Coachamatic

This is for all you Conference Planners out there, both public and private, professional and casual. There is a way to treat your presenters and way to ensure you alienate their trust and the trust of all those you hope to attract. A conference I regularly present for (which due to the subject, shall remain “Conference X”) has begun asking for something quite difficult from their presenters, something downright unethical in my view, that is guaranteed to alienate the very people they wish to attract.

“Give us your mailing lists to do with as we please in advertising the conference” they ask “We promise we’ll only mail your people once…or twice”. This was a “Term of Presenting” that we were asked to agree to in order to file a presentation proposal. I filed my presentation proposal as usual, noted it was under protest, and said that while I would do all I could to promote the conference, I would under no circumstances surrender my list.

Not only am I prevented by law from sharing my list by my mailing service, but also by the trust my list members place in me via the privacy policy I maintain. The salient point of this is that I promised the people on my list privacy, even from “good causes” like Conference X. And I don’t break promises like this for any reason. Nor does a conference have the right to ask their presenters to do so.

This is a small conference being run by volunteer service professionals, not professional conference organizers. They’re doing the best they can, but there is great fear that numbers in the organization won’t grow if they don’t take draconian measures. This is not the way to do it though people!

Bear with me and I’ll show you a way it can be done where EVERYONE can win…

I believe it is unethical of any conference to make demanding presenter’s lists an incontrovertible condition of speaking. While the intent is good, it is sorely misguided. Conferences which enforce such measures as this are woefully ill-informed on internet protocols, privacy and security law, online ettiquette and similar issues. I believe this is what is at the bottom of this well-meaning yet potentially disastrous codicil to the conference speaking agreement.

Most of us who maintain email lists, make a firm promise to those on those lists that their email addresses will never be shared or sold for any purpose. I shared my list once many years before for a similar ‘good reason’ and the many emails (and unsubscribes) I received told me that while the reason may indeed have been good, the violation of trust and my personal word was simply not worth it. I then used a popular mail sending service (no longer in business) and was severely censured for this breech of protocol.

My trust with my subscribers is very high, and I will not breech it. Conference X’s recent emails to the presenters suggests that this is “not enough” of a reason not to hand over my list if I am a “loyal member” of the professional association putting on the conference.

This is naïve in the extreme.

Myself and I daresay others feel that keeping a solemn promise and adhering to our contractual obligations are MORE than enough reason. As if this weren’t enough though, current CAN-SPAM laws in the United States additionally mandate that list privacy is an imperative, not an option. Without specific opting procedures, we CANNOT share those lists by law.

Importantly, persons who illegally share their list with a conference or any other party could literally be facing expulsion and blacklisting from the online and snail mailing services for doing so. Conference X is forcing speakers into a terrible choice with this stance - one that as a speaker, I’ve never faced before in presenting at numerous different conferences. And the sad thing is, they’re really cool people, with a really cool message! But that’s not getting through in all the bad cop strong-arming.

Please conference organizers, have the trust in us that we will promote the conference in the highly customized way that each of our lists require - which will be much more attractive to the recipient than an impersonal mass-mailing.

Many service providers are woefully under-educated on how to market online. There’s a way to get them to move their behinds, at least in the online world. To ensure compliance, conferences I’ve been involved iwth in the past used the following successful strategy with regard to email conference marketing:

1) As presenters, we give you the right to email us more, but you the organizers know what words best would describe your offering, so help us to help you. Develop a series of six email marketing messages which are customizable and deliver them to the participants six months before the conference or whenever the earlybird period starts, with details of potential ways to customize the email, best times to send (certain times of the day or week garner better open and click-through rates) and so on.

Such emails should be short, contain something pithy and interesting, content-rich — the beginnings of an article by one of the presenters for instance, with a link through to the full article at the Conference X website.

2) The day or two before Email #1 should ideally be sent, send a reminder, with the text of Email #1 and the reminder of how to customize it to our lists. Emphasize that it doesn’t cost us anything to do this and it increases our cred with our lists to be associated in such a positive light with Conference X.

I’ve personally mailed my list already on Conference X, emphasizing the earlybird rate and so on. People email me back with questions, a dialogue is created where one did not previously exist and are grateful for these reminders in my experience. If people want to engage with their lists - which is what you WANT as a service marketer - you couldn’t ask for better than free, provocative content.

3. A week after Email #1 was to have been sent, send a nice, friendly follow-up email to say: “Just a reminder, in case you haven’t emailed your list yet, you might want to do that this weekend. The earlybird special only extends until the 25th of this month!” - that kind of thing. The reminder should include a call-to-action like this to keep the momentum going with your presenters and hence, with their lists.

4. Repeat this process every month up to the conference

5. Make sure that each message contains a snippet of a tantalizing bit that will be presented in the conference, like:

“Did you know that Wiliam G. CelebrityAuthor is hosting a writer’s reception in the Executive lounge after dinner on Day 1 of the conference? Prospective writers will want to attend this one! If you are looking to get a book published, you must be there to hear Will’s “Five Points of Excellence In Writing YOUR Book Proposal”. More details at the Conference X website here…..”

This whets their appetites and creates the symbiotic “they’re talking to me” experience in the reader, while providing the presenter with something of genuine value to offer their readership instead of just an “ask” email.

Nasty Fact of Marketing:
People readily delete both email and snail “ask” marketing that are a beg for action with no true value or content attached.

The big splashy “sign up for the conference now!” with a list of keynoters and workshop topics such as most conferences send out - while well-meaning and necessary - is an example of this. You’ve gotta send it, but realize the delete ratio will be high. When you emphasize the content up front and include a small article snippet to whet the appetite, people will take action much more readily.

6. For compliance purposes, ask each presenter to send you a copy of the email they’ve sent to their lists, each time you request a send-out. But don’t be a cop about it. People hate that and that’s what they’re reacting to in refusing to share their lists. Nobody likes to be policed. If they don’t do it, they don’t do it. But you’ll create ill-will if you insist on locking people down.

7. Give other ways to engage with the conference, for presenters to give their lists. Examples would be an online forum dedicated to getting professionals together in virtual collaboration, creating synergy and relationships before the conference begins, sections for each presenter to engage their target audience before the conference by offering outtakes from their materials, answering questions, holding pre-conference teleseminars and so on.

This is again, valuable content for the presenter to pass along to their list and will go a long way towards ensuring presenter compliance in conference marketing.

Bottom Line:
Best policy in my opinion is to ask people for their lists if you wish to use them to publicize, don’t demand. I know of at least one person who didn’t file a proposal for Conference X due to the requirement to list share. This is a prime example of such a policy creating alienation.

Give people options and they’ll go to the ends of the earth for you. Demand and police and people will rebel and retreat.

There’s a Coaching Concept that comes in here: “Never make the client wrong”. If people don’t want to give up their lists, don’t make them wrong, think of another alternative that lets them keep their honor and get the job done. People inherently want to help, but asking us to go back on our stated word is something no one should be forced to do, anytime, for any reason.

Go with the Flow and be respectful of people’s pre-existing parameters please, Conference Planning Committees. Make it so EVERYONE can win.

Thanks!

Posted on Dec 20th 06 by Maryam Webster.

Maryam Webster is Director of The Certified Energy Coach Program (certifiedenergycoach.org), where Coaches & Therapists Become Sought-After Superstars. She helps therapists, coaches and entrepreneurs to blow past what is holding them back and create outrageous personal & business success "at the speed of thought". http://maryamwebster.blogs.com

Other posts on Coachamatic by Maryam Webster.