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Similarly to a movie’s release, successful trade show marketing must begin far in advance of the show’s schedule, but differing from traditional advertising campaigns, trade show promotion requires more nuanced tactics than a publisher shoving ads at an event’s demographic.
Know your audience is the foundation of any good marketing strategy. Learn how to connect with your audience using cutting-edge techniques such as personalization, gamification, data capture, follow-up and more.
Create a Personalized Experience
If you are exhibiting at a B2B trade show, the attendees are looking to learn about what your product or service offers, but they also want to have a good time, with an experience they will be able to remember. Using cutting-edge digital content can make your stand unique and guarantee that visitors will have an event they will want to share with others. Another creative way to add engagement and excitement to your booth is to invent a game – ZoomInfo used a giant game of Jenga at one event to show off the size of their database over a competitor’s. Create engagement at the event with real-time email updates to members of your audience providing daily key takeaways from the day, and follow up with leads after the event with personalised emails and calls to cultivate the relationship and further develop them on your sales funnel. Analysing the post-show data helps identify best practices that drive better ROI for the next show.
Capture Attendee Data
In participating in the show, it is imperative to get data from walk-ins or prospects who want to know more about your company. This information can be used to set up meeting appointments or even a phone call after the show with qualified prospects. Complementary technologies, whether it’s facial-recognition to understand where people are looking, or RFID tracking to understand where they’re standing – giving you diagnostic, real-time information about what’s going on in your booth during an event. How people are engaging with a booth can be used as feedback to adjust the layout, or the kinds of products you demonstrate at a booth during the course of the event. Before any trade show, you need to promote your participation with targeted and timely communications: a branded landing page and a promotional email campaign with themes that match your trade show objectives could be a great approach to increase participation. Giveaways or contests can help you drive attention and brand engagement.
Engage with Attendees
Create a microsite that informs attendees about your presence at events (dates and location, products showcased, scheduled demos/meetings), and enables users to book a meeting with your team. SEO-optimised to attract organic traffic searching information on your company at the venue. For example, you could run a scavenger hunt as a draw to get visitors to visit your stand, or work with other exhibitors and the event organisers to create a checklist of things for people to do at the event to win prizes. Follow up with another email that features content related to your conversation at the show or their specific interest – do this as soon as possible so you can thank them for their time and increase engagement.
Capture Leads
In order to make your stand a success and reach your target – the end-consumer – craft an experience at your position that informs, entertains and forges links between the passer-by you are trying to reach and the lead, on the verge of passing over to become a customer. Transformby to customer, and have them come back time and again. Make sure they have a good system for following up after events and that they keep nourishing the leads generated there. Email is a great way to communicate with prospects on a very individualised basis after shows; a text-based email will be a lot less likely to go straight to the trash than a regular ‘message’ will be. Evaluate ROI on events by comparing participation costs to projected leads and projected future sale, and establish best practices so that you can inform your future tradeshow strategy and investments; alter engagement tactics based on what does and does not work.
Follow Up
Whether it’s producing a summer blockbuster movie, or staging a memorable trade show, it’s the advance work that makes the difference. Utilising creative marketing strategies to build anticipation about your participation at the show while continually exceeding the expectations of trade show attendees can turn a just good show into a great show. Since your trade show presence hinges on the acquisition of new leads and pitching your products/services to potential buyers, your trade show participation strategy needs to encompass clear and measurable objectives. Once you determine this key objective, you will be able to pinpoint the type of booth/marketing materials you should endeavour to create along with the key contact persons and communication channels needed for trade show success. Hospitality trade show leads require personal follow-up and strategic lead nurturing to leverage your opportunity and maximise ROI. How do you stay top of mind after the show and remind the show lead of a conversation or a product they expressed they need? Email campaigns or follow-up phone calls are great methods. Invite the prospect to take action and provide further engagement.
