is the most basic: what do our customers want ? This applies to events as with anything else in Marketing. My experience is that Marketers constantly try to think up interesting topics and content for events when they would be far better off really understanding what their customers want. Delivering highly relevant content to your customers via events increases your credibility and engagement and significantly increases the liklihood you'll achieve your goals.
takeyou
· 9 months ago
very good organized events , the best post i read in my day
Chuck Frey
· 9 months ago
Mind mapping software is definitely a valuable tool for this process, as you do a "brain dump" of tactics, then take a step back to identify the common themes and overall strategic areas upon which you need to focus - and then assign those tactical items to appropriate top-level topics. It's great for this kind of back-and-forth, iterative planning!
Matt Tillotson
· 9 months ago
Haven't read "Grow Bigger Ears" yet. But I will!
Michelle Damico
· 9 months ago
Chris, what a common sense approach to tackling a problem. I am so impressed by the way you think and put together a strategy in a concrete way that everyone can relate to. Thank you so much for this post. So often we're daunted by the project in front of us, but yours is another example of breaking it down into simple steps, and than breaking the steps down into themes. I think the hard part is listening to yourself and your instincts to see what you've missed. Also, to slow down before calling your plans complete. Oh, btw, I had feared you were going to add guns to the supplies for the pirates who might hijack the ship. Glad it didn't turn out that way!
Nathan Hangen
· 9 months ago
The problem with reading your blog Chris, is that I want to reblog everything. Great post as usual.
Thanks for the action steps, this is great for someone like me, looking for more than fluff and motivational posts.
My only problem is that you don't use your list enough! At least not the one that I'm on.
All Comments
We just finished an event and built a substantial following for it.
Now we're focused on really listening and proactively seeking solid feedback to find out how to do it better next year.
Seth Godin just wrote a post about increasing revenue from existing customers vs. trying to find new ones.
So, maybe there is another step in the process after you execute and that's listen/engage/improve.
My very linear thinking appreciates it!
With regard to the first Matt's comments on lisening, I would like to recommend our RepuTrack™ service for businesses requiring listening/monitoring tools to track feedback and opinion on all campaigning, or even as part of an overall strategy to guage online audience intelligence and the perception value of their brand (s) and reputation.
Joseph
@RepuTrack
Oh btw I would have definately left the oil for lamps and candles behind. lol
It strikes me that a mind-mapping approach to this thinking could enhance the visual element of it and enable some connections to be easily mapped out.
Thanks Chris
Oh, btw, I had feared you were going to add guns to the supplies for the pirates who might hijack the ship. Glad it didn't turn out that way!
Thanks for the action steps, this is great for someone like me, looking for more than fluff and motivational posts.
My only problem is that you don't use your list enough! At least not the one that I'm on.