Internet Tech Boston

I recently joined the Harvard Startups usergroup. Today, I was replying to a question posed to the community and about half-way through, realized it was a blog post.

The question: How does one promote online marketing and lead generation services to an audience that is primarily used to only exhibiting at conferences. What strategies can be used to drive this audience away from exhibiting at conferences and focus more on utilizing online marketing?

Let me start by saying, this is a long process – be prepared for frustration along the way. Traditional marketers are generally very scared to try new media strategies for a number of reasons, mostly because it’s new and people don’t like change, but also because it’s threatening. Here’s how I’d advise you to start:

1. It doesn’t cost us anything to try this. You don’t need anyone’s permission to start a Twitter account, a Facebook page, or a Ping.FM account. You can probably easily get the budget for a Constant Contact account to send regular email marketing. Focus on how little cost (both money and time) it is to start an online marketing program. How can they say No?
2. My Online programs are here to help make your offline programs better. Send email marketing ahead of the conference to increase your company’s awareness. Live-Twitter about the conferences. Bring a video camera and tape as much as you can. All these activities help both their conference, as well as your grow your online community-base. Focusing on Win-Win situations helps reduce their fear of you and what you represent.
3. Track EVERYTHING. Most traditional marketers don’t track metrics. Sad to say, but they leave the barn door wide open. They just spend money on the next conference. If you track followers, click-throughs, traffic, leads, and EVERYTHING else, the upper management will start to drool over your success, then you’re ready for step 4.
4. Explain to Senior Management what they could get if they gave digital marketing a decent budget. You were able to attract X amount of opportunities/dollars with your limited budget. But, if you had a team of people working for you, and better tools, you could easily do 10X. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for – when they decide “Gee, maybe we should skip one of those 15k conference sponsorship fees and give that budget to the digital marketing guy to rebuild our website . . . “

Good luck, and remember that you have to change mindsets. Much of this is not about proving that online marketing tactics work, it’s the interpersonal dynamics between the agitator vs. the status quo. It takes awhile. You will be scoffed at, at first. Then, you will become their enemy. You can not control their response to change. But, you will succeed because it’s been proven thousands of times over that digital marketing is more effective than a 100% offline strategy.

Has anyone else been through his process, successfully? Let me know in the comments below other ideas I didn’t touch on.