Over at Marketing Profs, Lewis Green talks about the benefits of chamber memberships for business development. I agree with many of the points Lewis puts forth, with the caveat that your business fits a local model to some degree.
While I am a member of my local chamber, I know that I won't be getting many clients from my local market. It's just the nature of my current business. My major clients are based in: Florida, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Seattle and Silicon Valley. I joined my chamber to support the local business environment and community.
However, many years ago (1996-2002) when I owned a locally-focussed web design firm, the local chambers were indeed a huge part of my marketing mix.
So how does this relate to social media? When I talk to pr/marcom folks I often use the analogy of a chamber with social media. Here are a few highlights:
- Starting a blog, like joining a chamber is the first step, but it's only an entry. You need to put something in to your blog/membership to get something out. Bob Gernert of the Winter Haven Chamber says membership is like a health club. Joining is easy, but you need to actually go and exercise to see any benefit.
- Build relationships first before pitching/advertising. Imagine if you joined a chamber, went to the first social function and grabbed the microphone and shouted, "Hey my name is Stan and I sell car insurance, everybody needs to talk to me now!" I think the majority of the membership would look at you and say, "Who is that jerk?" That initial faux-pas will be hard to overcome, everybody will always remember you as being that jerk who sells insurance.
- At chamber social events introduce yourself to other folks, make the purpose of the conversation to learn about others, not to pitch your product. At some point in the conversation the other person will say, "What do you do?" Use that opportunity to say a little about yourself. If they're interested in your product/service they'll ask a bit more. Now you'll know who they are, what they do and how your product/service could benefit them.
- Learning about who you are talking to will avoid a number of embarrassing situations. Back when I had my web firm I can remember a few instances when a new over-zealous web firm would appear in the local market. At a chamber event one of their salespeople would come up and start talking to me, they wouldn't ask what I did, they just wanted to tell me about what they did and how my business could benefit from a new web site. I would let them talk for a few minutes before mentioning that I actually had a web site and was pretty sure it was built by somebody that knew what they were doing.
- It's conversation and relationships not advertising. When you think back to a recent event you attended what do you remember, the sponsor of the event or the conversations you had? For me it's mostly the conversations. At too many 'sponsored' events there is usually that awkward moment when the sponsor gets up on stage and gives a hurried, in-effective pitch to people who just had their conversation/lunch/dinner interrupted. That's not really the impression you want to leave with people.
- It's a long-term play. Sure there will be times you'll walk away from a chamber event with a solid lead, but it's the long-term relationships that pay off. I can't tell you how many times I would meet somebody and they would say, "Yeah we just had our web site built by X." No problem, in 2-3 years they'll need an update and guess who they always turned to? :-)
In the end, when I look at my years of chamber memberships I don't think about the business value, but more the relationships built and friends I have gained.
