Reporting live from the GCUC Canada 2015 unconference day! The below are quoted, but in many cases are paraphrased. If I misquoted you, let me know!
“We run a monthly First Friday open house. The conversion rate is not so great, but it’s something we can point people to when they want to come see the space.”—Geoff Wood, Gravitate DSM
“When we were short on members and the culture was weak, I wanted to find a way to attract people without just trying to say I was another great workspace. I wanted to give people an excuse to come in on a specific day to meet other people who were new and spend time working together on something specific. I used Cotivation, which was my version of a Mastermind in a coworking space, and it worked really well.”—Tony (me!)
“Take your friend to work day” once a quarter
“Your best marketing is your membership. We’re pretty quick to introduce a newcomer to a member we think they might be interested in meeting.”
“Most of our members that come, come through our membership. That’s where you should invest your marketing. If you’re going to run an event, make sure your members are there. The best connection to the space is always through the member.”—Chad Ballantyne, The Creative Space
“CSI does a ‘Salad Club’ once a week. Everybody brings one protein and one vegetable. Everyone can make the Perfect Salad Bar. They invited a local farm to be stationed there. People booked meetings during that time and encouraged guests to check out the farmers market. People ended up wanting to stay in instead of going out to lunch.”
How do you get people to pay attention?
“We try to tell them at least ten times. A month in advance, over email, in person, as many channels as possible”—Carly Mix, Industry Lab
“Fun partnerships are really important. You can only reach so many people yourself, but if you partner with someone who shares something in common with you, or finding niche newsletters, you are actually able to get to people you might not reach on your own because it’s their demographic.”—Noah Wallach, WeWork