Recently, a friend of mine attended a meet and greet held by DevExpress, a software development company. He received an email (see image) for the event because his company is a customer of DevExpress. Meet and greets are a great way for companies, especially B2B companies, to promote their product for several reasons. First, the company can share the updates that it has made to the product. This shows the extra functionality that the software may now have and can show customers that their suggestions for improvement are being implemented. After the presentation, the customers can ask specific questions on the functionality. By helping customers understand how they can use all of the features of the product, DevExpress is adding value and staying relevant in the minds of the consumers. Participants can also suggest improvements for future updates. Obviously, this increases the value to customers but it also reduces R&D costs to the company as they are forced to do fewer surveys to find out exactly what customers want.
Later, the participants move into a networking phase. This gives participants incentives to come to the event as they are likely to meet contacts that they can reach out to for ideas on future projects that they may have. This networking also benefits DevExpress as professionals share how they have used the software in their projects. This sharing of experiences has the potential of giving ideas to other professionals, who will then increase their use of DevExpress products. Clearly, the main goal of the event is to show participants the various ways that the software can be used in order to ensure that customers are using the software to its fullest potential and to ensure that the customers will continue to subscribe to the software for years to come. DevExpress is attempting to build a relationship with its customers and to show them that they are important to the business.
Given the high price of these software services, investing in customer relationship building is very clever on the side of DevExpress and comes with minimal costs, notably booking the venue and providing food and drinks. There’s also the cost of sending company representatives to do the presentation. This event is a perfect example of leveraging a simple email marketing campaign to maintain and improve customer relationships.
It’s important to remember that marketing isn’t simply advertising. While advertising and promotions are the most apparent marketing tools, relationship creation is also a very powerful marketing tool. Inn which sector do you think this type of event would be most beneficial? When would this sort of event be a waste of money or simply infeasible?