Pre-show push marketing campaigns can help maximize return on investment (ROI). They may include dedicated landing pages and emails as well as social media campaigns.
Utilize a landing page that enables event attendees to self-schedule appointments. In addition, leverage this method for lead capture through business card scans or QR/bar codes.
- Leverage Social Media
Exposing their business to qualified audiences often results in immediate and sustained sales growth for businesses that participate effectively at trade shows. Direct engagement and targeted follow-up with customers also strengthen brand recognition.
Use Twitter, for instance, to quickly reach thousands of potential clients in no time at all. Use official hashtags or create custom ones to promote participation in an event and spark conversation amongst participants.
Your next social media use could involve asking visitors to your booth to post photos and videos about their experience with your products and services, including taking part in contests for best content creation.
- Create a Landing Page
By creating an informative landing page that gives attendees all of the information needed to attend your event, such as speaker bios and participating vendors, you will increase interest in it and create buzz for it. Be sure to include clear, actionable copy so attendees can understand why attending is worth their time and what value there will be in attending it.
At your event, you can leverage video marketing techniques to amplify its presence. A projector wall provides the perfect venue to use this approach; including videos that demonstrate your company’s origin story, founder interviews, mission/vision video or customer testimonials.
- Utilize Email Marketing
Maintaining engagement and interest for an event participation helps maintain engagement and interest among contacts. A pre-show push email with biweekly cadences leading up to it can keep people coming by your booth during trade shows, followed by daily posts at the trade shows themselves.
After your team returns from a trade show, it’s vitally important that they quickly follow up with all leads as soon as they return to the office. Doing this demonstrates your appreciation of their interest while respecting their time; one efficient way of doing this is importing show leads/badge scans/notes into CRM immediately.
- Create a Booth Design That Attracts Attention
Design of a booth is of utmost importance – it must catch an attendee’s eye quickly, making them want to stop by immediately.
An effective way to engage consumers and gain attention is through multisensory experiences. These could include fragrant elements that reflect your brand (such as coffee smell in cafe brands), tactile features such as padded mats on the floor or audio features such as brand music or product sounds.
Pre-show push campaigns can help build leads before the event and boost booth turnout.
- Create a Floor Plan
Planning a trade show floor plan requires careful consideration of how attendees will navigate through the exhibit hall. To maximize attendance, attendees should be able to access booths near entrance and exit points as these areas typically receive the highest foot traffic.
Add videos to your booth design in order to engage visitors and showcase products or services more effectively. Use videos on a projector wall inside the booth itself or as part of pre-show marketing efforts.
Create an unrivalled experience by offering exhibitors the ability to view the floor plan online and purchase booth space directly through their mobile device. Furthermore, adding upgrades like logo listing will bring in extra revenue at events.
- Create a Display Board
No matter if trade shows are virtual or in person, 5-7 impressions of your brand are still necessary to create engagement or memory of it. Make sure your marketing efforts before, during and after the show deliver enough resonating content to achieve this goal.
Avoid giving away inexpensive trinkets that attendees quickly forget, and instead offer something useful and memorable – something they will actually use or share with others – which will also help remind them about your company. This will also increase brand recognition.
Consider employing pre-show push marketing strategies to promote your attendance at an event, such as sending announcements and invites that target your target audience and spark natural work-related conversations.
- Create a Post-Show Follow-Up Campaign
If your goal is to generate leads and opportunities at tradeshows, make sure a system is in place for collecting contact info and qualifying leads during shows. Train booth staff on active listening techniques as well as product knowledge training so conversations become more meaningful.
Establishing a system to capture lead information and qualify prospects will enable you to send targeted follow up emails and schedule one-to-one meetings with high value prospects. Be sure to include thank you notes as these will strengthen brand loyalty and drive engagement with your brand.