LondonIM Survey Results – January 2012
Last month I sent out a survey to the community over at LondonIM.com – our monthly Internet marketing meetup group.
The reason I sent out the survey was because I had a lot of people at the meetups and emailing me afterwards asking me about where the meetups were heading and what I had planned for them in the future. Through 7 short questions, the responses gave me a lot of insight and information that I can use to plan and decide what to do with the events going forward.
All answers were anonymous so I don’t know who answered what, but the responses were definitely interesting!
Watch the video here or read more below:
So the first question was “What value do you currently get from attending the London Internet Marketing meetups?”
Out of all the answers, these were some of the most common words and phrases used by everyone who completed this question:
- meeting others
- forming relationships
- contacts
- JV’s
- networking & socialising
- meeting like-minded Internet marketers
- inspiration
- & lots more
Some people wrote full paragraphs too which were great to read and there was also one person who said that they get absolutely ZERO value from attending..so thanks for being honest, i guess you can’t please everyone!!
The next question was “What do you like the most about the current LondonIM.com format?”
The graph above clearly shows that the relaxed and informal environment is what our attendees like the most about the meetups as well as the networking opportunities and the no pitching/selling policy. This is really important because when I first started the LondonIM meetups these were the main features of what I thought would be a great event to attend…without the constant pitching or workshop style event which, to be honest, gets boring.
The whole point of LondonIM.com meetups is that they are relaxed and social rather than the ‘come and learn by sitting quietly and listening to me’ type events – there are enough ‘workshop’ events out there already and LondonIM was never meant to be one of those. I say that because there have been people in the industry criticising LondonIM because its ‘too informal’ and we have drinks and there is no workshop element to it. Those people obviously DON’T understand the social element of all this and that life is not always about going to a workshop to learn about your Adwords or Facebook Pages or whatever else is the latest fashion in IM. They teach social networking yet they knock an offline social event for IM’ers. That’s not congruent and I would never do business with those people. If you’re reading, you know who you are!
Next question: “If we were to hold events with an expert speaker whilst keeping the meetup relaxed and informal, would it make you want to attend more or less?”
The vast majority of people said that they would attend more regularly if there was an expert speaker at the event presenting whilst keeping the relaxed and informal style of the events that they like so much.
Now although 26.9% of people said they would attend less, almost all of those people actually put a comment saying that they would attend more depending on the speaker and whether the speaker was reputable or an ‘IM crook’ as one person put it. Also, lots of people said if the speaker didn’t provide value and just came to speak because they could have an opportunity to pitch to an audience then that would hurt our brand and they wouldn’t attend anymore. I have to say that I totally agree and I probably wouldn’t attend myself if it came to that, so I know exactly what you mean!
“How often would you attend a LondonIM meetup with an expert speaker?”
It was clear that a once-a-month meetup is what people want, which is how often our current format meetups take place in London.
The next question: “How much would you pay to attend an evening networking event with an expert speaker?”
Now this was an interesting question about how much you would pay to attend LondonIM with an expert speaker.
From the last question, 65% of people said they would attend every month but it seems they don’t want to pay to attend or only want to pay a fiver. The problem with keeping an event with a speaker free is that we would have to pay for room hire at a hotel or some venue with a/v hire and the costs go up compared to the current format of our meetups. The only way we could have free events with a speaker is if the speaker was to pitch to make sales which would cover our costs, but it was very clear that people don’t want a pitching speaker so there has to be some flexibility with this.
I would personally pay a tenner to attend if there was no blatant pitch and you got more than £10 worth of value.
I then asked “What do you hate about workshops/networking events/seminars in the Internet Marketing space?”
The answers to this question were great to read. Some people really passionately answered this question and here are some of the most common replies….there’s a very easy to read pattern too!
Finally, “A ‘LondonIM’ branded event would be based on Internet Marketing only. Should our events be rebranded?”
This last question about whether we should rebrand our events to include more than IM gave me a very pleasant surprise.
61.5% of people said that it should stay as ‘LondonIM’ and stay focussed to Internet marketing rather than opening up to other wealth creation strategies because there are already lots of those around and also it could dilute the value of the event if you try to expand the niche too much. Lots of people said they like the fact that it’s IM focussed so they know what it’s all about rather than getting confused with other business models such as forex or property investment.
Survey Conclusion
It is clear that what people want is an informal, relaxed and no pitching event in the evenings, once a month, and are willing to pay up to £10 to attend to hear an expert speaker on an Internet marketing strategy.
So the survey gave me lots of interesting insights about what our members think of the industry and our meetups. Using this valuable feedback I will be creating an event to meet the expectations of our members and to serve our community even better.
If you would like to attend a London Internet Marketing meetup, you can register to find out about the next event here – http://www.LondonIM.com
-
James
