February 2004
Best Practices: e-Venture
Regional publisher uses e-mail newsletter to test-market new event
By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor
Chris Sherman knows his 6,300 readers. When his daily e-mail newsletter, AustinXL, hits their in-boxes at 11 a.m., 76 percent open it. He knows who clicks on what stories. And if a topic is hot, he calls them to chat about it. That’s how he knew the idea for a conference and show would fly. When he announced it, readers responded.
“It was being able to get on the phone and speak to those people and follow up with an e-mail prospectus about the show,” says Sherman, founder of Sherman Ventures LLC, Cedar Park, TX. “That would have taken about 20 times the amount of time, if you had to cold call everyone on the list.”
When Sherman launched AustinXL in June 2001, he knew it would be the first prong of a three-prong business — newsletters, events and directories. “The idea was to develop a daily product that would capture a large percentage of the powerbrokers here in Austin,” he says. “Through that, we’d be able to launch additional products and services.”
Sherman initially built circulation for his business newsletter by sponsoring local chamber of commerce events. In September 2001, he acquired the assets of a bankrupt publisher who had several thousand names in the Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. “Overnight we went from reaching several hundred to about 11,000,” he says. (DFWXL and HoustonXL publish “as need arises.”)
Early on, the popularity of stories focused on business start-ups indicated that people wanted to know how to grow their own businesses. The economic downturn had cost Austin about 25,000 jobs, and professionals who wanted to stay in the area were hanging out shingles.
“We did some polling in the middle of 2002 to understand the entrepreneurial bent of our readership, then we started doing happy hours once a month to get people together. The subject came up over and over,” Sherman says.
In October 2002, Sherman partnered with Steve Farrer, formerly of Reed Exhibitions, to hatch the idea for the Business Growth Conference. They reserved space in the Austin Convention Center for Feb. 18, 2003, published a Web site and collateral materials, and called for speakers in AustinXL. When readers clicked through, they knew who was interested.
“It was advertisers or subscribers whose businesses would benefit from participating as exhibitors or sponsors,” says Farrer. The go/no-go decision balanced on getting enough companies to commit at a time of year when budgets were depleted. In the end, they got about 65 exhibitors to take 10-by-10 booths.
From the first announcement until opening day, the conference got daily coverage in AustinXL, either as news or an advertisement. The message varied from recruiting sponsors and exhibitors the first two months, to promoting preregistration in the last two months.
“The nice thing about the newsletter is that it gives you a medium you can change very quickly,” Sherman says. He tracked response, tweaked the message and followed up with readers who clicked through by sending short, personal text messages with a call to action — click to register or call to reserve space.
In addition to e-mail marketing, Sherman and Farrer forged partnerships with local trade associations, economic development organizations and media. They also mailed to a list of companies that had incorporated within the past two years.
The conference ultimately attracted about 300 people, enough to exceed their financial projections and convince them to schedule a second event for Feb. 25, 2004. Sherman is using e-mail newsletters to test other markets as well, but in reverse.
“We telescoped the process down. But it helped that the AustinXL newsletter is a trusted brand. People like to get it. They look for it and read it. That was the important element,” Sherman says. “Now as we look to new markets, we may do the reverse — build the list going forward to target that market.”
Cathy Chatfield-Taylor is a freelance writer/ editor. E-mail cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.
Goal: Diversify from publishing to event production.
Objective: Launch business conference and show in Austin market.
Strategy: Test market event idea using established e-mail newsletter.
Tactics: Cover the event in editorial and advertising, vary the message daily, track and identify interested readers, and follow up with personal e-mails and phone calls to recruit participants.
Results: The first Business Growth Conference attracted 300 attendees and 65 exhibitors. |
