As event pros, our downtime is few and far between, which is why using your off-season strategically is so important to your brand’s success. As this year comes to a close, it’s the perfect opportunity to touch on using your downtime to prepare your lead management process for the upcoming booking season. We’ve rounded up six pro tips for utilizing Aisle Planner to not just book new clients, but book your ideal clients. From fast-and-easy templates to our Lead Manager that tracks your leads at every touch point, read on for a breakdown of all the resources you can leverage to get from “Nice to meet you” to “Sign on the dotted line” faster than ever before.
1. Great first impressions are worth making.
Like the old adage says, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And, with competition seemingly ever-increasing in the event space, it’s never been more important to show your prospective and new clients your best side at all times. First step - do a quick check of every site and social media channel you market your business on to ensure your content is updated and impactful. Make sure your descriptions, contact information and links are up-to-date. Refresh those hero images with pictures of your latest work and update any photo galleries you are marketing. The proof is in the picture pudding, so to speak, so put your best foot forward and select those standout events from your past year.
2. Get the answers you need, without investing a ton of time.
When it comes to leads, every pro knows you’re vetting a potential client as much as they’re vetting you. That’s why we’ve added customizable lead contact forms to our library of pro tools. These forms allow you to get all the information you need without having to invest valuable time and energy into creating unique ways to extract information from every individual who inquires about your services. If you don’t already have your lead contact forms customized, take some time to develop a great set of questions that covers the necessary event or project bases but also lets the lead share a little bit of personality. This shows the potential client that you’re interested in making a personal connection with them and, likewise, they can show you what kind of client they might be. If you do have some unique contact forms in place, do a quick survey of them to make sure they’re still current and reflect your product and service offerings, and are delivering all the information you need about the event up front.
By putting a little work in now, you can ensure your contact forms will work for you to filter out the leads that are a dud from the ones that have a high potential to close. Plus, you’ll have tons of helpful information about the clients you do choose to work with automatically saved to their Lead Record... all of which you collected before you ever even got on a call.
Pro Tip: Keep the initial contact form shorter for an easy 'contact us' experience and then attach a more elaborate 'Getting to know you' questionnaire to your submission received auto-response email. This will not only ensure a client isn't deterred by having to spend too much time on the initial form but ALSO will keep them engaged with your brand and present them with an immediate next-step call-to-action!
3. Develop templates for faster communication.
In our increasingly digital world, faster is always better. Potential clients expect a speedy, seamless proposal process—if you’re slow to respond or take too long to get them a contract to sign, they may just find another pro to work with instead. The problem, though? You’re pretty much always busy. So how do you balance managing current clients while still responding to potential new ones in a timely manner? One word: templates. Head to your Aisle Planner dashboard and select the “documents” tab to begin building out a library of branded templates for things like your proposal, quote, contract, and invoices. By having these critical documents already built out, you can respond to potential clients’ inquiries with effective and exquisitely designed documents as soon as you receive their reach out instead of hammering out a last-minute, typo-laden email from your smartphone from the back of a venue, in the middle of an event.
4. Personalize the proposal process.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the second event you’ve planned or your 70th, potential clients want to feel like their event is as important to you as it is to them. Start their client experience off right with a personalized proposal process. Welcome letters and proposal templates that you can personalize for each client make all the difference. The key is to save time by starting with a foundational template (like we mentioned above)—but go the extra mile by making small tweaks to the content that speak specifically to a potential client’s vision and overall style. And, remember: personalization goes both ways—be sure to brand your proposals, contracts, and invoices with your logo and colors for a professional, cohesive aesthetic at every touch point. You can do this by heading to your Settings within your Aisle Planner account and selecting the “branding” tab.
5. Build your social media presence and be Authentically You!
Booking new clients starts at the very first impression and often those impressions are made by the content you create or share, vs an actual interaction with you. These days, the vast majority of those all-important first impressions are happening on social media. Whether the prospective client is finding you directly from social media or heading to check out your Instagram content after they’ve browsed your website, there’s no escaping the importance of maintaining a professional presence. Look for opportunities to use your social media page to tell your brand’s story to attract and book that ideal client who aligns with your brand's aesthetic and strengths. That might mean showing more discretion and posting only the best events you've executed rather than every event—or it might mean partnering up with other event pros who complement your services (if you’re a floral designer for example, partner up with a caterer or décor rental company) for social sharing opportunities like Instagram takeovers or guest blogs.
6. Stay on top of the booking process at every stage.
We've been there! As a team of event pros, we understand the struggle of a convoluted and easy-to-lose-track of proposal process. With all that you have to juggle at once, it's so easy to forget about that potential client we spoke with last week or to forget what stage we’re at in the proposal process - time just gets away. Our Lead Manager and Lead Checklist tools eliminate this issue by allowing you to track leads throughout the entirety of the booking process as well as set reminders for where you are in the process and what you need to do next. You can even customize the status options for your booking process to ensure the Lead Manager completely parallels your specific workflow.
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