I was thinking about what I can do to make my second business more successful than my first one, and I decided that we’re going to offer far more than just events. We’re going to offer additional services and products, but those additional offerings will be launched later, for reasons which I’ll explain now.

I personally believe events are the best business to start out in for a number of reasons.

Events sell

Not only are events a relatively low-risk and low-cost way to start a business, but organising a key event in your industry is a fantastic way to build your reputation, grow your database, develop rapport with your target audience and find out what your market wants. You’ll find that your attendees would much rather respond to a survey with you, giving you an edge when it comes to market research and USP development.

The fact is, regardless of how digital and ‘social’ businesses have become, there is still no better way to sell than face to face. Events gives you that opportunity and most importantly, leave a long lasting emotional impression on people, not to mention the positive associations and memories they’ll take home with them which is all part of the marketing and sales process anyway, right?

What I’m about to say is quite controversial and some of you may disagree, but I think that every business owner should consider organising events first, before they introduce their primary product or service. You’re probably wondering why. Well. Let’s think about this for a minute…

Events help you stand out

Imagine you are starting a marketing agency and your target audience are the owners of small to medium sized businesses, and Marketing Managers/Marketing Directors at those same firms. Not only are you entering a highly competitive market, but how are you going to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other agencies out there? Here’s a way you can do it:

Organise an annual conference each year in different locations and invite the most established leaders in the marketing industry to speak (but avoid inviting future competitors of course!) Your selling point should be the same selling point that drives your target audience to turn to marketing agencies in the first place so in this case, it’s a lack of knowledge and the need to increase online profit.

Make it clear that the event will improve each attendee’s understanding of how marketing works and show how they can incorporate it into their business. Next up, is the PR strategy. Events generate more PR than a lot of businesses, so it’ll be easier for you to get local business coverage and industry specific coverage if you’re doing something exciting, giving you a fantastic start to your new company.

And on top of that, you’ll also have gained a new database of interested people in your exact target audience whilst leaving a long lasting impression that gives you a better ice breaker than most companies. Imagine picking up the phone on Monday morning to call through your new database. You’re going to get a better response aren’t you?

NOTE: If you’re working in a highly competitive market like marketing or recruitment, then this is a fantastic way to give you an edge over your competitors, meet your target audience face to face, generate press coverage and introduce yourself as a business that understands your market better than your competitors, not to mention all the market research you can do through surveys and direct conversation, and the social media buzz and brand awareness you’ll build along the way.

Events helps you create a brand

But in order to make this possible and to not confuse your brand as an event company, you’d need to make sure that your event is being organised by a bigger ‘parent’ company, and your branding reflects this on the event page and leads back to your website. This way, you’ll generate more traffic, which is half the battle won. Advertise the events as an ‘added feature’ of a much bigger service.

I think this strategy is a no-brainer and a fantastic place to start. This is the system I’m using with my company Creative Industry Hub, and I’ve built it into my brand. ‘We’ve built carefully crafted events and services designed to help creative industry professionals improve their skills, careers, businesses and knowledge.‘

I’ve realised that if I can make my events as successful as possible, in a couple of years’ time I can start offering other services to creative professionals which gives me an edge over my competitors as I will have already built a long lasting impression with key players and the people I want to target, not to mention how much it’ll help with market research. I can find out what they really want.

‘Events and services designed to help creative industry professionals.’ It doesn’t specify exactly what those services are, giving me more room to grow as a business later on, which I did deliberatly. Unless your service is completely unique and captivating, you’ll find it harder to get press coverage. However, events frequently make business news, so this’ll open the door to journalists.

So if you’ve been thinking of starting a business for a while, then events are a great way to learn the relevant business and marketing skills which you’ll hold on to for life.

It doesn’t require too much brain power to think up a concept but it is difficult to sell event tickets, so once you’ve proved you can do that, you’re on to a winner – another great way to prove there is a demand for your products or services. It’ll also open the door to your desired industry and give you a head start.

But, if you do decide to follow this strategy, don’t market yourself as an events company. Market yourself as a company that offers services and/or products designed to help people in a particular industry. That way, you can introduce your marketing services at a later date and it won’t conflict with your brand in any way (a problem and lesson I learned through my last company – I was stuck as an events company).

Summary

For those of you that have been wanting to start a business for a while, but can’t think of any ideas, inspiration comes from research, understanding and doing.

As long as you know what industry you want to work in, you could start an event first and use Eventbrite’s marketing tools to generate awareness, then introduce other products or services later once you think of them!