Hosting Workshops at the Chamber Conference Rooms = High ROMI

Submitted by: Eric Keiles, Chief Marketing Officer, Square 2 Marketing

In marketing, there's only one real figure you have to look at - ROMI. ROMI stands for Return on Marketing Investment. It's a key consideration because most small- and medium- sized businesses have very limited marketing budgets. In order to maximize the few precious dollars we have to spend on marketing, we have to make sure that each dollar spent brings us a high return.

One of the best ways to have a very high return on marketing investment is through workshops. Workshops are a great way for a prospective client to get to know, like, and trust your company, through the professional presentation you provide on a topic of interest to them. At Square 2 Marketing, we offer a large variety of free workshops. The vast majority of these are held in the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce’s DiBona Room. The DiBona Room is available to Chamber members as part of their annual membership. But, it’s a benefit few companies take advantage of. In our case, we schedule a free workshop on a variety of marketing topics every 60 days or so. This gives us a calendar full of events to educate our prospects on issues like creating a marketing strategy, internet marketing, how to use public relations, and how to get referrals.

Our target group is entrepreneurs with companies with revenues from $5M to $20M. By inviting them into the DiBona Room, which is appointed with very nice furniture, and offers the most state-of-the-art audio/visual needs and is located in the prestigious Park Hyatt Philadelphia at The Bellevue, we elevate our credibility by partnering with the Chamber. Business owners find it easy to come to a central location like the Chamber. With your room reservation you can choose how you want the room to be set up, and, with your materials and presentation, it's a wonderful opportunity to knock prospects' socks off. In our case, we average about 50 prospects per workshop, which gives our sales team a good bit of work to follow up on after one of our events held at the Chamber.

The key is to always be engaging in marketing tactics with high return on marketing investment. By using the room as part of the membership and ordering some affordable bagels and coffee, each workshop averages approximately $200 in hard costs including handouts and brochures. The sale of just one marketing program makes using the DiBona Room at the Chamber a huge return on marketing investment. Now your mission is to not only start to create your own workshop program at the Chamber, but find ten other marketing tactics with the same high return on marketing investment!

Take advantage of your Chamber like Eric Keiles does from Square 2 Marketing. For more information on how to get the most out of your membership, visit greaterphilachamber.com/grow or call our Member Relations team at 215-790-3880.