Our Favorite Marketing Tips From Drink and Learn Stuff Networking Event in Reno

Last night marked our 2nd Brewing Up Business quarterly networking event: Drink and Learn Stuff. This time we tapped into some brilliant minds about consumer behavior and how to navigate it. Brew Chatter provided the beer for the evening, which was awesome because they recently collaborated with Lead Dog Brewing Co. to make this out-of-this-world apricot grapefruit IPA. We think it’s going to be everyone’s go-to summer BBQ brew, but you will have to let us know what you think.  

Elbows Were Rubbed Raw

We had a good mix of newcomers and weekly attendees, but everyone was incredibly friendly, no stuffiness in sight. That means a lot to us. It’s impressive to see such an appetite for this kind of genuine connection amongst people in our working community. Just a little over a year ago we were just a couple of people grabbing beers and chatting about business. Now this group has some palpable loyalty and, dare we say it, camaraderie. We think that’s pretty cool. We also managed to finish the night without a single party foul — though the offender from the last DALS event mysteriously couldn’t make it.

Some Highlights From The Panelists

Model Dairy makes first tour ski.

Not really, but Luke from Moment Skis compared generic touring skis to Model Dairy, which is the first time in the coexistence of skiing and dairy that a comparison such as this has occurred. Luke was explaining how we can be misled by what we think customers want from us, and he made that mistake by designing a generic touring ski that no one ended up buying. Takeaway: Don’t make a marketing or product decision just because everyone else is.

Daryl wins too many coins, complains.

Brittany from Ruby Seven Studios gave some insights on a marketing strategy that unexpectedly fell flat. Brittany creates gaming apps, and her team decided to give players twice the amount of coins to encourage them to keep playing. The opposite ended up happening. Players were infuriated with the overwhelming amount of coins at their disposal, which, our audience was eager to point out, would never ever happen in real life. Takeaway: People do not behave online like they do in real life.

Ryan makes a graph about graphs, person in front row explodes.

Ryan is a smart guy — he’s a behavioral scientist, after all. But when he started answering questions in the form of numbers, we realized just how brainy he is. Ryan gave insight on the proper way to measure customer behaviors to more accurately market to them. While he absolutely has the powers to be a super villain, he uses his brains for good. A lot of his work focuses on helping those with developmental disorders find work they actually want to do, instead of what’s convenient for society. Takeaway: Basic metrics focus on short term growth (hey we grew by 5% today!) which can be misleading. Instead, measure and analyze your data with focus on the long term for more accuracy. Ryan says he makes graphs that look at 6 years of time.

A massive THANK YOU to our panelists, Cathexes Architecture and Brew Chatter for making this quarter’s networking event rock! Brewing Up Business meets every Wednesday at a different brewery each month. Join us on Facebook to find out where we will be next week.