#tradshows

In the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, 1,745 marketing organizations revealed that trade shows took most of their budget allocation, infact it was a over 21%. Even with that number, trade shows rank fourth in the most effective ways of marketing.

Having a marketing strategy in place for each of your trade shows makes it easier to sell your products and services and convince potential customers to visit your company. From my knowledge and the work that i have done in trade show marketing, the process for the same starts way back.

Initial Research and Development (R & D) – This is the very first step and i would like to call it R & D is finding the right mix of audience for your product and/or service. When you plan to enter any trade show, you need to make sure that this event is suitable for your offerings.

But much before this, there is another step which is researching for these events through the net, social media, SEO and even going ahead and asking your vendors / customers in countries that you have never entered an event. Once you have found all this information, you keep this information in an excel file and then you start contacting the concerned people to avail more information about the event.

Don’t feel shy in asking them any questions, after all its your budget at stake and you need to be sure about this. You can always check with them on the brochure, previous years feedback and visitor turnout and visitor profile etc. Once this is done and you have received that information, you move to the next level.

Pre-Trade Show Marketing – Now that you have got the list of the events you are going to, the next step is getting this news on your company website events page and social media channels and go with other online strategies to spread the word across.

On the company website home page, you can add a small box showcasing the list of events and linking it with your home page, on the events page you can add a small script code in case visitors to your website want to setup a meeting with you, they can do so by adding their information and contact details.

You can publicize this page on your social media channels and also inform your vendors to do the same for you, depending on the relation you share with them. SEO to your events page is a must. Offline marketing such as mail out invites and digital collateral would be a good idea.

Trade Show Marketing during the event – This is one platform where your company needs to outshine itself and prove its mettle. It is very important to be ready with all the marketing collateral, documents such as FAQ, product collateral, AV – Self running demo should be all setup first hand.

You really don’t get any time once the show starts. Having a giveaway or a raffle is a great way to bring in leads to your booth also when you are collecting information from the visitor, you need to collect their business cards and in case you are carrying a card scanner, make sure it works well.

Discount coupons on the next purchase are also a good way to promote your offerings. If you event has free Wifi, don’t feel shy to ask the visitors and your customers who come to meet you out there to tweet about your booth, it’s a good marketing technique but keep a watch on the #Hashtags as well.

Post Trade Show – Once this is done, this is again where your work starts and you have many more things to do, a follow-up is very important. You need to use all the contact information, notes, business cards you collected during this event. Sending out ‘thank you’ emails are important to demonstrate that you appreciate the time each lead spent attending your event.