Within professional services, traditional corporate hospitality is decreasing significantly in popularity. Each year, firms still throw significant sums – often as much as a third of their marketing budget – at entertaining clients with the main aim of retaining loyalty. Events not only consume vast amounts of cash resources, they also account for a significant percentage of staff time. But is this investment really worthwhile?
Typically, as few as half of the invited clients will sometimes accept. This means issuing a second tier of invites, perhaps not priority targets but known ‘friends’ of the firm. On the night, it is not unusual for a third of invitees to attend these lavish events. Even then, few see the benefit and even fewer are impressed enough to commit loyalty to the firm on this basis.
