Surely many of you have wondered what this term is about, especially for the laymen and beginners in the marketing world.
Sometimes, the truth is that expressions are used that can generate doubts about their intended purpose. I still remember the first time I heard it, looking for the etymological origin and consulting professional manuals I was able to decipher it, but the truth is that it seemed very peculiar to me.
Well, let’s get to the point with easy and common language. Fam trips are trips or visits organized for companies or potential clients in order to show them, on site, the product or services we are marketing. As a good friend told me a long time ago, “paellas cannot be sold in brochures” for people to buy them, they will have to taste them, right? At the end of the day, that is the essence of this type of commercial action: showing your products, your facilities, your services, getting them to try them, feeling the experience…
Have you ever wondered why you chose one product over another? Here is the answer.
Fam Trips can be organized for three types of segments:
- Potential clients: Once you have well defined the clientele you are going to target, your potential buyers, you focus your campaign and use it so they can test the product you have been showing for a while. You always have a guaranteed purchase of 50% in the medium term and 80% in the long term. We must keep in mind that those who accept your invitation are ultimately showing a potential interest.
- Press: This is done when you need to promote the launch of a new product and you turn to media professionals (traditional press, digital press, and the social media world) to spread its benefits. Without a doubt, the best advertising campaign you can carry out, and for free.
- Intermediaries and agencies: Let’s also call them influence assets. They are organized when, having located the brokers in your market, you need their power of influence in it to spread your products and services among their clients. There are times when these brokers have so many products to choose from that they do not focus on any specific one and do not intervene in the market trend, unless you have subjective reasons to do so.
Having the segments to which we must dedicate our familiarization trip, we need to know what the keys to its success are:
- Identify the audience segment you need to show your product to. It makes no sense to invite just for the sake of inviting, much less to fill up most of the group. Generally, these groups are usually organized between 10 and 20 people with the potential to purchase your product or service.
- Look for the profiles with the most influence in the market. If we are going to invite a client, let’s do it to whoever really has decision-making power, we know it is sometimes difficult, but at the end of the day that is the goal.
- Prepare in detail the program of activities to be carried out. Image is extremely important in this type of action, and the program must be studied and pampered based on the selected profiles.
- Choose the perfect host. We do not all have the same aptitudes or attitudes, it is a matter of human condition. For this reason, we must designate the person who will guide our possible and potential clients. A pleasant, empathetic person, skilled in language, and with an accommodating character.
- Do not make tedious presentations. It is not about selling, selling, and selling, forget about that slogan, making presentations or sending messages with purchasing proposals. Focus on their fun and the contact your potential clients have with your product, they will be in charge of communicating the rest.
- Inform all your staff about the reason and organization of it. If those who have to attend to your potential clients are not aware of it, we are off to a bad start. As a general rule, the service must always be the same for all your audience, but it never hurts to remember why that group is coming to visit us.
- Use relaxed language, do not just talk about business. Following point number four, as I usually say, let’s take off the salesperson mask, let’s have fun with your clients and treat them face-to-face. They will only appreciate you treating them like loyal “friends”.
- No more suits. Get rid of the jackets! It’s not that crazy either, but let’s understand the message. Sporty and casual dress code, let’s eliminate job titles from email signatures and business cards from our minds. You will make them feel at home.
- Offer a souvenir of your brand, they will associate it with the experience. I would even dare to propose making a specific souvenir piece for the event you are organizing. The experience they lived will remain latent.
- Follow up on the activity. Now we return to the suit and the office. Let’s follow up on the actions taken, stay in touch, and continue to strengthen the relationship with the attendees. It is not just a one-off experience, but a long-term strategy to turn those contacts into loyal customers.
