When working as a meeting planner inside a corporation, association or nonprofit organization, there is a defined audience based on the product or service that your employer provides. Independent meeting planners, on the other hand, select who they want as their audience.
Some independents choose to market themselves based on the type of services they provide, such as planning
meetings and conferences, trade shows and special events. While a long list of services may look good on paper, it is hard to imagine that any one person can execute all of them with the same level of expertise.
Unfortunately, the old adage “You can’t be all things to all people” holds true, which is why a growing number of independent planners find greater success when they define their business based on providing a specific set of services to a targeted, or niche, market of companies and organizations.
Target markets generally fall into four areas:
- Demographics: age, occupation, income bracket
- Geographics: local, state, regional, or by country
- Behavior: knowledge about a product, attitudes, product usage
- Psychographics: values, personality, lifestyle
Finding Your Niche
Of the seven independent planners interviewed for this two-part article, only one has developed his or her business based on geographic criteria, while the others have focused more on behavioral or psychographic criteria.
Eli Goren, CMP, is president of gMeetings, based in Aventura, Fla. The company’s website very aptly describes the company’s niche. It simply states that “While we provide services wherever our client may need them, gMeetings is dedicated to the logistical development and coordination of meetings within the Latin American region.”
Eli’s interest in Latin America is based on both a professional and personal interest in the area. His family is from Colombia, so he has a cultural and personal history connected to this region. He works in the Miami area, the location of many Latin American divisions of U.S. companies. Before Gorin started his business in 2006, he worked in a corporate travel agency, where he planned meetings for some of these companies, so he was already familiar with their meeting specifications and the type of people who attended these programs.
As Peggy Young, director of Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Peggy Young & Associates, says, “Sometimes your niche finds you and sometimes you find your niche.”
Her company’s niche is working with educators who support public education and professional development for teachers and administrators. Young views education as a catch-phrase that can apply to any field, whether it’s in an academic or corporate setting.
“All of them share a goal to improve the education for their students,” Young says, “whether those are clients or employees.”
Her business niche came about from two directions. She also worked in a corporate travel agency before starting her company in 1990. There she had clients who were going to large computer shows such as COMDEX. She also had a small child at the time, and her own interest in education helped her realize that she wanted to be more than just a “fly on the wall” when it comes to her client’s issues.
Existing Skills and Expertise
Another way to determine a niche is to assess your own skills and expertise and those of your staff.
That’s exactly what happened for Carol Galle, founder and consultant of The Anniversary Company, based in Royal Oak, Mich. Galle helped create Special D Events in 1992, which focuses on meeting and event planning, trade show management, destination management services, and corporate anniversary planning.
In 2006, Galle launched a subsidiary of their business named The Anniversary Company, which offers a way for a company to celebrate a major milestone in a strategic nature over a year-long campaign. Two strategic advantages prompted this endeavor.
“We looked at our staff’s capabilities and areas of expertise and realized that we have people with public relations and advertising backgrounds that we could utilize,” Galle says.
They also examined the economic situation in Michigan and realized that they needed to develop a part of their business that wasn’t so dependent on the local economy, and one that could produce revenue year-round.
They do much more than just plan a singular event. The company works with each client to attract positive attention from the media, help them launch new initiatives, reinforce and validate their brand, and affirm the organization’s benefits to the community, their customers and employees.
In addition, her firm helps companies and organizations create legacy projects such as commissioned pieces of artwork and special scholarship funds.
Although a sole proprietor, Shannon Mickelberg did a similar thing when she launched her business, Minneapolis-based Mickelberg Event Group, in 2001. Having spent 12 years planning events for nonprofits and at sports marketing agencies, she realized there wasn’t anyone managing sporting and entertainment events on a freelance basis in the area. She now runs golf tournaments for large corporate clients, professional PGA tournaments with upwards of 20,000 people in attendance, and large in-store and outdoor special events for large corporate retailers such as Target and Macy’s.
While sports marketing agencies might assign a less-seasoned team of people to work on a company’s event, clients know that with Mickelberg’s company they get one senior-level person managing all aspects of their program.
In the end, prospective clients seek her out because they’ve heard about her golf background and her ability to bring in pros (professional golfers) for events.
Evaluating the Marketplace
While none of the planners interviewed conducted any extensive market research, they did analyze their targeted marketplace based on first-hand knowledge. In most cases, they had either been working with the same type of client(s) in a previous job or had found that they were acquiring similar types of clients once they began their business.
Certainly, one of the most important things you need to do is determine whether your niche area has enough of a customer base that would use your services. Having worked in the banking industry for 10 years, Patti Jucha, president of Bear Valley Springs, Calif.-based Positive Impressions, was keenly aware of this before she started her business in 1996.
“Make sure that the industry [you focus on] has enough companies to market to and that it’s an industry that is strong enough to sustain repeat business,” Jucha says.
Although Patti knew she wanted to focus on incentives for the financial and insurance industries, she initially began her business as a destination management company (DMC) in Long Beach, and worked on a variety of client events through her connections with the Long Beach and Anaheim CVBs. Once she decided to narrow her market, Jucha performed what she calls a “marketing 101 approach” to identify prospective clients.
“I got lists, sent letters and followed up with phone calls,” she says.
She quickly found out that approach wasn’t going to work. With the money these companies spend on an incentive—in some cases $500,000 to $1 million—they want to work with someone they are familiar with and who is familiar with their type of business. Jucha found that because she works directly with the executive vice president or president of a company, they are more inclined to talk to her if she’s referred by someone they know.
Creating a Niche
Kim Stoermer, CMP, and Judi Feldman, CMMM, have both created a niche business by acting as a contractor to a particular industry or type of event.
Stoermer began her business in January 2007 by offering her services to both corporate and nonprofit organizations. It has quickly evolved into her working primarily on outdoor events such as street festivals and nonprofit fundraising events. She was hired by the director of the San Jose Jazz Festival to manage the logistics for this event, and then by another producer to do the same thing for the San Jose Mariachi Festival; both relationships led her to work on five more outdoor events this year.
Eventually, Stoermer would like to become an event producer, but feels that she’s not ready to take on that role yet, so contracting is a good way for her to expand her skills and expertise.
Feldman began offering her services on a contract basis in 1992. She began by working with a number of third-party meeting management and staffing companies. While Feldman doesn’t directly solicit business, it has certainly found its way to her when a former client moves to another company.
“Once you build a rapport with people, they begin to request you specifically,” Feldman says.
About four years ago, Feldman realized that she needed to find a market that was more economically resilient. She felt that medical meetings were a more viable avenue because these types of companies always have some type of meetings. Now, 90 percent of her business comes from working on CME medical meetings.
To enhance her specialty in this area, she recently participated in a pilot program developed by the Professional Meeting Planning Network (PMPN) to offer a certification called a Certified Medical Meeting Manager (CMMM). The content for the certification deals with medical meeting regulations, compliance and professional/ethical standards, adult learning and physician/healthcare learning issues, and overall medical meeting management. Feldman currently is among 18 planners who passed the exam.
Differentiating Yourself
Once you know what is required to plan a successful meeting or event in your particular niche area, the next step is to take a look at what makes your skills and abilities unique from the competition. The Anniversary Company promotes the fact that it has a diverse staff that can dialogue with all of the stakeholders within a company who are involved with creating a milestone event, such as human resources, marketing, sales, and community relations, to create an integrated project management approach.
gMeetings’ Goren focuses on the difference in his work style and work ethic. Instead of a company having to deal with a sales person, an operations manager and possibly someone different on-site, gMeetings offers clients a very personal, concierge-style service because they get one person from start to finish.
Marketing to Prospective Clients
The Anniversary Company and Mickelberg Event Group are the only companies that I interviewed that have a hard copy brochure and actually send it out to prospective clients.
“I am an avid reader of business magazines in the area. I will drop a note to someone who’s moved into a new position and include one of my brochures,” Mickelberg says. “I don’t follow up right away—more like three to four months later so it doesn’t appear like I’m trying to hard sell them—and I have actually generated business this way, although they may have kept my brochure for several years before contacting me.”
It also pays to know which area of a company to solicit.
“The MarCom [marketing and communications] department usually hires us, so we do find that a hard copy brochure is a more essential marketing piece,” says Galle of The Anniversary Company. “They have to sell the CEO on the idea of using our services, and top-level management won’t spend the time looking at a website.”
The Anniversary Company also markets directly to companies. Because it took a few years to develop a specific tactic for identifying these companies, Galle views their approach as a proprietary part of their business.
However, the majority of the planners told me that new business comes exclusively through referrals.
Young, of Peggy Young & Associates, markets strictly through personal contacts with prospective clients.
Although half of the independent planners I interviewed have a website, they see it only as an online version of a brochure rather than a source for generating business on the Internet. They view their websites as a place to direct prospective clients if they have questions about the services the company provides.
Creating Your Own Niche
The key to success is to explore what you enjoy doing and your areas of expertise. Next, identify if there is a large enough market segment that could use your services within that specific area. Then align yourself with clients and vendors who also focus in that area. Make sure that all of your marketing efforts, whether it’s a website or brochure, clearly communicate your niche, and then reach out to companies and organizations that could use your specialized services.
