BARTER
Barter is a beautiful thing – the sky’s the limit! Consider bartering with member companies, outside agencies and organizations for things like web and graphic design, SEO, content, strategy and advertising. Mojo Coworking, for example, barters with a local blog for a 125 x 125 advertisement to reach their local community. In addition, Benjamin’s Desk recently partnered with one of their members, a content strategy genius, to launch their own exclusive programming. To discover opportunities for member barters, talk to your members to figure our what their strengths are, their goals and where you can help each other.
PROSPECT PIPELINE
Without a well-defined policy for member prospects, you’ll never get the best results possible from your marketing efforts. Be meticulous and keep track of every inquiry both digital and in person and follow up with every potential member you meet. At Mojo Coworking, "everyone gets entered into our database and becomes a subscriber to our e-newsletter. We also reply to every email inquiry within 24 hours (or less) to invite people in for a space tour.”
Katie from Benjamin’s Desk details their pipeline process, “we keep a spreadsheet of any and all inquiries whether someone submits a contact form through our website, stops into our space off of the street, calls or schedules a tour with us. We document the date they contacted us, how they found us, what sort of membership or amenities they’re interested in, and general information like their name, email address and company. We also keep track of any leads that become members to later analyze our conversion rate as a benchmark for growth.”
MARKETING PROGRAMS CREATED BY COWORKING SPACES
As the coworking industry grows, coworking spaces are quickly figuring out how to solve the industry’s biggest problems and how to improve business efficiency. In the process, many coworking spaces are taking the initiative to create valuable programs that help other workspaces run smoothly and serve their member communities better.
Co-Activate, started by Craig McAnsh, is the first coworking network for marketing activation. Co-Activate is a platform that gives brands the opportunity to connect with spaces and their members through unique and localized experiences such as product discounts, professional events and workshops and demos. Co-Activate also offers coworking spaces an additional revenue stream. How can this program help spaces with their marketing efforts? Here’s just one example: if a brand is hosting a professional seminar at a coworking space, Co-Activate will purchase local media to advertise to the local community. This paid advertising opportunity will not only promote the event but also the coworking space – and it won’t cost the coworking space a penny.
As Co-Activate grows, it also hopes to give the coworking spaces in their network the opportunity to connect with annual brand sponsors able to cover the major costs associated with organizing events and offering perks their members won’t be able to stop talking about.
Bull City Coworking has also stepped outside of the box and collaborated with 5 other workspaces to create CoworkingNC, a co-sharing information portal for the Carolina states in the US. While still in progress, CoworkingNC will be a digital platform for coworking spaces to post information about milestones, achievements, and a way to publicize their events. Robert Petrusz, owner of Bull CiIty Coworking explains how this idea got started: “our community media outlets often don’t understand what coworking is, and as a result, don't give them the attention they deserve. CoworkingNC will be a self-organizing website to promote our activities and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, instead of waiting for others to ‘understand us’. “
