All right, so it’s not obvious how heavy construction machine auctions and video conferences resemble each other. But if you look at each as a tool, how they’re used is very similar... or should be. After all, both tools are used to build a customer base and sell things, right?
First take a look at the premier, worldwide construction auctioneers, Ritchie Bros. Now they don’t have an auction every day. They don’t even have an auction every month in the same city. So what if we want to buy an excavator in Dallas, but just missed the Ft. Worth auction? Do we have to go another company to buy? How can Ritchie Bros gain and retain customers enough to stay in business?
They do two things. The first is every one of their auctions in the world has international online bidding. This is easily relatable to those of us who use web conferencing, bringing an event to whomever, wherever they are in the world. In a Ritchie Bros auction, you can set up an account, log in on auction day, and bid on the machines where ever they are.
The second thing they do is provide a persistent customer experience. While auctions typically happen every other week or so, you can always log in, see the details of machines in any upcoming auctions, add to a wish list, and request more information. A customer may only truly participate once a month in an auction, but they interact with Ritchie Bros several times a week!
A common theme for video conferences is to schedule the event and then have it. Sometimes there is pre-registration, or maybe something to download, but that’s about it. What if we were to provide a place to interact long before, after, and even during our video conference event? We could set up a google group, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or even an event blog. Anything to allow participation and collaboration independent of the actual, moment-in-time, video conference event.
If we did this, would our participants be better informed? Would they interact more? Would they be more invested? If you look at Ritchie Bros, the answers are a resounding, “Yes!”
