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HOW TO HOST EVENTS WITH STANDING ROOM ONLY AND “OFF THE CHART” SALES
- 1. HOW TO HOST EVENTS WITH STANDING ROOM ONLY AND “OFF THE CHART” SALES Tamara Vileta-Wells | Pinpoint
- 2. Tamara Vileta-Wells (Tami) Marketing strategist / visual communicator / brand designer / 30 years President / Creative Director Pinpiont Help practices attract and keep patients through engaging brand communication
- 3. EVENTS
- 6. Poorly attended. Too expensive. Nobody new ever shows up. Same group every time. They’re a time-suck. Takes too many resources. I never get a return on my investment. My staff hates putting them on.
- 9. 15 Tips for Hosting a Successful Event in Your Practice (including the 5 details you can’t overlook)
- 10. • SET GOALS • WIIFM • PLAN • MARKET • NURTURE, FOLLOW UP & TRACK THE REAL DEVIL IS IN 5 DETAILS:
- 11. GOALSYou must set clear goals for your event. #1
- 12. SAMPLE GOALS Introduce new services Introduce new providers Grand Opening celebration Patient appreciation Revenue “shot-in-the-arm”
- 13. WIIFMWhat’s in it for THEM?. What’s in it for YOU? #2
- 14. PATIENT WIIFM’s (Going home with MORE than I arrived with) Felt appreciated Learned something new Saved money Brought a friend, had fun, got a perk Gained trust/affirmation Won something/received gift
- 15. PRACTICE WIIFM’s (Ending the day with MORE than we started with) Relationships / connections Educated / Informed patients Loyal patients New patients Happier patients Revenue
- 16. PLANNINGGive yourself PLENTY of time to plan. #3
- 22. MARKETING Market upfront and early! #4
- 23. Butts in seats
- 24. 6 10 2.5
- 26. Save-the-date e-vites, print / email invitations, flyers, posters, personal calls or letters to your VIP patients, community boards, banners, print ads, community / business affiliations, radio, strategic partnerships, your chamber, social media, your website, local celebrity endorsements, video, B&As, local media personalities, referral network, your vendors, your staff’s word of mouth, friends and family, charitable organizations with a tie-in to your theme, etc.
- 30. FOLLOW UP Lead nurture, Track Success & LEARN! #5
- 31. • No B&A photos • No consent to use photos • No follow up call • No post treatment offer • No reminder to reschedule • No add’l B&A photos • No refer a friend / BOGO • No request for a review
- 32. 6) Create a theme for your event that is relevant to your audience/topic. 7) Make sure you have adequate space. 8) Establish an upfront budget. 9) Pick the right day and time for your audience 10) Tap your reps for donations/sponsorships 11) Schedule a light day in your office on event day
- 33. 12) Consider co-hosing event with non-competitive partner who has shared interests/similar clientele 13) Spend time on logistics, ambiance and flow 14) Provide exceptional customer service and an excellent patient experience, even post-event! 15) Don’t forget to give them something branded to take with them to remember you by
- 42. Parties, events & eduction throughout the year • Summer Retreat & Party (July/August) • 8 – 10 Lunch & Learns • Week Long Events • Loyalty Member Only Events • Patient Appreciation Event (October)
- 43. 497,000
- 45. 654,000
- 47. WIIFM / patient: Save Money Feel Appreciated
- 48. WIIFM / practice: Make a pile of $$ Increase patient loyalty
- 49. PLANNING
- 52. Reach out to personally contact their Golden VIP’s These Patients Love You ___ You know who they are, they trust you and want to know the latest and greatest about everything you do.
- 57. Expenses: $9,500 – (food, paper products, invites, etc.) NOTE: We ask our reps to help pay for the food expenses and they all usually give something. Staff Incentives: $6000 (prizes we give our employees when they meet the goals that we set). We have about 300 people at this event, but we always budget for 350-400 to be on the safe side.
- 58. FOLLOW UP
- 61. 654,000
- 62. THEME CREATION
- 71. SET GOALS WIIFM PLAN MARKET TRACK & FOLLOW UP THE REAL DEVIL IS IN 5 DETAILS:
Editor's Notes
- Welcome and thank you for taking time out of your day to listen in on this presentation.
- So EVENTS…….I’m guessing if you’re sitting here today, you all have done events and want to get more out of them.
- So I want to take a quick poll. How many of you look at events as a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to building opportunity and revenue for your practice?
- And how many of you view events as a necessary evil? You know you should do them, but it’s easy to put them off because they’re a pain in the butt and you’re not seeing the value?
- So we work with literally hundreds of clients all across the country and we see this all the time Practices are pretty divided on the topic of events. Some love and embrace them. And many don’t. Here’s some of the most common complaints we hear from you all about events:
- And hey, I get it. None of us really has a pile of extra money laying around to burn these days. And we have event less time than money at our disposal. Working with a grumpy staff is never fun. And no one likes a poor turnout on their big day.
- And for those of you who are challenged with events in your practice, I stand up here before you today Hoping that this presentation may help you change your perspective a bit. And for those of you who love and embrace events – I hope you learn something new too. Because we’re a medical marketing firm, we’ve had the good fortune to be involved with practices all across the country in helping them market and promote their events, And we’ve seen a lot of great events happen for practices And when you have a great event, you will benefit from;
- So how do you increase your odds of hosting a great event? Well this presentation focuses on 15 tips to do just that, Including what I call the “BIG 5” – the tips you absolutely can’t ignore
- If you do nothing but the first 5, your going to increase your odds of hosting better events from this point forward, Because for events, the devil really is in these 5 details.
- What are you trying to accomplish? I’m not talking about what you’re trying to accomplish in REVENUE or ATTENDANCE, but what is the purpose of having your event in the first place?
- Are you launching a new service? A loyalty program? Is it a treatment day where you want patients to book mini consults or procedures? Is it a patient appreciation event? It could be more than one thing, but you have to get your event goals clearly on paper because its going to drive the Tone Message Graphics Organization And logistics of your event I’m going to be sharing some case studies for well run events with clear goals in a moment
- 2) Once you get your goals down, you’ve got to plan your WIIFMs What’s in it for you? What are patients going to get out of this. And what’s in it for you? What are you going to get out of it. The trick is to build enough WIIFMs into your event to get your audience off their butts and come. And to give yourself enough WIIFMs to make it worth your while. You have to state your patient WIIFMs up front and loudly in all your event marketing (through color, design, and messaging) What’s in it for them!! This may seem logical, but you’d be surprised how many times the WIIFM message can get buried.
- And WIIFMs don’t always have to be just discounts or freebies. can be many other things…including intangibles I look at WIIFMs as things that you go home with that you didn’t have when you got there.
- What do you want to get out of the event. This doesn’t always need to be financial either. I look at your WIIFMs kind of like this…when you closed your doors after the event, you ended up with more that you started with….
- 3) The #1 reason why we see events flop in practices is a lack of time to truly plan and execute the event right. Start 3 – 4 months out for larger events.
- We put an event checklist together for our clients to help them remember to address all the little details leading up to an event. If you’d like a copy, ask me after the session and I’ll be sure to get you one. You need to have a formal check list in place for your events. If it’s a smaller event like a lunch and learn, you might have an abbreviated check list, And for a larger event, something like this 60 day check list is required
- Put your goals on it.
- Then follow it up with things to do at increments: 60 days
- 30 days / 3 weeks
- Two weeks Event day. And very important….POST EVENT TOO!!!
- The #2 reason why we see practices fall short on their event expectations is that they failed to market it well. You’ve got to market up front and EARLY
- The goal of marketing is to create OPPORTUNITY by getting a lot of butts in seats
- But you have to realize that there is a big CHALLENGE to this goal and it comes in the form of some simple number and facts. 6 is the time of day most women leave their home to go to work. 10 is the hours per day that they spend away from home And 2.5 is the average amount of family members they have to feel guilty about leaving. You’ve got to overcome these obsticles to getting people to your event by creating enough….
- BUZZ, NOISE AND ENTICEMENT surrounding your event.
- And you have so many tools to use in your arsenal to create this buzz, noise and enticement and yet oftentimes, we find practices only using one or two of these to attract people to their events. The more vehicles, avenues and methods you use, the better, And they don’t all have to cost a ton of money,
- Your event marketing can’t look home spun. It needs to look AWESOME. I’m constantly baffled by some of the examples I see out on the internet for event marketing. Remember, we’re trying to create BUZZ, NOISE, ENTICEMENT NOT HO HUM.
- It can’t be cluttered It must be clear You have to be able to easily find the LOGISTICS and WIIFMS These are all really hard to decifer. Would you agree? You can’t expect a great turn out from something like this.
- And you can’t overwhelm them with too much information.
- And the 5th and final “Devil Detail” is to follow up. You must lead nurture after your event, track your success (and mistakes) and LEARN from them. This is so very important. You can execute 1-4 flawlessly, but if you screw up at #5, then you stand to loose a lot. And you must look at lead nurturing from the moment they walk through the door to well AFTER they leave I’ll give you a true to life example of failed event lead nurturing that happened to me.
- I’ve whited out the practice name here… This is a true to life story that happened to me with one of our clients that I secret shopped at one of their events – it was a combo Clear & Brilliant / Dysport Day event where you had to call in an make appointment for a very special price. Their goal for this event was to get people to trial their new C+B service in conjunction with an injectable for great resutls. This year I turned 50 Never had injectables or laser treatments before, and I thought this event would be fun to try. The front desk did not know I was on their marketing team. They only knew I was a first time patient of the practice, as well as a new patient for the treatments I was about to have. THAT’s GREAT news. Their event marketing worked!!! And they had a new patient in front of them, who was in their target market. But during and after the event, this was how things went down. The tragic thing is, I was exctatic about my results I would have done any and all of these things! TRAGIC. Think about all the opportunities this practice could be losing at their events – when they did all the other things right! In addition, you must look at Look at profit, attendance, # of new patient conversions, what feedback you got from patients and staff, and you have to learn from everything you do.
- OK, so that was the 5 biggies. Here’s 10 more tips for hosting great events. 6) What piques patient’s interest? Events just work better when they have a fun, memorable theme in place to symbolize what your goal might be. We’ll share some examples of this later in the presentation – but think along the lines of Cool Curves event, Girls Night Out, Lips and Lines Lunch & Learn 7) Do you need an offsite venue? Is your practice set up to have a large group and mini breakout rooms for more intimate conversations? 8) Plan 5 – 10% of your revenue goals for your event budget. 9) Our research and experience shows you should avoid scheduling events Sun. – Tues. When thinking about times, think about your audience After 6 is great for work but maybe not for stay-at-home mom’s 10) Catering, comp’d products & services, human resources at your event, demonstrations, etc. Patients love mingling and mixing with reps. 11) Last minute details will always come up
- 12) ‘This can save you money and broaden your attendee list if you share clients. Think gyms, bridal shops, Nordstrom personal shopping/fitting, etc. 13) Really walk through your office or venue and foresee where annoying traffic jams could happen, provide space for conversations, food, beverages, etc. 14) Staff well and with your most customer-centric people. If you’re having a presentation, make sure everything runs flawlessly and your sound/lighting is great. Every detail should be orchestrated. 15) I’m a big believer in things like Goodie Bags, SWAG, and samples. Women love it. And we actually hold on to stuff like that and recall who we received it from.
- I’m going to share with you a couple of shining star practices and what they do RIGHT when hosting events.
- This is a fabulous plastic surgery practice in St. Louis. We’ve worked with them for about 4 years. They have a very large successful, multi-million dollar medspa
- They do a lot of things right, but…. What this practice has really perfected is the art of the event. As a midwest practice you can imagine the docs are all pretty conservative But they have smartly stepped out of their own way in order to allow the practice manager to have fun with their events. They always pick enticing themes, they set their goals very well. They are experts at the art of WIIFM. And they also do a great job of getting the staff into the ether, so to speak, on getting excited and jazzed about putting on the events. This is a key to success. And they do lots of events, all year long---big and small—with great success. Here’s some examples of the smaller ones:
- Lunch and learns Skin care days Cosmetic application events
- They do several CoolSculpting events each year that are always well branded and turn key so they switch up the theme with the season Here’s Summer – with promotional materials including their eblast, flyer, poster and Powerpoint template for their presentation.
- And here’s the same for the Fall season So super easy to turn-key the changes and make it unique for the season.
- They employ great SWAG at their events so patients leave with something to remember them by. This was given out for the Holiday CoolSculpting event. Great, time sensitive offer along with a cool freezer ice pack
- As mentioned, they have an active event schedule throughout the year You can see they’re doing at leas 12 per year, But it’s this one at the bottom that I want to call your attention to: Their patient appreciation event that has been happening every year in October for the last 11 years.
- In 2015, their Patient appreciation event grossed over 2 days.
- Here’s their letter to us after the event showing the results and comparing them to 2014. For their 2016 event they were worried that they would not be able to top the performance of 2015. They had launched a loyalty program in their practice and didn’t know what impact that would have – it was an election year, ya da ya da.
- And this is what they ended up doing!! So how do you plan an event that grosses this much. Well – the first thing to note is that they’ve been perfecting this art for 1 years, But here’s some other steps they take:
- They set clear goals. Make no mistake, This event is all about increasing revenue and showing appreciation.
- Their patients know in EVERY piece of communication what the WIIFMS are. They are going to feel so appreciated and loved at this event, and they are going to save a pile of money
- The practices knows they are going to make a pile of money and they’re going to come away with even more loyal patients than they had before.
- They start planning in early August for an October event.
- --plan great, attractive specials --They talk about how they’re going to make patients feel like VIPs / highbrow event --They contract for superb wine and food --They plan great Gifts, raffles, and prizes --They set up opportunities for docs and reps to have plenty of time with patients. --They promise fun with friends and peers.
- When it comes to MARKETING they do an amazing job of creating buzz, noise and enticement.
- They personally reach out to their golden VIPS with a phone call prior to the invitation. These are the people that must come. Your practice champions. And you all have them.
- They do an in the mail invitation that clearly states the WIIFMs, date, times, and it’s professionally done. They provide an express check out card They encourage that you set up a free consultation with their aestheticians prior to the event so you can maximize your budget on the things that will be best for you. They provide an alternative one day only, call in day if you can’t attend the event.
- They advertise it everywhere in the two months leading up to the event. In treatment rooms on kiosks and in patient folders.
- On their digital displays. Their staff talks it up continually
- And then 5 weeks prior to the event, they start a 5-part eblast campaign The first one is is a save the date along with the big prizes they’re giving away The 2nd one leaks a few of their hottest promotions The 3rd one leaks a few more promotions and savings The 4th one encourages them to set up their consultations to figure out how to spend their money and reminds them about call in day And the final one is a callin day and event reminder. By the time patients have received all of these, they’re in a frenzy.
- I had the practice manager share her budget for this event. It’s a LOT less than you may think.
- They have a great follow up system in place for lead nurturing so that no new-lead falls through the cracks.
- --always debrief and learn from each year – build on their knowledge base Focus on the positives Why was it successful, What goals were met What feedback did we get And most importantly, what did we learn?
- Now this is all Certainly effort and work – but this is why: $654,000 is a really big number!
- OPPORTUNITY
- Fun, added partners, charity
- High brown, keynotes
- Dramatic, media attention, offsite