I recently attended a launch event for a local festival (as the entertainment) that was launching its new season. The exciting theme of this year's season was FOOD, a really broad and expansive theme, meaning that the audience for a theme like that can be so wide, you can invite so many tastemakers (pun included) to celebrate and spread (pun not included) the word of this exciting theme.
However, whilst the organisers filled the room with VIP’s, it wasn’t until about halfway through the evening that I realised that the people invited to the event – an event designed to create hype and amplify the message - were probably the people that have been invited for the past 10 years. They were the supporters, the backers, the stalwarts but they weren’t people that would carry the message to a new audience, and dare I say, they weren't the tastemakers.
I simply couldn't believe that the organisers of this event, didn't find it important, or maybe didn't prioritise, or merely didn't think that having stakeholders who were connected to the theme would be important to the success of the launch and success of their up-coming season. This was a perfect chance to bring people into the room who were influential in the world of the theme, and by having a theme as wide as food, there are hundreds of different people who are loosely connected to this theme who would have gotten on board and amplified the message - the message being come to this festival, they're doing a bunch of things that are loosely connected to the world of food.
Stakeholder engagement is such an integral part of any business looking to grow - not only does it bring in new customers or clients, but it also brings different perspectives into whatever work you were doing. Suddenly you have a new segment of customer who are asking for something new or expecting a certain level of service, and the time and brain power that saves an organisation is astounding. Organisations can flip the narrative from, chasing customers to having customers openly coming towards the service or product. New customers bring with them all sorts of ideas and thoughts about how they, as customers, could be included (not to mention the fact that customers throw cash because they want to be a new customer)
Here are some solid things organisations can do when it comes to stakeholder engagement:
Stop preaching to the choir.
I don't mean completely ignore your choir but stop ONLY preaching to the choir. They are already loyal to you; you have made a good connection pummelling them with the same message which might make them feel special for a while, but it will also make them feel awkward if they get the sense they are the only customer. Also save your breath, it's tiring having to think of knew angles or knew messages for the same customer. Chill, you don't want to look over keen.
Expand your horizons.
You want new people to engage with what you're doing, but you've got to find those new people, and they may not be in the same place as customers have been in the past. As with my story above, the whole launch event was pitched at artistic people and you've got a theme of food!? I would have expanded out to anyone that might be involved with food, that could be chefs, restauranteurs, critics, producers or anyone remotely connected to the world of food would have been an expansion to the crowd that was invited.
Multiple engagement points.
Not every customer wants to engage in the same way, because every customer is different. What they expect and desire out of an organisation is going to be different. The time and effort of how they engage is going to be different. A desired outcome will be very different. Don't be scared to engage in different ways with different customers. You can only be specific if you have a specific customer in mind.
It’s not about you, it’s about the customer.
You have to put your own ego or long-established practices aside, just because you like to engage in a certain way doesn't mean that clients like it as well. Perhaps it's not doing EDMs but doing in person meetings, perhaps it's quarterly instead of monthly or perhaps it’s finding someone with the skills to build relationships. Whatever it is, put the customer’s needs first.
Stakeholder relationships are vital to building a strong and resilient business or organisation. Good relationships not only create more business (and money), but they make day to day business easy because a happy customer creates less work - ultimately you become more efficient because you've got more time to focus on other things than placating difficult customers.
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