Be2campEast- A Marketing Free Zone
This week I have invited Bernie Mitchell, who often comperes at our be2campeast events, to tell us how he feels about the outdated methods of ‘network event marketing.’
How To Spot A Lizard Marketer
The Lizard Marketer can often be seen scurrying in early to networking meetings to put their flyers on the tables. Then, they scurry away like a child who nearly got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Why scurry away and avoid eye contact? Do you really believe in what you do?
This is an engagement inward bound world! In marketing it must occur to you to measure what works and what does not? Flyers left on the table by the door when the event is over will probably still be there……
Contact King
One of the biggest let downs in marketing has to be when you first discover an email manager program and think your time has come! Let’s send out 2000 emails and book tickets to the moon! You excitedly check the click rate, no one buys. You realise that the only person that clicked was your mum. Fear not, the helpful Lizard Marketer resends it, in case you missed it. Later they discover social media which means they can send it all day to even less people.
Chamber Influencer
Lizard Marketers usually market for an organisation that ventures to help business. Usually, they are so far behind they think they are first and they take the form of Chambers of Commerce. In a recent email they said they were delighted to announce that they were going to start sending a regular email newsletter – great! (I don’t like email but that is pedantic me.) But wait! They run a business influencing forum in the heart of London, a city with a particularly dense concentration (I use the word dense carefully) of ‘mobile enabled social media addicts.’ Yet here are the Chamber advocating email as the next great wave. To mention anything to them at this stage would be like taking an ice cream away from a child.
The Sales Guy
The Lizard Marketer hits every network to sell whatever they have got, usually something to do with the internet or sales. The internet people have done the course that the sales guy is selling. Internet guy, is a short sighted web designer who is happy to sell you a very heavy and outdated blogging / web solution for £2k which is dependent on their ongoing support. They neglect to mention everyone else uses free WordPress, Posterus or Blogger, well they have to shift what they have got don’t they? It is like working with a never ending garage sale.
The Monetizer
The Lizard Marketer sees the community as the list to monetise. Run a big online network? Why not let anyone you meet in a bar who offers you a commission leap in and sell to it? (You could call it a strategic partnership). Recently for us, the question of how to contact people came up. When your group is engaging and committed you will get to know people. Unless you intend to solicit people, why would you need an email before you meet them? They can be found online now anyway.
It’s All About Me Stupid!
The Lizard Marketer is an ‘all about me’ person. The real magic only happens when it is 100% about the community.
However polished, amazing or apparently helpful you think you are, if you are ‘all about me’ it sucks. Ironically because ‘all about me people’ are so ‘all about me’ they never hear the community trying to help them.
Of course they will have a string of successes and gloat about their high profile relationships. They end up annoying more people than they help, fail to evolve and show up unexpectedly when they have a new book/ course to puke on people about.
The Mystery Shopper
Now there’s nothing wrong with a bit of allure and mystery, but the days of secrets are over. You can be in something exclusive, like the VIP room of a club, but if you can’t tell me about your business you don’t have a business – you have a racket or a cult. When asked ‘what do you do?’ Please don’t give me some rehearsed scripted evasive answer that you have practiced in front of the mirror (after you did the sales course with the internet guys) – it scares me! Being nervous is natural and open- in fact nervous is much less difficult – For example our London Shy Meet Up is much more interesting than all the London ‘I think I am an entrepreneur’ Meet Up’s put together.
I’m In Your Face
The Lizard Marketer needs to get in front of as many people as possible. When they see more than three people they pounce in with ‘I’m letting people know about our great offer’ tactic that occurs more as a plea for help than anything else. Want to get in front of as many people as possible? Read in your place of worship, or stand at speaker’s corner. Lizard Event people are evil, they see a Lizard Marketer coming (takes one to know one) and lure them into a ‘pay to speak’ model, allowing them to lecture to a bunch of ‘high profile business owners’ who only turned up for the free drink and to hand out flyers.
My call to action is to watch out for Lizard Marketing! How can we overthrow this? Combat it by overcoming bad with lots of good, by not turning events into another washed out sales network. Keep it as a cool bunch of “enthusiastic thought leading people.” We just need to support and quietly set an example. So, are you in?
