Today I decided to drop by the Lights of Hope event in Vancouver, where St. John’s Hospital basically has this yearly event where they thank people who donated money, and they also have a fireworks show. And this is actually the last year for it because they’re moving to a new location. What was interesting was how everyone I talked to during the day, just out of the blue, had no clue this was actually happening. Even people attending other events nearby were surprised when I told them I was heading over to watch the fireworks — asking things like, What? That’s today?
It kind of reminds you how many times, when it comes to trying to sell something or running a business, you could have the best product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, then you’re kind of doomed. And so that’s just as important in terms of finding ways to get your message out there about your offerings. Now, fortunately, in this case it seems like there was a fairly decent crowd overall, but it probably would have been a lot bigger.
Then again, maybe they didn’t want it to be too big, because, funny enough, the hospital has a lot of traffic in front of it, and they didn’t actually close the traffic off even though there were a bunch of people standing near the hospital. They just put up some barricades, for example, to keep at least one lane open, whereas for a really big event, like one of those summer fireworks events, they’ll block off the whole road. So who knows? Maybe it was intentional, but that’s something to constantly remind yourself of: marketing is just as important to being successful.