Sometime during 2018 a woman walked up to me in the airport and struck up a light conversation about how often she sees me, and we compared our travel schedules while waiting for our pick-ups to arrive. I easily lost in who travels more, but I certainly consider myself a winner since our conversation turned into a partnership, and that partnership continues to deliver for all of you.
Tara Liaschenko, CMM, is the Chief Creative Officer at The Link Event Professionals. She is a meeting and event superstar. Tara and her team work with planner organizations to produce and manage events for planners – that is as meta as you get! And thanks to the stars aligning in the Printerverse and the airport, Tara and The Link produced all five Project Peacock Print Fairs in 2019 in NYC, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto. They are currently helping me produce and manage the recently launched Project Peacock Platform, and that gets us here.
With masks coming off and the desire for business gatherings and events gaining momentum, now is the time to strategize to help the planners level-up their meeting and event materials and generate measurable ROI.
I recorded an exclusive webinar with Tara that is now playing on-demand on the Project Peacock Platform. If you are already registered just login and click on-demand to watch. If you need to register to click here to sign up, an email will follow with login credentials.
The conversation covers everything you need to know to be successful in your planner prospecting. Here are 3 proactive plans I pulled out of our discussion to get you started.
Know Thy Planner.
Meeting planners and event planners have different needs and focus when it comes to marketing from pre-event to post-event. Tara says that it’s a shortcut to a yes for a conversation if you have relevant products and a relevant menu of services to discuss with each group. Do your research and understand how to best help the planners deliver for their clients and attendees. She elaborates in the replay.
COLLABORATE!
Tara makes it clear more than once that event and meeting planners are not marketers, but they take on some of that responsibility as producers. She shares her experience at Project Peacock Dallas and how ideas started flowing from seeing print samples and things she didn’t know were possible. Bringing ideas to the table is critical for your success. Bringing new ideas to the table is critical for their success. Don’t hold back… they like creative ideas that have an impact and/or help to create a positive attendee experience.
Return on Investment.
For planners this goes beyond money – but don’t get it twisted, they buy within their budget. However, they can be flexible and would be willing to invest a little more in cool event signage and spend a little less on the third, follow-up mailer. Present lots of options, let them mix and match from lowest to highest priced materials and create the packages that fit their budgets.
If you can come up with a plan to help them help their clients get more registrations and attendees, and track and report results you more than likely have a customer for life, and that leads to many more customers. Tara explains how planners and planning associations share and recommend vendors. It’s a lucrative circle to be in – and she shares how to get in!
🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚🦚
I do hope you pop over to the Project Peacock Platform to hear our conversation. Tara rips back the curtain and gives amazing advice on how to open doors with meeting and event planners, and the associations that serve them. This conversation was Part 1, to help you prepare to help planners. Part 2 is for the planners, to help them understand all the possibilities available to them – with the right print and technology partners! We are timing it to come out right before the planners need materials for events for Sept-Dec 2021, early part of 2022.
Stay tuned! If you register 1x for the Project Peacock Platform you have all-access, all year to all our live webinars and networking events, on-demand education, resources, printspiration, and partners.
If you are interested in joining us as a Peacock Partner, you can download the appropriate proposal here.
PLAN LONG AND PROSPER!
Deborah Corn is the Intergalactic Ambassador to The Printerverse™ at Print Media Centr, a Print Buyerologist™, industry speaker and blogger, host of Podcasts from The Printerverse, the cultivator of Print Production Professionals the #1 print group on LinkedIn, Girl #1 at GirlsWhoPrint, host of #PrintChat every Wednesday at 4 PM ET on Twitter, the founder of International Print Day and the founder of #ProjectPeacock. She is the recipient of several industry honors including the 2016 Girls Who Print Girlie Award and sits on the board of The Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi and is a Member-at-Large for the Advertising Production Club of NYC.
Deborah has 25+ years of experience working in advertising as a Print Producer. She currently provides printspiration and resources to print and marketing professionals through PMC and works behind the scenes with printers, suppliers, and industry organizations helping them create meaningful relationships with customers, and achieve success with their social media and content marketing endeavors.
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