A couple of months ago I was trying to plan a little birthday event to be able to reconnect with old friends. I spent some time researching locations, asked for recommendations, and then created a Facebook event page. I went through my entire friend list and invited a whole bunch of people. Like any business, I thought creating that Facebook events page would be good enough. People would come, no problem.
That’s Where I Was Wrong
After making the event page, I didn’t have time to come back to the page. One of my clients had some major updates and projects that we were finishing up. So I was hoping that the event page would do its job. It would just get everyone to come. After 4 – 5 days had passed only 2 people pressed going.
That didn’t feel awesome. I think I had invited 100 people and I had a 2% conversion rate. That’s pitiful. Especially when these are people that I at one point or another was friends with. So in a business sense, these are qualified leads. 2% is just embarrassing.
Of course, I felt like I had no friends. Shout out to Jenna Marbles for a spot-on gif!
It got better though
Like A Good Marketer, I Remembered Social Media is Only One Part
After that couple of minutes of sulking in my loser self, I remembered that I’m a dang marketer. I am trained for this. I did a quick gut check and realized, I was relying on Facebook. I was doing everything I told clients not to do.
Once I got back to my senses, I applied my marketing knowledge. I decided that I would take some time and personally reach out. Long story short, the number of people who said they were attending went from 2 to 12 and 6 maybes. The actual event had a little over 20 people attend.
To Wrap it All Up
I’m not giving these numbers because I’m trying to tell you how many or little friends I have. The point is to say that social media and Facebook weren’t the answer. I thought creating the event would be all I had to do. People would just come out. However, I realized social media is a little like TV or watching a guest speaker. As an audience member you recede into the crowd, you don’t think that the person talking is talking directly to you. But with normal sales and marketing practice, I followed up personally with different individuals.
Once I followed up, the number of people who hit “going” drastically increased. I guess you could also call it conversions. When your business does healthcare marketing, is social media all you are doing or are you going to the extra step to form that relationship?
