Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Outsource Online Pr's For Event Agency

Posted by cadi on 3/8/2011 at 4:53 PM ET 150 Points
Hi,
thanks a lot in advance for the time you will dedicate to my post.
We are a small event agency in Europe, which operates in a small defined region (300’000 people).
Main clients are industries, banks, insurances.
Our 2 main markets:
a) limited decision maker for a “A to Z” event coordination
b) event equipment rental (event deco, furniture, etc)
Competitions is getting aggressive in terms of promotion. We are small, but aggressive too (when we have time!).
My main problem in PR is not having enough time to visit prospects and existing clients.
The two owners (myself and my business partner) are focused in the daily business, a lot of administrative task, account, legal issues, developing events for existing clients, coordinating staff (2 members), attending events (and doing a sort of PR on site) and all the rest of the tasks a owner is doing in a small event company.
I know we should somehow improve in structuring our company better but for the time being we would not like to hire someone, since we cannot guarantee an additional salary at least right now.
My question: what type of online and offline activities we could outsource to as freelancer (keeping in mind that owner themselves are supposed to do PR’s? Or perhaps I should say, what type of marketing (online marketing activities can we outsource? In particular I am looking at the online situation. We are about to re-launch our website, after a long time in which we almost were ashamed of our web presence (and therefore did not publicized it at all). Never did FB, Twitter and social media and are not sure these are key to us. And to be hones are not even sure id Twitter is ok for us (since we mainly do corporate events –and cannot really publicize them to outside).
More infos:
- never did a proper newsletter, since word to month (to the few decision maker) worked in the past.
- Non English speaking area (in case of English based suggestion/websites)
Thank you in advance for any suggestion
D.

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 3/8/2011 at 7:37 PM Accepted
    I would take a step back from your question, and ask what problems you are having that you want to solve. Most common, the basic problem is either wanting more sales, or wanting to reduce costs/expenses. But sometimes there are other problems you are trying to solve (get more organized so you feel more in controlled, etc.).

    Once you figure out the main issue you want to solve, then start looking at what activities you can take to solve them.

    Once you figure out what activities you want, then start figuring out what can be done by current personnel and what can be farmed out.
  • Posted by cadi on 3/9/2011 at 3:45 AM Author
    Hi Peter
    you are correct, I do apologize for some missing info’s.
    Getting better organized is certainly an issue. We are working on it. And this is certainly key, in general.
    Though, my post was more torwards:
    (A)Generating more sales along with more (B) brand awareness for prospects
    As mentioned, in the past years prospects and existing customer came mainly to us through referrals (business partners) and through word to mouth.
    Business has slow down significantly due to expenses cut’s and stronger competition.
    As a result:
    - since customers came regardless of marketing activities, we never bothered to update an old and dull website. (we had a terrible website – we are currently uploading the new one in few days)
    - we never did any ads, no promotional emails or newsletters.
    - never explored FB or Twitter (my concern was: “what kind of interesting subject can I twitt every day or so?” We are mainly doing corporate events and information about clients are somehow not to promote to other clients/public)
    - never published video’s of events on youtube, etc…

    So, back to the original post and given the scenario, are
    - FB page (praying all my friends to become fan)
    - Twitter account
    - Videos on youtube of our events
    - Images on Flickr of our events
    a good start? Probably so. But what else in your opinion can be done?
    what other low cost activities can be done directly or outsourced in order to achieve objectives A and B?
    Thanks again for any input.
    D
  • Posted by michael on 3/9/2011 at 10:04 AM Accepted
    This is where you need to hire an independent sales rep. Someone needs to be out on the street.

    I don't know where you are located but having "on call" staff for events is very common in the the US. This also frees you up for more networking/PR.

    Michael
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