A successful California-based marketing consultant for the architectural community has scored a gig as a speaker at the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) conference in Hamilton this May. Enoch Sears has taken things a bit further, however, with this email I received late last night. (Normally I don’t share emails in the public blog posting, but this is an example of a really effective email with a marketing purpose.)
Hi Mark,
I’ll be in your neck of the woods in 2 weeks and it would be great to meet in person!
Enoch Sears
Eric Bobrow and I are headed to Hamilton to give a presentation at the OAA Convention.
While we are there we’ve decided to hold a mini-business brainstorming event in Toronto (on Saturday May 9).
It’s a private event limited to 10 people.
If you attend, here’s what you can expect:
a full day of business brainstorming (9am – 5pm)
light lunch and refreshments
Free WiFi access
networking with ambitious, smart architects and business thinkers
If you’re interested, please respond with ‘yes’ and I’ll send additional details.
There’s no mention of any fee to attend. I need to check if I can make it — it is a five-hour drive from Ottawa to Toronto (or a not-too-inexpensive plane ticket) and the program is on a family time weekend, shortly before I have some extensive travel later in the month. And my sixth sense is there may be some cost to attend, or some marketing/selling purpose behind the event. (Notice the way this is played as a private and exclusive event, adapting the marketing science of exclusivity and scarcity.)
But that’s not the point. It is the solid marketing management approach of obtaining the opportunity to present before a qualified audience (the OAA convention) AND, then parlaying that arrangement with some well-targeted and focused local/regional communication to add to your business and relationships. Because this sort of email will be opened and respected, not as spam, but as a potentially useful opportunity.
Sears has cracked a challenge I haven’t quite resolved — creating a sustainable capacity for presentations, speaking and regional marketing. I know he has discovered the most effective marketing formula, one which can apply to any professional service provider (but you would think of your end-users, not the AEC community, unless, of course, you are providing marketing services to this community.) If he grants me a media pass and I can find my way to Toronto, I may well attend — because there is much to learn, and he has mastered the art.
