Business Week had a very informative article and it really resonated with Tom and I. It’s about educational Marketingc and its benefits. The interesting part is that this approach isn’t just beneficial to the marketer, but also to the marketee (that’s a word, right?)
Three examples from the article:
Business: Real Estate Agency
Ineffective offer: “Let me teach you why you should list your house with me.”
Effective offer: “Let me teach you the five mistakes everyone makes when selling a house. No matter who you list with, you’ll need to know these things.”
Business: Financial Planner
Ineffective offer: “I want to come and talk to you about how I can help you plan for a better financial future.”
Effective offer: “Even if you never do anything with me, I want to make sure you know that there are five critical mistakes everyone makes in trying to accumulate wealth.”
Business: Technology Services Company
Ineffective offer: “Let me tell you how great we are at helping with your IT services.”
Effective offer: “As part of our effort to build better relationships in the business community, we offer a free white paper entitled ‘Six ways to dramatically increase productivity using your current technology.’ ”
This really hits home for us, and fits with how we do things. We’ve addressed the transparency already but this is a different beast. This is putting our attendees, and even speakers and sponsors, ahead of us.
Our goal is to expand the Flex (for now, it’s just Flex… for now :D ) Community. The industry needs developers, of all skill levels. If they get that training at 360|Flex, great. If they go to any of the other conferences offering various levels of Flex training and sessions, that’s great too. The end result is the same, and the industry and community benefit.
So how does this directly help us? Well according to the article, and even some limited anecdotal evidence we’ve already collected, by looking out for the best interests of your constituents (customers, community) we make them more likely to want to work with us. By being genuinely interested in our customers’ well being, they return that sentiment in kind with their business. Everyone prospers, and comes out the better for it. Anyone see a downside to that model?