Despite the fact that we are living in a most advanced digital world, we still need to connect with people offline. In fact, the online medium just connects us and everything happens in the physical world. Organizing offline gatherings of like minded individuals for a common purpose, such as professional networking is not just good for executives to grow their career in right direction, but it’s also a great way for businesses to do effective marketing.
Meetups can be used by individual brands, startup companies and establish firms to organize and/or participate in relevant events where they can engage current customers and/or potential customers in a much more significant manner than a simple Like or Follow.
Local meetups work way beyond the traditional marketing techniques, i.e. as you are actually meeting customers, target consumers and/or influencers in person, the brand impression you leave will be deeper and personal.
With more than 15 million aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs, from around 200 countries Meetup.com is probably the largest network of active entrepreneurs. On an average more than 142,000 groups organize more than 300,000 different local events every month through Meetup.com whereby around 2 million people attend those events.
Think of being a part of such a community whereby you come to know on daily basis about the events happening in your locality as well as niche events in other locations.
When it comes to startup marketing, meetups play a vital role in not only brand development, but also in generating direct sales, getting strategic partnerships, developing long term relations and above all there’s a wide scope for word of mouth through such events.
Talking about Meetup.com, it makes it easier for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. Whether your startup is targeting a local audience or global audience with a specific segment, being actively present at Meetup.com will definitely give your startup a real boost!
You can use Meetup.com to gain consumer, product and brand insights, as well as increase your real-world visibility. and I am sure that you will surely join the website if you have not done it so far. But, make sure you have a proper strategic plan for networking through this site, so you can effectively use it. There’s a lot more you can do, i.e. launch products, hold trainings (which can strengthen brand loyalty), increase brand awareness through CSR events and other branded events, generate sales leads and even launch a crowdfunding campaign.
All you need to do is to quickly list your marketing goals that you want to achieve through local networking and then do research on the site to see what’s happening around. Once you’re clear, start being active with an active and effective plan!
